Q/A about Bangladesh

[kobiraaz]

Question : Who has bigger following in bangladeshi culture, kobiguru Nozrul or Robindronath Tagore

kabi guru or biswa Kabi is Tagore's title. Nazrul is known as Bidrohi Kobi, known for his anti british attitude! My bengali teacher used to say - Nazrul deserved a nobel, he didn't get it because he used to write against colonization. We actually don't know who got more follower! But if the poll is between Tagore or Nazrul, Majority will vote Nazrul as our national poet

 

[TopCat]

Question : Who has bigger following in bangladeshi culture, kobiguru Nozrul or Robindronath Tagore

I think they are not as important as they were 20/30 years ago anymore. But they are great poet and admired in every sect of society.

 

[kobiraaz]

@ I have seen some Sikhs in the temple of Dhaka University.

I see two Sikhs every morning in Dhaka University campus

 

[eastwatch]

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.

I believe Persian was the official language since the foreign muslims from central asia domiciled in Bengal in 1203 AD. They were not Persian speaking people, they were Turkic, Uzhbeks, Pashtuns and others. But, those central asian region was completely overwhelmed with Islamic religion and persian language. So, they brought this language to India and Bengal. Persia, as an official language, lasted until 1832 when the British masters opted for English.

As for Bengali language, it was still in the womb. There were hundreds of poetries, but proses were absent. It started only after 1805 when Fort William College took initiative to compile a comprehensive Bengali grammar with the help of Hindu Sanskrit Pundits. Before this time not a single letter was ever written in Bengali, it was in such a state!

 

[TopCat]

I believe Persian was the official language since the foreign muslims from central asia domiciled in Bengal in 1203 AD. They were not Persian speaking people, they were Turkic, Uzhbeks, Pashtuns and others. But, those central asian region was completely overwhelmed with Islamic religion and persian language. So, they brought this language to India and Bengal. Persia, as an official language, lasted until 1832 when the British masters opted for English.

As for Bengali language, it was still in the womb. There were hundreds of poetries, but proses were absent. It started only after 1805 when Fort William College took initiative to compile a comprehensive Bengali grammar with the help of Hindu Sanskrit Pundits. Before this time not a single letter was ever written in Bengali, it was in such a state!

I dont think so. Persian influence came to Bengal or even in Delhi courtyard after Noor Jahan made to the palace of Jahangir. Pashtuns adopted the earlier legacy of Turkik ruler who adopted the policy of Bengalize the Bengal Sultanate. It was the Noor Jahans close relatives who used Fari in Bengal administration but no mass people ever adopted the language.

Nur Jahan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[TopCat]

As for Bengali language, it was still in the womb. There were hundreds of poetries, but proses were absent. It started only after 1805 when Fort William College took initiative to compile a comprehensive Bengali grammar with the help of Hindu Sanskrit Pundits. Before this time not a single letter was ever written in Bengali, it was in such a state!

Even though there were no formal grammar book of Bengali, that does not mean there were no grammar in Bengali before Fort William College. I read Alaols poetry and they were just beautiful and the hand writing, you just need to look at it. There is copy of handwritten Padmabati in Dhaka museum. You should go and see.

There are also contract which were written in earlier bengali script preserved in museum too. Even in mogul era, the contract were written in bengali not Farsi or any other language. I seen a contract of Slave trade in Bengali in Museum.

 

[Skallagrim]

Right...there's a type of madrassa (not Aliya type) where Urdu is taught...the logic for teaching Urdu is very funny there. They say Urdu is the pathway to learn Arabic. Hearing such funny thing I asked "Does whole the world learns Urdu before Arabic?"...no answer. What is quomi actually?

Qaomi Madrassa teaches Urdu because a lot of religious literature were written/translated in Urdu.

 

[PlanetSoldier]

In european education system as a whole, a student in, say, England, has to learn one of other european languages, such as German, French, Spanish etc. In India, a student of west Bengal has also to learn English and Hindi. In Pakistan they learn Urdu and his native tongue such as Punjabi, Brohi, Sindhi or Pashtu.

Since we see everything in our self made political prism we hate Urdu and also we hate Hindi. This is why we have become an island country with an ostrich mind. Students in 9th and 10th Class students should have options to learn either Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi or Sanskrit. The last two depends upon the availability of teachers. However, people of Bangladesh do not even speak good English now-a-days, thanks to the education sysytem, which has changed and degraded after 1971.

I didn't say anything about hating Urdu which is my favorite language. One of my friends studied in Madrassa where they were taught Urdu as a pathway to learn Arabic. If this is the reason, it's completely baseless. There's no such logic that to learn Arabic one has to learn Urdu first. I asked my friend this question, he couldn't give a strong answer...just said it's required. Every Muslim family in BD arranges lesson of Arabic for children either sending to mosque or keeping home tutor, they don't need to learn Urdu 1st hand. We at school time had a subject Arabic (not religion which was a different subject) from class 6-8. This subject was 100% arabic study and I in the final exam of class 8 secured 97 out of 100 (probably a record in Zilla School, Khulna). I never had to learn Urdu for that.

I've never seen such hatred towards Urdu in BD people but anyway it's a common perception. And yes, there should be a 2nd language other than English and Bangla in school college like Europe/NA where 1st choices should be regional ones like Hindi,Urdu etc. and then other ones. But it shouldn't be restricted to a single language e.g. Urdu.

 

[eastwatch]

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 ?

I agree with many of your points with regard to the language issue. Urdu could have been an uniting factor between the two wings. But, to tell you frankly only Urdu as the state language it would have destroyed Bangali Muslim educated middle class of that time. At a stroke of a pen they would have become illiterate.

The same thing happened when Muslims (and also many Hindus) became illiterate when in 1832 suddenly the British Bengal govt kicked out Persian and introduced English as the official language. All the Muslims of Bengal became illiterate although they were highly educated in Persian.

So, to use emotion of muslim brotherhood in order to impose Urdu on us could have ruined our educated class once again. Without a middle class a society cannot progress. So, I think, Urdu was tried on us too fast when the politicians including Jinnah were supposed to be working on Constitution of the country.

 

[imran_ind]

Whats the major difference between bengali spoken in in india and bangladesh

 

[LaBong]

I believe Persian was the official language since the foreign muslims from central asia domiciled in Bengal in 1203 AD. They were not Persian speaking people, they were Turkic, Uzhbeks, Pashtuns and others. But, those central asian region was completely overwhelmed with Islamic religion and persian language. So, they brought this language to India and Bengal. Persia, as an official language, lasted until 1832 when the British masters opted for English.

As for Bengali language, it was still in the womb. There were hundreds of poetries, but proses were absent. It started only after 1805 when Fort William College took initiative to compile a comprehensive Bengali grammar with the help of Hindu Sanskrit Pundits. Before this time not a single letter was ever written in Bengali, it was in such a state!

Even though there were no formal grammar book of Bengali, that does not mean there were no grammar in Bengali before Fort William College. I read Alaols poetry and they were just beautiful and the hand writing, you just need to look at it. There is copy of handwritten Padmabati in Dhaka museum. You should go and see.

There are also contract which were written in earlier bengali script preserved in museum too. Even in mogul era, the contract were written in bengali not Farsi or any other language. I seen a contract of Slave trade in Bengali in Museum.

Every language has a grammar, if the language exists so does the grammar. I think what eastwatch meant to say is that Bengali grammar wasn't well documented before 18th century.

 

[DarkPrince]

Whats the major difference between bengali spoken in in india and bangladesh

our bengali is full of farsi arabic words

 

[eastwatch]

its important for muslims 2 use an arabic version

Of course not. Our sound is so flat and so different comparing to Urdu and Hindi, the sister languages. Urdu and go up and come down, but not Bangla.

 

[DarkPrince]

Of course not. Our sound is so flat and so different comparing to Urdu and Hindi, the sister languages. Urdu and go up and come down, but not Bangla.

i can speak urdu f9 nobody taught me

 

[eastwatch]

will you like should i ask why are we Pakistanis so attracted to the word superiority complex when in reality we are shunned left,right & center in the mid-east & other supposedly superior places? respect people to get respect, yes we have differences over the 1971 episode with regards to Bangladesh but that does not take away the fact that had not the bengalis over vehemently supported us in the Pakistan movement, we might not have got our independence, show some gratitudes, the bengalis can be whatever but the fact remains that they stood steadfast with us at a time when we were at the crossroads of history between an united centrist nationalistic India & an independent separate sovereign "Pakistan"

take it from me a non-Bengali, (proud Urdu speaking mohajir & a Pakistani ) the suppot that the bengalis gave us back in 1947 we will never be able to repay them, atleast show some respect brother

In fact the muslims of Bihar and Bengal struggled more for Pakistan Movement than the present day Pakistani's forefathers.