New Delhi, Jun 22 (IANS): From Tuesday onward, Members of Parliament, State and Union Territory (UT) legislatures, officials and their families will be able to attend an online language learning course organised by Lok Sabha Secretariat at the Parliament House Complex.

This Indian and foreign language learning course will cover 22 Indian languages included in 8th Schedule of the Constitution as well as six foreign languages: French, German, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Virtually inaugurating the course, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said that language connects people and cultures together and that democracies should share their experiences of best practices.

"Learning the languages of other democracies will help in such sharing. Knowledge of foreign languages helps to bring democracies closer to each other and strengthen parliamentary democracy around the world," Birla noted.

Besides, the Lok Sabha Speaker said, learning languages also boosts tourism and trade.

Birla further said that India's rich cultural diversity and plurality comes alive in the many languages spoken in the country.

Emphasizing on capacity building of people's representatives from panchayats to Parliament, the Speaker exhorted them to learn more and more languages; both Indian and foreign. He also appealed to the people to learn at least one Indian language and one foreign language, in addition to their mother language.

Ambassadors of France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Russia and Spain virtually joined the inauguration session and appreciated the initiative of the Lok Sabha.