On 21 February, the whole world celebrates Mother Language Day. Established by a decision of UNESCO's General Conference at its 30th session in November 1999, it is celebrated annually to protect linguistic and cultural diversity.

Ulyanovsk and the Ulyanovsk region are interesting not only for their literary heritage, but also for their unique linguistic diversity. More than 120 nationalities live on the territory. Not only Russian, but also Tatar, Chuvash and Mordovian languages are spoken here. The culture of each of the peoples is reflected in literature, art and folk festivals.

 Today, on the Mother Language Day, we bring to your attention a workbook "From pictogram to letter" dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Chuvash writing. This publication is about the culture, life, traditions and customs of the Chuvash people. The workbook contains historical information, as well as tasks and questions for independent and interactive learning. The list of recommended literature offers to study the Chuvash language and culture in more detail.

This date is extremely important for the Chuvash people, just as the man who dedicated himself to the creation of the national script is important. Ivan Yakovlevich Yakovlev made a great contribution to the development of Chuvash writing and literature. The great merit of I.Ya.Yakovlev is the creation of the Chuvash alphabet (1871-1873) on the Cyrillic alphabet, the edition of the first Chuvash alphabet as well as hundreds of books of educational, religious, art, historical, natural sciences, music, methodical and other literature in the Chuvash language. He published a literary collection "The Tales and Legends of the Chuvash" (Simbirsk, 1908), which included the classic poem "Narspy" by K.V. Ivanov, the works by M.F. Fedorov, M. V. Shubossinni and "Samples of the Chuvash Folk Songs and the Texts to Them" in two volumes (Simbirsk, 1908, 1912). He published Chuvash primers of different variants 33 times.

In 2022, we are launching a new campaign "The Great Word". The purpose of the campaign is to show the beauty and uniqueness of each of the languages of the peoples living in the Ulyanovsk region. Any representative of a nationality can take part in the campaign . The task of the participants is as simple as possible: make a recording on the camera and say just one word - "Hello" in their native language. The campaign will last until February 21, 2023, and the final product will be a single video that we will post on Mother Language Day in 2023.