Every year on 21st February Manchester’s Libraries are full of families having fun with language.  Nearly 200 languages are spoken in Manchester, and we use this event to celebrate the diversity of our city.  Manchester is a UNESCO City of Literature, so we are delighted to join in with UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day celebrations. 

This year we held family fun day events at Longsight, Wythenshawe Forum, North City and Powerhouse libraries.

The events in libraries were part of a wide range of activities in the city co-ordinated by Manchester City of Literature. You can read about the history of International Mother Language Day in Manchester here. 

Many of Manchester’s libraries have community language collections allowing customers to read books in the most commonly spoken languages in the city.  Including our new collection of Ukrainian dual language children’s books at Central Library. 

See here for a selection of our community language books.