Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday, 9 February, was International Greek Language Day. The commemoration honours the importance of the Greek language as the mother of all Western languages, spoken for 40 centuries without interruption, and written the same way using the same alphabet for 28 centuries and the same spelling rules for 24 centuries. It is the native language of 13 million people worldwide and millions of others as a second language learnt in the Greek diaspora or as a foreign language. International Greek Language Day was initiated in 2014 by communities of Greeks and Italians in Italy, and it was officially enacted in 2018. This year, Naples and other places, including Australia, are hosting major celebrations. As to our own local Greek-speaking diaspora, I want to commend their efforts since early migration to Australia to ensure retention of Greek language capacity in successive generations. The diaspora is now in its fourth and fifth generation. Australians of Greek heritage have the opportunity to learn and speak the Greek language. This is possible because of the infrastructure which has been built over successive decades by Greek language schools—both afternoon schools and bilingual day schools—established by the Greek church and the Greek community, which also have given rise to Greek language programs in public schools and universities. This is all made possible by the strong multicultural policies that are an integral part of our contemporary multicultural Australian community.