Q/A about Bangladesh

[Armstrong]

YOu are saying the same thing why Urdu was made your national language. Did you see the demand of Bengali? It did not say to exclude Urdu but to include Bengali as another national language as Urdu is vastly intelligible to East Pakistanis. Even though Urdu is not the mother language of the West Pakistanis but it was the sister language to their mother language.

No it wasn't ever heard of Pashto and Urdu being spoken side by side ? The only language that comes close to Urdu is probably Punjabi and not even that when you move a) to the rural areas where proper Punjabi is spoken or b) to Southern Punjab where Sereiki is spoken which is a transnational language between Sindhi and Punjabi ! Both Balochi & Barahui are pretty much lost on me ! So no...barring the fact that our languages are written in the same nastaliq script none of them have any significant similarities with each other !

And having two national languages where one is Urdu and the other is Bengali opens up a pandora's box of sorts where I, as a Punjabi, would be justified in arguing that if a partisan language like Bengali is to be our national tongue then why not Punjabi the second largest linguistic group ? Or Pashto the 3rd largest linguistic group ? Or Sindhi the 4 the largest ?

 

[TopCat]

i was talking about mughal era

Mogul era lasted less than 200 years Bengal.

 

[TopCat]

No it wasn't ever heard of Pashto and Urdu being spoken side by side ? The only language that comes close to Urdu is probably Punjabi and not even that when you move a) to the rural areas where proper Punjabi is spoken or b) to Southern Punjab where Sereiki is spoken which is a transnational language between Sindhi and Punjabi ! Both Balochi & Barahui are pretty much lost on me ! So no...barring the fact that our languages are written in the same nastaliq script none of them have any significant similarities with each other !

And having two national languages where one is Urdu and the other is Bengali opens up a pandora's box of sorts where I, as a Punjabi, would be justified in arguing that if a partisan language like Bengali is to be our national tongue then why not Punjabi the second largest linguistic group ? Or Pashto the 3rd largest linguistic group ? Or Sindhi the 4 the largest ?

Well, Bengalis did not see it was a problem I suppose. If two language was that much of trouble you should had adopted Bengali then.. its a beautiful language to start with.

 

[Luffy 500]

There are thousands of pages of history taught in school, Since Chandragupta to pala dyanasty to sena then Mogul then british then 1947 and finally 1971. Everything is taught and Mr. Zia is just a drop in the whole ocean. What say???

Studied about mugal (akbar, babur etc) and british Indian empire. But pala dynasty is not included.
It was Indian books mostly in English medium cariculla in my time and there is only one Bengali paper that included Mujib, Bhashani, Ekushay, 71 etc.And yeah titumir was also included in Bengali paper. Hisotry was a totally different paper taught in English.

And No in modern BD's perspective ZIA is not just a drop in the ocean. The guy saved the country from turning into another sikkim.

 

[DarkPrince]

Mogul era lasted less than 200 years Bengal.

muslims ruled more than 600 years in bengal

their official language was persian

 

[PlanetSoldier]

Ask iajdan/Kobirazz, they would know. Cariculla in Bengali and English medium is totally different. In english medium history revolves around industrial revolution in Europe, renaissance in europe, how columbus discovered America etc etc. Hardly anything about ancient BD is included in english medium text books. Bengali medium does include that as far as I know.

Better not asking more on it...it was very vejailla to me in my school life. I got trapped in this maze of Mourjo, Mughal, Panipather Judhdho etc., could never keep them in head .

 

[TopCat]

muslims ruled more than 600 years in bengal

their official language was persian

Muslim rule and Mogul rule means two things. Bengal Sultanate language was Bengali and Arabic which is important. During that time Bengali literature gains its highest in medieval age.

 

[Armstrong]

What do you mean by Arabs more than Arabs themselves? I mean, are you referring to Burqa, growing beards...? If yes, it's not true as most Arabs (except for KSA) don't wear Burqa, and don't have beards. As for imitating bad Arabs (extremists), I would say they are a minority in our societies, and furthermore, they are ostracized by people.

Nothing...except thats exactly how many of our detractors perceive us to be ! I'm not talking about the Burqa or the Beards or the extremists; it goes a bit deeper than that and at 12:50 a.m I'm a bit sleep right now ! But suffice it to say they think we ditched the past hence why we're so different....we think we embraced Islam and evolved along the way both culturally and religiously !

 

[Luffy 500]

IGCSE Bangladesh Studies

Its cambridge. I was talking about edexcel which really sucks compared to cambridge. And how many people take BD studies in O levels?

 

[Armstrong]

Well, Bengalis did not see it was a problem I suppose. If two language was that much of trouble you should had adopted Bengali then.. its a beautiful language to start with.

Dude its not about two languages its about choosing between a) a non-partisan language understood by all in varying degrees ! And b) a language exclusively associated with a particular community understood by no one else. I think we made the right choice but it was exploited to no end. I'm a Punjabi of Kashmiri descent which means either Punjabi or Koshur are the language of 'My People' *within Pakistan* but I'm proud to call Urdu as my mother tongue...and why because I know that Irfan Baloch from Quetta speaks Balochi as his mother tongue (possibly !), Hyperion speaks Pashto, Safriz speaks Hindko (possibly !) and yet we can all understand each other in Urdu ! If English were our lingua france...I'd be in favor of declaring it our National Language !

P.S Bengali is indeed a beautiful language ! And I would have loved it had it been made compulsory for everyone to learn at least two provincial languages of Pakistan; I'd pick Bengali and Pashto !

 

[DarkPrince]

Muslim rule and Mogul rule means two things. Bengal Sultanate language was Bengali and Arabic which is important. During that time Bengali literature gains its highest in medieval age.

look we should have accepted urdu as our official language

it was better for our unity n islam

 

[TopCat]

look we should have accepted urdu as our official language

it was better for our unity n islam

I don't think that was an option to Bengali. Bengali community was way way way bigger than Urdu community in the world. You cant just destroy the language of the 5th biggest community in the world. What kind of idiot will suggest that?

 

[boltu]

If I ever visit Bangladesh and I let it known that I'm a Pakistani what kind of reaction can I expect ? I ask this because I'm in two minds - the BD'ishes that I've met here on PDF are pretty nice to me but I've come across others on the same internet who've gone as far as saying when they go shopping and they see something that says 'Made in Pakistan' they feel it is their duty to not buy it ! Nothing major but its these little things that belly what goes inside the mind of such a person !

A lot of Pakistani and Iranian people live in the area where I live. Just few days back I saw 10-12 teenagers with Motorbikes and stuffs and they were talking in Urdu. Also a lot of Pakistani people live in the Bashundhara residential area of the city and there is also a big convention hall exclusively for Pakistani people in that area. We are good Mezbaan you know, we try our level best to make the Mehmans feel comfortable like home and Pakistani people is no exception here.

 

[DarkPrince]

I don't think that was an option to Bengali. Bengali community was way way way bigger than Urdu community in the world. You cant just destroy the language of the 5th biggest community in the world. What kind of idiot will suggest that?

look pakistani punjabi language have arabic version . do we have arabic version of bengali ???

we still use Devanagari version. urdu is nothing but arabic version of hindi

 

[TopCat]

Dude its not about two languages its about choosing between a) a non-partisan language understood by all in varying degrees ! And b) a language exclusively associated with a particular community understood by no one else. I think we made the right choice but it was exploited to no end. I'm a Punjabi of Kashmiri descent which means either Punjabi or Koshur are the language of 'My People' *within Pakistan* but I'm proud to call Urdu as my mother tongue...and why because I know that Irfan Baloch from Quetta speaks Balochi as his mother tongue (possibly !), Hyperion speaks Pashto, Safriz speaks Hindko (possibly !) and yet we can all understand each other in Urdu ! If English were our lingua france...I'd be in favor of declaring it our National Language !

P.S Bengali is indeed a beautiful language ! And I would have loved it had it been made compulsory for everyone to learn at least two provincial languages of Pakistan; I'd pick Bengali and Pashto !

You are coming back with circular logic. When i said Urdu is a sister language of most of the W/Pakistan local language you disagreed now you are saying Urdu is intelligible to everybody!!!!!!!!!!

Bengali is the majority of Pakistanis language. You should had picked it right away same way India picked the majority Hindi. Done. You started the debate when you knew Bengali will be difficult for you. So you picked which is easier for you and let the Bengalis to go through the trouble. Right?