Friday, March 9, 2007

Bhasha Andolan: language’s labour lost!

My comment in Ilovekolkata: Time is changing in Kolkata as well as in India. We are catching the global race mainly for our English speaking skills and I do admit that the students from English medium schools get better edge in jobs.
However, being here in Europe for quite a long time, I found a different scenario. Be it a Polish or French, a German or Danish; everyone is proud of his or her mother tongue. They get educated in their own language, keeping English as second language. In fact, it helps a nation to emerge as a whole.
Most of us do not know that Bengali is the fifth (or fourth) widely spoken language in the World. The Bengali Literature has a great heritage; it’s a part of our culture and life. But we often forget it. We don’t have Bengali key board, good internet site (except a few), not good postings in digital dictionaries (such as wikipedia: even the main contribution in Bengali is from Bangladesh).
I am not against of English medium education. But at the same time respect for Bengali Language and Literature is nothing but respecting our age old identity as well as our own land. Now it’s up to every educated Kolkatan to decide how he/she will respect/contribute/use Bengali.

3 comments:

Bryce Wesley Merkl said...

Here's a great Bengali website you might want to check out:

বাংলা wiki browser

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.

Unknown said...

KHUB BHALO.......
U R A TRUE SYMBOL OF EXCELLENCE IN LITERATURE AS WELL AS IN SCIENCE.U R STLYLE ICON FOR ME.
U MAKES ME FEEL PROUD TO BE A BENGALI AND SO I AM.