14 April is deda ena day, deda (დედა) = mother, ena (ენა) = tongue or language. I asked my Georgian students, yesterday “What is tomorrow?”, they could tell me Sunday or 14th April but not the Day of the Mother Tongue, this was disappointing. When I told them, they were like “oh, yeah”. It is not a national holiday but it is a significant date in Georgian history.

In 1978 a new constitution adopted by the Georgian Soviet Socialistic Republic deprived the Georgian language of state language status. The decision sparked large-scale protests.

The annual date marks the events of April 14, 1978, when Soviet authorities retracted their decision to revoke the official status the Georgian language following a mass demonstration in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

The Deda Ena Monument, designed by Elguja Amashukeli and Nodar Mgaloblishvili, is located in Deda Ena Park (Georgian: დედა ენის ბაღი), by the Mtkvari River, the stalls of the Dry Bridge Market are close by.