Chinese Language Day (20/04)

Chinese Language Day (Chinese. ⁇ ated annually on April 20, ⁇ 中文日 was established at the same time as the days of other official UN languages, — in 2010. This proposal was made by the organization's public relations department.

The purpose of UN language days is to promote multilingualism and cultural diversity and to ensure equal opportunities for the use of all six official languages within the Organization's system.

Chinese Language Day was established in memory of Cang Jie —, the founder of Chinese writing. According to legend, he was the court historiographer of the mythical emperor Huang Di and developed a set of pictograms that later became the basis for hieroglyphs. This made it possible to abandon nodular writing.

The name Cang Jie was first mentioned in the philosophical treatise of the 3rd century BC «Xun-Zi». It says: «There have been numerous experiments in creating writing, but only the signs created by Cang Jie were adopted and still exist today». Over time, the ancient scientist acquired mythological features; he began to be depicted with four eyes, which symbolizes his special insight.



Chinese is the official language of China, Taiwan and Singapore. In some US states, particularly New York, all official documents are required to be translated into Chinese. In total, over 1.3 billion people speak it in the world. The huge number of native speakers was the reason for including Chinese among the six official and working languages of the UN.

Every year, events dedicated to language days are held at the UN Secretariat. On Chinese Language Day, exhibitions of works of art made by masters of the Middle Kingdom are traditionally held, as well as concerts of Chinese groups and demonstration performances by martial arts schools.



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