Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The last, third stage of the 10th nationwide contest titled "Let's love and encourage others to love our mother language", announced by Chag Oyretim (Modern Education), a private Turkish company in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, with the support of the Ministry of Education, ended on Monday evening.

The event took place at the Azerbaijan State National Drama Theatre and the results were evaluated by well-known linguists, literature, art and culture representatives and teachers of the country.

The winners of gold medals were Emin Mustafayev in the category of grammar, Zeynab Guliyeva in the category of essays, Turkan Heydarova on website creation, Turkan Mammadova on poetry, and Aslan Azimzade on music.

The winners in each category received money prizes. The first place winner was awarded 300 manats (around $380), while the award for the second place constituted 250 manats and third place 200 manats; gifts and certificates were presented as well. The winners will participate at the International Turkish Language Olympiads to be held in Turkey this year.

The three-stage contest, held under the motto "Our language is our existence", was dedicated to the International Mother Language Day, celebrated on February 21.

The first stage of the competition was joined by 38,428 students from 1,115 schools while the second stage was participated in by 135 students. During the third stage, six students participated in the category of music, 5 students in the category of poetry, 10 in the category of grammar and 10 others tried out their skills in creating websites.

International Mother Language Day was established by the 30th general conference of UNESCO held in November 1999 and has been celebrated since 2000 in an effort to protect a variety of languages and cultures.

The National Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev issued in August 2001 a decree on the establishment of Azerbaijani alphabet and language day and since then August 1 is celebrated in Azerbaijan as the day of Azerbaijani alphabet and language.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has approved a state program for linguistics development which envisages the use of Azerbaijani language in the conditions of globalization. Republication of the Azerbaijani literary heritage in Latin alphabet was among relevant measures.

Chag Oyretim has held the contest "Let's love and encourage others to love our mother language" since 2003. In the initial years, only students from the colleges of Chag Oyretim Corporation and Caucasus Gymnasium participated at the contest, but later it became a nationwide contest.