Every Ekushey, we renew our pledge to the language martyrs of 1952 that we will ensure that our beloved Bangla continues to flourish. To redeem this pledge, we need to remember a critical fact: The continued survival of a language depends on how well it adapts to the changing technologies of the age.
A lot of translations are being done in Bangladesh, from English into Bangla and Bangla into English; much of the latter by native Bangla speakers.
While writing a text, a literary text in particular, many authors tend not to think about its afterlife. Imagining, experiencing, and putting the story down on paper takes precedence during those moments of creation.
A story that has long been repeated is that Bangla derives from Sanskrit. The truth—the satya, sachcha, shacha, hacha or hasa—is much more complicated.
In academia, the status of English is often contested in the Bangladeshi context. Is it a second language or a foreign language? There should not be any such question about our first language, our mother tongue in our everyday life. Bangla is our number one language.
Sixty-nine long years ago today, our defiant women and men took to the streets to demand their right to speak in their native tongue and claim their cultural and political rights.
