Manchester is a city full of languages – we have the densest multilingual population for a city of our size in the UK. Every year on 21st February, the city of Manchester recognises and celebrates all these languages for UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. 

This year the events taking place in Manchester showcase a huge variety of languages across cultural and community spaces, allowing people in Manchester to engage with languages from all over the world and take pride in our multiculturalism.

For 2026 Manchester is thrilled to be hosting Voiced: The Festival of Endangered Languages for the first time, too, a celebration of language as a way to honour traditional knowledge and cultures that may be less well recognised, even in a city as diverse as ours.

With thanks to the international UNESCO Cities of Literature network for their participation in our celebrations whether through sharing online events with us or by sharing work in the No Tongues Left To Chant digital exhibition. As a UNESCO City of Literature we are able to bring hundreds of languages to the fore of our celebrations from around the world and share a vital part of Manchester in return.