Re : Pollution of Bengali

Nidhu Bhusan Das : Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the glorious Language Martyr Day, now observed across the globe as International Mother Language Day, courtesy to UNICEF, the question of the pollution of Bengali Language may be discussed. Prof. Sayeed Manjurul Islam of Dhaka University has dealt with the issue in his essay ‘Language Pollution Is as Destructive as River Pollution’. Alluding to the erudite essay, Anandabazar Patrika of Kolkata shared the concern of Prof. Islam in an editorial on 19 February 2012 and spoke against the unnecessary use of foreign words and phrases by Bangalee bilinguals where Bengali words and phrases are enough to serve the purpose. In such cases, often, the sense of snob value inspires the bilinguals to go for code mixing. Thus in our day to day conversations, we say train aaj two hours late chalchhe (train runs two hours late today), club secretary khub corrupt lok, mairi (club secretary is surely a corrupt person). One could easily, clearly and quite meaningfully say, Train aaj dui ghanta bilambey chalchhe, club sampadak khub durneetiparayan lok, mairi. ‘Train’ and ‘Club’ are the English words like chair, table, etc which have been accepted and absorbed in Bengali in the process of evolution. But we can easily go sans ‘corrupt’, ‘late’ and such other words. Yet we tend to use them when we are snobs. We have demonstrated our skill to coin the phrase ‘Amor Ekushe’ (Immortal 21st) to mean the Language Martyr Day 21st February. None questions why instead of 21st February, 8th Falgun is not used, perhaps, because of the fact that the coinage has been so natural. This is not the case when we try to yoke words and phrases as Supra Language (SL) with the Base Language (BL) just to show off our capacity to use foreign language, whatever be its desirability and efficacy. True, we cannot but use words like ‘computer’,’ internet’ , ‘netizen’ , ‘e-mail’ ‘egine’,etc . They have gained international currency in the absence of adequate terminology in our language. A language may become rich when it accommodates words to augment its expressiveness and vocabulary. However, we should not be indiscriminate in this regard. To check indiscriminate borrowings, we need have continuative language planning and regular morphological and syntactical processes at work for the enrichment of our mother tongue, as for the protection of the prestige of this language Barkat , Salam, Rafuque and Jabbar laid down their lives on 21st February 1952.