This International Mother Language Day, to celebrate the beauty of multilingualism and linguistic diversity, our intern Rahel put together a  list of stories written in the languages of the world. These stories are every bit as beautiful as the languages they’re written in and are accompanied by absolutely gorgeous illustrations.  

Gul in Space by Richa Jha and Lavanya Karthik

In this poem, join Gul on her birthday as she goes to outer space. In a dream, she floats in the space station, gets jalebi and samosa in her hair, and is wished by the moon and the stars.

एकशे सदतिसावा पाय (The Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Leg) by Madhuri Purandare

When the millipede breaks one of her hundreds of legs, neither the sparrow, nor the butterfly, nor any of the other animals want to help her. The only animal willing to help is the spider. But for the spider to wrap her leg in his silk thread, she needs to teach the spider how to count beyond eight.

 ಮೊಲ ಮತ್ತು ಆಮೆ   (The Hare and the Tortoise. Again!) by Venkatramana Gowda and Padmanabh

Remember the famous race between the hare and the tortoise? The story that coined the phrase “slow and steady wins the race”? Now put a twist on that. A twist that requires the animals to work together in order to deliver a message from their king to the neighbouring king, in a day. In this story, follow the hare and the tortoise in their race against time instead of each other.

ଏଣ୍ଟେଜ ସେଂକଏ ଆଉ କୁଲାବ୍‌ ସୁମୁସିଞ୍ଜ୍‍ /କୁକୁଡ଼ା ଏବଂ ବେଲ ଗଛ (The Clever Chicken/चतुर चूज़ा) by Juanga Writer’s Group and Sugrib Kumar Juanga

In this beautifully illustrated, bilingual book, a little chicken is being relentlessly hunted by a hungry jackal. Can the chicken successfully outwit the jackal in his endeavour to eat it and escape his jaws once and for all?

ముక్కు విరిగిన రామచిలుక (The Parrot with the Broken Beak) by Shahid Anwar and Shailja Jain Chougule, translated by Nagaraju Nichenametla

Watch Kansi, a budding artist, as she takes her father’s favourite pen and draws a blue parrot on the wall, breaking the nib of the pen in the process. After she faces an angry father, she goes to sleep to meet an angry, blue parrot with a broken beak in her dream who teaches her wrong from right. This colourful story is perfect for children.

 بادشاہی پارک (Badshahi Park) by Shahid Anwar and Tapas Guha

When Ashhar laughs at Zulfi for being afraid of the king’s grave, Zulfi dares him to go in there, by the light of the full moon, and hammer a nail into the head of the forbidden grave.

 துப்பறியும் துரை (Kaushik, The Kind Detective) by N. Chokkan and Megha Vishwanath

Armed with a brand new torch and magnifying glass, Kaushik goes exploring the forest like a true detective. When he examines a group of mushrooms, he discovers Lalitha, a tiny girl, sitting under the mushrooms.

 ਬਾਣੀ (Bani) by Herminder Ohri and Taposhi Ghoshal, translated by Narinder Singh

Join Bani and her new friends as they float through mushroom town, eating laddoos and chips from mushrooms and drinking from streams of lemonade, orange, and mango juice. A story clearly filled with imagination and perfect for children.

 

 सबरंग (Colourful) by Kamla Bakaya and Audrey Agnier

A book of poetry coupled with gorgeous illustrations, सबरंग is a collection of four poems sure to make you fall in love.

We hope you enjoy these stories as much as we do!

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“Linguistic diversity is increasingly threatened as more and more languages disappear. Globally 40 per cent of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand.” - UNESCO International Mother Language Day website

Since 2000, the United Nations has observed February 21 as International Mother Language Day to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. This year, StoryWeaver marks the occasion by opening a gateway to digital libraries in 100 languages for children across the world and thereby addressing the scarcity of books for children in their own languages. 

To achieve the milestone of 100 languages, StoryWeaver has collaborated with a global network of organisations and individuals who are helping create this vast resource of children’s storybooks, as part of its ‘Freedom to Read’ campaign. 

                                                                  

Our partners encompass national and international organisations, as well as language champions who share our passion for creating reading resources for children in their mother tongue languages. Partners like Azad India Foundation, AfLIA (African Library Information Associations and Institutions), Darakht-e Danesh Library, Little Readers' Nook, North East Educational Trust, REHMA, Right To Play, SNS Foundation, Suchana, Unnati Institute for Social and Educational Change and language champions like Agnes N.S. Nyendwa, Amit Dudave, Ana Jovic, Ankit Dwivedi, Kaye Suscang, Maharani Aulia and BE Priyanti, Nguyen Dac Thai Hang, Priya Bhakthan. The languages are varied - from mainstream languages like Afrikaans, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, tribal languages like Gondi, Korku, Kora and Santali, endangered languages like Occitan to indigenous languages like Chatino, Mixe and Triqui and underserved languages like Assamese, Basa Jawa, Basa Sunda, Bhojpuri, Bundelkhandi, Igbo, Marwari, Sindhi and Surjapuri,

Collaboration has been the cornerstone of the StoryWeaver community, and the high quality of the translations - endured by a rigorous system of peer review - stands testament to the commitment of every contributor to "Freedom to Read".

These partners will take these digital reading resources even further - to serve children around the world, and help them read in their mother tongue languages. AfLIA (African Library Information Associations and Institutions) will roll out their continent-wide reading promotion ‘Read Africa Read’ with the same storybook titles in different languages across Africa. The Ghana Library Authority has already downloaded a book translated into Ewe in the e-readers in the Library and read it aloud to children on the World Read Aloud Day. The SNS Foundation in Rajasthan is working towards building a hyperlocal library of 100 Marwari books which will be used in 1,500 schools in Rajasthan. 

The troubling statistic of 40% of the global population not having access to education in a language they speak or understand translates to over 2 billion people who would benefit from having books in their mother tongues. 

“Through StoryWeaver, increasing access to quality reading resources for children has been made possible like none other. We are also grateful to collaborate with like-minded partners whose primary mission -- like ours -- is to get every child to read,” shares Suzanne Singh, Chairperson, Pratham Books.

Click here to take a look at a short video on the Freedomto Read journey. 

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Since our launch in September 2015, we have hit many milestones with you by our side: new and exciting stories in various formats, two million reads and now, we've hit another big one: storybooks in 200 languages on the platform!

Today, with over 15,000 stories in 200 languages, StoryWeaver is truly a global repository of multilingual stories. We are also continuing our commitment to address the resource gap in mother tongue languages and help preserve the fading footprints of the languages underserved and underrepresented in mainstream publishing - 40% in underserved or indigenous languages. There is however so much more to do. We are now looking to increase depth of content in the top 100 languages across Africa, Asia and North America through our partnerships. We are always looking for new partners to help us create stories in more languages, so that more children will have stories in their mother tongues. If you are interested in partnering with us, please write to [email protected].

A big THANK YOU to our amazing community across the globe for being such an integral part of what we do. It's your stories, your translations and your unwavering belief that all children should have access joyful stories that have helped us celebrate so many milestones. Without your support and goodwill, we wouldn't be where we are or having so much fun doing what we do!

We are excited to embark on the journey to the next hundred with you all!

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