Pay homage to the martyrs by adopting Bangla in an official capacity
While it makes sense to commemorate the sacrifice of our martyred heroes in this noble month, it often seems as though all of our emotions and feelings about Bangla are confined to this one month only
On 21 February 1952, the streets of Dhaka were stained with the blood of the protesters, demanding the recognition of Bangla as an official language of Pakistan. Their sacrifice was such an epoch-making event that 21 February was later proclaimed as International Mother Language Day by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999.
While it makes sense to commemorate the sacrifice of our martyred heroes in this noble month, it often seems as though all of our emotions and feelings about Bangla were confined to this one month only. Only during February do we care to show some sense of compassion and responsibility towards our beloved mother tongue.
However, that should not have been the case. Instead, Bangla should have been practised as the written, verbal and official language throughout the country, in every field, from education to administration to even foreign communication.
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Many pundits complain about the younger generation's reluctance to speak, write, adopt or practise Bangla accurately. However, complaining would not necessarily bring about any fruitful solution.
Rather, by upholding the dignity and tradition of Bangla and making it so that the new generation cannot go through with their life without learning proper Bangla, we can ensure that the new generation will apply Bangla more dynamically and purely.
That being said, in today's information technology era, especially given the influence of Western culture, the areas of practice and application of Bangla have narrowed everywhere. Consequently, Bangla has lost its proper status and misuse and mistakes in the use of Bangla are becoming ever more prevalent.
It seems as though the importance of learning and practising proper Bangla has fallen far below the pecking order. One reason for this deprioritisation may be increasing globalisation and brain drain.
More and more Bangladeshi students are travelling abroad each year in pursuit of higher studies. Most of these countries require some kind of language proficiency test as a special and/or mandatory qualification for studying abroad.
Consequently, various foreign language study centres have been established in Bangladesh, including one at Dhaka University. And most of the students of these centres are our country's potential youth, but they have their mother tongue, and now they are trying to master the foreign language considering the financial and social aspects.
That is, Bangladeshi youth are having to learn foreign languages, ranging from English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese etc. to be able to have a chance at a better life abroad.
But Bangla, despite being the fifth-most spoken language in the world (according to Ethnologue, almost 265 million people around the world speak in Bangla), has not been able to create similar demand. Neither have we been able to create such workplaces or employment opportunities to attract people nor have we adopted Bangla as the official language in all public and private institutions within the country.
Gladly, some initiatives have been taken to include Bangla as one of the official languages of the United Nations. But I highly doubt that the inclusion of Bangla as the official language of the United Nations would achieve much if we remain reluctant about its proper usage within the country.
Most domestic organisations have adopted English as their primary mode of communication and Bangla seems to have become only the language of verbal and social communication. International and corporate organisations or institutions in our country, actually are the main promoter of the English language.
Even though these foreign organisations, corporations or multilateral institutions undertake various programmes or projects or research activities for the unprivileged and the socioeconomic development of the country, their reports are almost exclusively published in English. Moreover, most job adverts seek proficient writers and speakers of English. But that is not the case for Bangla. It is even sadder that official letters from government offices are also being issued in English nowadays.
On the bright side, the number and quality of Bangla print, online and electronic media are increasing day by day. Currently, unique opportunities to write Unicode-based Bangla tools have become widely available on smartphones and computers.
Most popular global platforms like Google, Facebook etc allow people to write in Bangla on their sites.
So, now it's the golden time and opportunity to establish and spread our mother tongue at the country level and globally. And I believe that it is possible to take Bangla to a more refined and acceptable position by ensuring its proper use of it at all levels and everywhere in the country.
The author is a public health activist and can be reached at [email protected]
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
