International Mother Language Day takes place on the 21st February every year. This year to celebrate, Manchester City of Literature and partners from their networks have a series of activities and events to celebrate this inspiring day for our city to be proud of.
This year there are a range of events, while most are in person, there are still some digital events available and the large majority are free and available for all ages to attend. You can discover events across Manchester and here on the Corridor at Manchester Poetry Library, Manchester Museum, and Central Library
There are around 200 languages spoken in Manchester making it the most languages in the densest population in the UK, so this is a brilliant day to celebrate with local communities.
For 2025 the IMLD events and exhibitions include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Estonian, French, Frisian, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Shona, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and more. There are many events based around attendees displaying their own languages, so there’s room to celebrate all of Manchester’s language diversity.
The events around Greater Manchester involve libraries, cultural venues, community groups, universities, schools, museums, language centres, poets, writers, singers, dancers and translators, through a mix of interactive activity, creativity and reflection.
Scroll through events listed below to find out everything that’s happening, and you can click each event to find out more about it and book your place (not all events are ticketed and this will be specified). All of these events are free to attend and lots take place during half term so be sure to bring the whole family along.
