English Language Day

I'm off to London for a series of events to mark English Language Day. The following from http://www.englishproject.org/ explains all:

On 13 October 2009, the English Project will be coordinating the first ever English Language Day to celebrate one of the wonders of the world, the English Language. We hope it will be the first of many such annual events. Amazingly, although English is spoken by some 2 billion people on the planet, there is no day in the calendar when we can celebrate its full glory. Now there is. 13 October.

We have chosen this date because it was on 13 October 1362 that the Chancellor of England for the first time opened Parliament with a speech in English. In that same Parliament, a Statute of Pleading was approved that permitted members in debate to use the English language. It had become again an official language of law and law-making.

Because of this connection with law-making, our theme this year is the language of law in its widest sense. The English Project’s contribution to the Day will be three events hosted by London law firm Taylor Wessing, for schools, for university law students and for the public on our central theme.

I shall be going to all three language of law events and will follow up with an item on the blog next week.