We can hardly believe this session it was ten years since we first launched the Mother Tongue Other Tongue multilingual poetry competition as a pilot event within Glasgow local authority back in 2014!
Over the years, young linguists from P1-S6 in Scotland have been invited by SCILT to take part, giving them the opportunity to share their poetic creativity along with their wealth and diversity of language skills.
In academic session 2020-21, the competition evolved to focus not only on the written word but on the spoken word. Learners are now invited not only to write a poem in their mother or other tongue, but also to perform it so that their words can be heard in their own voice. Their work continues to inspire us year on year.
We were delighted that this year's competition attracted around 160 entries from over 30 schools in 37 different languages, with Mandinka, Lingala and Dari making a first appearance in the history of the competition in Scotland! We had everything from acrostic poems and cinqains to songs and raps, some humourous, others poignant, all covering a range of subject areas important to our young people.
It gave us great pleasure to welcome pupils, teachers, parents and special guests to our online 10th anniversary Mother Tongue Other Tongue multilingual poetry competition awards on 21 February 2024. The date chosen for the event being International Mother Language Day, a day to celebrate all world languages. It was a truly fitting occasion to showcase and reflect the diverse and multicultural nature of Scotland today.
Our judging panel of experts from the universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Edinburgh had the incredibly difficult task again of selecting our winners along with the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester who this year sponsored a special award for entries in Spanish. After considerable deliberation, the panel chose the winners in each category, and these were announced live at our online Awards Ceremony. As part of their prize, the winners will be able to have their poems published on the Children’s Poetry Archive (part of the UK National Poetry Archive), ensuring their work will be available for future generations to hear.
We love how MTOT gives young linguists an opportunity to showcase not only their language skills, but also to share their heritage, their creativity and their learning. SCILT is proud to support these talented young poets and we congratulate this year's winners and highly commended entries. We hope they will continue to explore language through poetry and we look forward to seeing even more languages and inspiring poems in future years!