Dada hashalen - BS has limits. This is getting to the comical level. Kolkata folks don't even speak pure Bangla much any more. They speak some strange mix of Benglish or nowadays - Hinglish.
Bengali is alive today because Bangladesh exists.
In WB Bangla culture/language is more or less dead (forget Hindu or Muslim types).
Kolkata kids under the age of say 18 don't even know how to read and write Bengali. See some Chandril videos sometimes.
We in Bangladesh have far bigger Boimelas than Kolkata does, we publish far more Bengali literature, have far more Bangla literature readers and arrange symposia through Bangla Akademi here. Not that I am a fan, but just for the record.
Our TV media is better funded and better run qualitatively than any Bengali Media from Kolkata.
Tollywood directors salivate at the prospect of getting work directing movies in Bangladesh for our market. For WB market - the numbers are too small.
It is our work for our official language that led to Bengali computer font development for desktop publishing and website development - as early as 1990's.
Our rock-musicians sing in Bengali and are far more popular in both Banglas than your Kolkata bands, and because of good qualitative talent reasons. In fact Bengali rock (various genres) is a confirmed leader in subcontinental progressive music movement starting as early as the 1980's.
Bengali is our national language, not an optional one, or one we consider in second thought. We know how to respect it.
Kolkata people don't.
Most of the signboards in Kolkata are in Hindi.
UP and Bihari non-Bengali speakers don't need to learn Bangla, neither speak the official language of the WB state.
Back office companies overtly put up notices in Kolkata that locals won't be hired. We know it is causing a lot of heartburn among younger TMC folks. To us it's a joke about how Kolkata Bengalis are marginalized in their own states by outsiders (especially cow-belters).
Bangalir shomman apnara rakhtey parenni dadara.
Also read the following,
Sandip Roy in Dhaka rediscovers the past in Bangladesh, in words that his tongue has long forgotten, and realises why jadughar is indeed the right word for a museum.
www.firstpost.com
So - long story short, if 170 Million people in Bangladesh decide to speak in specific Dhakaiya Bengali (not Kolkata Bengali), and decide what our culture should be (meaning that we don't want idolator appropriations in our brand of Bengali culture), then who are you to decide otherwise ??
Who gave you the right to pass judgment for us ??
If we decide that we would rather have a different future for our culture, free from Indian influence (which is the general consensus nowadays), do you have any say so?
You see the audacity you are suggesting ?
There is no lens. Our country, our rules. as plain as that. Case closed.
BTW Bengali DOES NOT have its roots in Sanskrit or is a HINDU language (your source comes from non-scholarly propaganda), it was developed from Magadhi Prakrit which was Buddha's language in Magadha, where he was born. Magadhi Prakrit developed into Pali, then transformed into Bengali. Please read up on it.
The
Pāli Canon or
Tipiṭaka and is the
sacred language of
Theravāda Buddhism, which was very strong in Bangladesh before we converted to Islam. There are Buddhist Stupas (adjacent to former Mahajanapadas or city centers) all over Bangladesh. Bangladesh was a primary center of Buddhist scholarship (Paharpur, Mainamati) when Nandigram, Sutanuti were Charal villages. Kolkata was nowhere to be found at that time. Kolkata became great because of the Murshidabad nawabs, then with the British as Capital of India.
Buddhism spread to IndoChina from Bangladesh (Myanmar then Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Korea, Japan). One of the top Buddhist scholars was from Bikrampur North of Dhaka (Atisha Dipankara).
Similarly -
Theravāda Buddhism also spread to Sri Lanka from Bangladesh as a royal entourage was sent there from here. The proof is all there in genetic markers...
www.google.com
