Pristina, February 2025 – On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, a scientific roundtable was held at the premises of the Albanological Institute of Pristina on the subject of “The Use of the Albanian Language in the Public Domain”. The roundtable was organized in cooperation between the two academic institutions of the Faculty of Humanities at Mother Teresa University in Skopje and the Department of Linguistics at the Albanological Institute of Pristina.

At the opening, key speakers were Mr. Abdurrahim Maxhuni, Head of the Department of Linguistics; Mr. Naim Berisha, Acting Director of the Albanological Institute of Pristina; Lecturer Mustafa Ibrahimi, Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Mother Teresa University in Skopje; and Lecturer Ismet Osmani, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Albanian Language and Literature at the Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje.

The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Lecturer Mustafa Ibrahimi, Ph.D., in his speech, among other things, spoke about the history of February 21 as International Mother Language Day. He emphasized that UNESCO set this date because of the then demonstrations of Bangladeshi students that took place on February 21, 1952, in Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh, but then part of Pakistan, when several students were killed and injured. In 1999, UNESCO declared this date as International Mother Language Day, and in 2007, the same date was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly.

A total of 11 researchers from Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia presented their papers at this roundtable. Among them, two researchers from the Faculty of Humanities at MTU presented their papers: Lecturer Mustafa Ibrahimi, Ph.D., on the subject of “Albanian Language Today—Identities and Ideology” and Lecturer Izer Maksuti, Ph.D., on the subject of “Regarding Denial of Use of Albanian as an Official Language in North Macedonia”.

The roundtable closed with great success, and all presentations are to be published in a separate issue.