Bangladesh wants Bangla as an official UN language: Sheikh Hasina

[CaPtAiN_pLaNeT]

Bangladesh wants Bangla as an official UN language: Sheikh Hasina

Bangladesh wants Bangla as an official UN language: Sheikh Hasina - The Times of India

PTI | Feb 19, 2012, 06.46PM IST

DHAKA: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that Bangladesh was working to make Bangla an official UN language considering the vast number of its speakers and its rich literary heritage.

Bangladesh is trying to establish Bangla as one of the official languages of the United Nations, Hasina said while inaugurating the first International Bangali Conference here.

Bangla, which is spoken by at least 300 million people on the Indian subcontinent, is the national language of Bangladesh as well as the main language in West Bengal. It is also widely spoken in Assam and Tripura.

At present, English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish are the six official languages at the UN.

Last year, in an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, she had said, "I earnestly appeal to you to back my proposal to declare Bangla as one of the official languages of the United Nations. Bangla is spoken by over 300 million people worldwide."

Bangladesh parliament had passed a resolution endorsing the call in 2009, followed by West Bengal which also passed a similar resolution in the state legislature.

"Bangali, Bangla and Bangladesh are three pillars, and these are tied to a same string and complementary to each other," she was quoted as saying by state news agency BSS.

Besides, Hasina urged the international community to extend massive support and solidarity to Bangladesh's initiative for holding the trial of war criminals for establishing truth and justice.

The persons responsible for massacre, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the War of Liberation in 1971 have been put in the dock as the entire nation is obliged to three million martyrs and uncountable number of oppressed people for holding their trial, she said.

 

[mirage 5000]

she drink also ? i am not joking its serious qes is she drink wine or any other drugs? 57 Muslim countries waste 15 years to bring Arabic as UN language .

 

[CaPtAiN_pLaNeT]

Comment of some over jealous Indian...

Indian (India)
7 mins ago (09:04 PM)
Make English as official language of INDIA. Unnecessarily Indian Kids are wasting their time learning three languages at school ( English,Hindi and 1 Regional language) And remember English is a future of INDIA.....
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No language from South Asia (India)
17 mins ago (08:54 PM)
Number of speakers is not the only indicator of usefulness of a language. Ok Bengali has 300 million speakers then tell me how many active users Bengali has on Wikipedia? Not even 1000 while languages like Korean with just 70 million speakers have 2,000 . Second thing is Hindi is the most widely spoken and understood language in South Asia and also the most influential language of South Asia. If we go by number of speakers it has 600 million speakers or may be even 800 million if we take into account those who have some knowledge of Hindi. When the UN is not giving Hindi the status of official language then why Bengali? Before Bengali there are multitude of useful languages which deserve official status. Languages like Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean have far more utility than all language of South Asia put together including Hindi. So I think no language from South Asia deserves to be in the official list of UNO.
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Jay (USA)
17 mins ago (08:54 PM)
Also saadi macchi should be official food of UN.
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Hindi (India)
25 mins ago (08:46 PM)
Number of speakers is not the only indicator of usefulness of a language. Ok Bengali has 300 million speakers then tell me how many active users Bengali has on Wikipedia? Not even 1000 while languages like Korean with just 70 million speakers have 2,000 . Second thing is Hindi is the most widely spoken and understood language in South Asia and also the most influential language of South Asia. If we go by number of speakers it has 600 million speakers or may be even 800 million if we take into account those who have some knowledge of Hindi. When the UN is not giving Hindi the status of official language then why Bengali? Before Bengali there are multitude of useful languages which deserve official status. Languages like Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean have far more utility than all language of South Asia put together including Hindi. So I think no language from South Asia deserves to be in the official list of UNO.
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Anja Øglænd (Norway)
39 mins ago (08:32 PM)
i have a question for indians --what i have seen is Indian bengalis are one of the most succesfull diospora around ,Bengal have produce many nobel laurates in various feild like art,literature,music ,science ,economic ,,from rabindra tagore to amritya sen there is a succes story all the way but why bangladesh is so much backward and absolutely zero on intelectual level ??/ i mean they are the country full of bengalis than why their is too much stupidity.??
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Sandeep Roy (India) replies to Anja Øglænd
23 mins ago (08:48 PM)
India provides: (a) Peace; (b) Liberal democracy; (c) Atmosphere conducive to growth of thought, ideas and enterprise; (d) No religious fanaticism; (e) Emphasis on personal and societal achievement; (f) Benchmarking against other high-quality linguistic and ethnic communities within India, all of whom Indian Bengalis are thankful to. /// Bangladesh has: (a) Religious fanaticism; (b) Unstable government and governance, coupled with an unstable and violent society; (c) Lack of achievement orientation; (d) Lack of benchmarking, so frog-in-the-well mentality; (e) Obsession with petty stuff. So, you get the answer.
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indian (india) replies to Anja Øglænd
24 mins ago (08:47 PM)
west bengal is a dump, dont be too proud.
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nil (India) replies to Anja Øglænd
25 mins ago (08:46 PM)
Most of the successful bengalis are of East Bengal origin, idiot! As of now, how many Bengalis are making thier mark anyway ?
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MADDYWALA (SURAT)
1 hr ago (08:09 PM)
Beggars have not much to choose.
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Sandeep Roy (India)
1 hr ago (07:57 PM)
Perfectly just ask, although I believe that the number of Bangla-speakers is closer to 250 million than 300 million. Whichever it is, it's a number large enough to merit UN acceptance, apart from the fact that Bangla is widely-acclaimed to be a sweet, modern and artistic language. I am proud to call this language my mother tongue.
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Kamaal (Bharat)
1 hr ago (07:56 PM)
Such demands are political stunts for building the image of leaders in the eyes of voters as well as to distract the attention of commen man from burning local issues. Nothing new. To morrow you may hear that Bhojouri also needs the attention of UN as an official language as it is being spken and used im many countries including India..
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Crimemastargogo (Pune) replies to Kamaal
36 mins ago (08:35 PM)
I agree. The number of Hindi speakers in this subcontinent is many many times more than Bangla speakers. That doesnt mean Hindi should be an official language at the UN. Sheikh Hasina should focus on developing her own country first. This is ridiculous.
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Sandeep Roy (India) replies to Crimemastargogo
15 mins ago (08:56 PM)
Are the two in conflict - developing her country, and asking for official language status at UN? In all fairness, every people have a right to be proud of their language, heritage and culture, irrespective of the state of their economic well-being. There's another trigger - Bangladesh is perhaps the only country that was fought for and created only on the basis of language. Millions of lives were lost in that cause. Don't their souls deserve that the flag is kept flying, along with the focus on development?
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Abhijit (Kolkata)
1 hr ago (07:49 PM)
I support her. Bengali speaking population combining India and Bangladesh is far more than any other Sub-continent anguage. Only, Spanish, English, Mandarin are ahead of Bengali speaking population.
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bharatmanch (Gurgaon)
1 hr ago (07:49 PM)
No Doubt.......... We like Bengali...............................Sweet..........
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Arjun (India)
1 hr ago (07:13 PM)
Dumb Indian government. We couldn't make Hindi a UN language and here our small neighbour who was created by us asks for Bangla. MEA India is good for nothing!
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Gul (bahrain)
2 hrs ago (07:11 PM)
Shaikh Haseena ...nothing wrong in trying to get bangla in the list of UN official languages, i request please work hard in improving many other basics inside bangladesh.

 

[Maira La]

Bangla for 7th UN Official Language!!

Both India's and our national anthem are in Bangla, so we should try for it together!

 

[DarkPrince]

actually nobody really cares about bangla rather than BD

 

[Al-zakir]

Banga is not even respected in Bangladesh and I find Bangla is very much confined language. It's very hard for other people to adopt.

---------- Post added at 06:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:55 PM ----------

she drink also ? i am not joking its serious qes is she drink wine or any other drugs? 57 Muslim countries waste 15 years to bring Arabic as UN language .

Yes she does. This is all cheap political stunt to gain vote from Bengali nationalists.

 

[livingdead]

Bangla for 7th UN Official Language!!

Both India's and our national anthem are in Bangla, so we should try for it together!

What exactly are we going to achieve. Is there any tangible result of getting that status.
I dont even care(as many comments in red) whether hindi gets any UN status.
If you want to speak in bengali, you will be given interpreter in UN anyway.

 

[Avisheik]

I'd like to see bangla as the 7th language in the UN. Our diaspora is quite large and if we market bangla properly, we will have a lot of speakers from other countries.

 

[Maira La]

What exactly are we going to achieve. Is there any tangible result of getting that status.
I dont even care(as many comments in red) whether hindi gets any UN status.
If you want to speak in bengali, you will be given interpreter in UN anyway.

It's a great achievement for any civilization to have their language accepted as one of the world's most influential!

But I don't think the UN will add another language to their official languages list for a while.

---------- Post added at 07:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:20 PM ----------

Banga is not even respected in Bangladesh and I find Bangla is very much confined language. It's very hard for other people to adopt.

What's wrong with you pseudo arabs?! Did you give up speaking this confined language at home?

 

[IndoUS]

I guess it depends on how many people speak that language and how widely the language is used in international terms.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

It doesn't make sense that French and Spanish are UN languages in 2012.

Mandarin and Hindi would be far better suited in place of French and Spanish based on the sheer number of speakers.

But then, what do you expect from an organisation where a country like India is not even a permanent member.

UN needs reforms, big time.

 

[Avisheik]

It doesn't make sense that French and Spanish are UN languages in 2012.

Mandarin and Hindi would be far better suited in place of French and Spanish based on the sheer number of speakers.

But then, what do you expect from an organisation where a country like India is not even a permanent member.

UN needs reforms, big time.

Well i get the spanish part, cause south americans speak spanish, but i dont get the french part.

UN just shows that the world is the slave of the west.

 

[Al-zakir]

What's wrong with you pseudo arabs?! Did you give up speaking this confined language at home?

It confined because it is not so smart to spread out from region called Bengal.

---------- Post added at 09:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 PM ----------

I'd like to see bangla as the 7th language in the UN. Our diaspora is quite large and if we market bangla properly, we will have a lot of speakers from other countries.

First try to make it a official language of Bangladesh High court and Supreme court then UN.

 

[Avisheik]

It confined because it is not so smart to spread out from region called Bengal.

---------- Post added at 09:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 PM ----------



First try to make it a official language of Bangladesh High court and Supreme court then UN.

It didnt spread out, cause the people didnt spread out. Bengal is a very fertile place, people didnt feel the need to move out of it. However, times are changing now.

Yeah, quite true, if our own justice system is not doing justice to our language

 

[Al-zakir]

It didnt spread out, cause the people didnt spread out. Bengal is a very fertile place, people didnt feel the need to move out of it. However, times are changing now.

Yeah, quite true, if our own justice system is not doing justice to our language

I can tell you from personal experience that foreigners find it very hard to learn Bangla because it's pronouncing is very hard. It's not a user friendly language. The new generations Bangladeshis living aboard abandoning Bangla over English or other language because Bangla is useless in foreign land. Urud is more useful than Bangla in west.

Bangla has become orphan language in Bangladesh. Try to find a job with knowing Bangla only.