On May 9th, the Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) held an event in front of UNESCO House in Seoul to celebrate 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages. This event was organized to raise awareness of the current status of endangered indigenous languages ​​and to call for concerted efforts to protect and revitalize these languages.

The event began with a performance by Jerazin Children's Choir. Dressed in traditional clothing from Jeju, an island south of the Korean Peninsula, the group gave a performance sung purely in the Jeju language, which has been named as a "critically endangered language" by UNESCO.

Followed this was a performance by the Seongdong-gu Boys and Girls' Choir. Seongdong-gu is a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities, and carries out a variety of activities to promote lifelong learning in Korea.

A performance by Mr. Ashutosh Chandra Adhikary from the Embassy of Bangladesh in Seoul marked the finale of the event. KNCU has been cooperating with the Embassy of Bangladesh in the Republic of Korea on events relating to mother languages since co-hosting an International Forum on Mother Language Day in 2018. Mr. Adhikary played a traditional musical instrument from Bangladesh and sang songs in Bengali, which greatly interested the audience.

Mr. Kwang-ho Kim, the Secretary General of KNCU, emphasized the importance of protecting indigenous languages, saying that they were "a vessel of wisdom and humanity's precious heritage" and stated that he hoped the event would give people a chance to think about the importance of languages and cultural diversity."