so?

[sdas]

if bangla is our home language y do sum of us find it hard to read or understand? shouldnt it cum to us natrualy? cum on people u hav to admit im right on this one is english havin a influence on our culture or are we choosing not to learn it? mailme with your thoughts!!

[samya]

you are right in some ways"!!!!!!!!!!!

[rez]

if we were brought up speaking bangla, ie the language we were first taught by our parents, n we continue to use it now, then yes bangla is our mother-tongue.

however there r a number of reasons why we mite not be "as" fluent in it, or read or write it, but that doesnt in any way compromise its status as mother-tongue. some of these u highlighted urself:

1) many of us, espescially in areas where there r not many bengalis, tend to use english when speaking to brothers/sisters, friends etc and generally tend to use bangla when speaking to elders/immediate family. that means we use bangla less of the time n so naturally we wouldnt be as fluent in it as someone from bangladesh.

2) the reading and writing issue: yeah its sad that many of us cant read or write it, but at the end of the day, here in this country it isnt of great importance. it is only for culture's sake, or to keep ties with our origins that we would learn it, unless we were planning to move back to bangladesh later on in life. i appreciate that that may not be satisfactory justification but its what many ppl think. more important would be to read arabic (for muslims) since that is involved in worship etc but even then many of us have forgotten how to, or have rudimentary knowledge of it.

even if u look in bangladesh, there r many illiterate ppl who speak fluent bangla so technically reading/writing doesnt affect our knowledge of the bangla language.

3) many of us are from areas in bdesh where they dont speak shuddho bhasha. that means we grew up speaking a dialect, n since we werent taught bangla in school, we had no way to learn proper bengali. that mite explain why so many of us find proper bengali (ie on the news) so strange, cos the words they use are very technical n complex. even those ppl from dhaka have trouble understanding it :|

having said all that, i do think its important to learn to communicate in bangla in all possible forms (ie speak shuddho/read & write) for the very sake that it is the language we speak, n if u do sumthing then do it properly lol (sounds a bit daft :|). shuddho is important for one very important reason....when u want to communicate with someone from another area where they speak a completely different dialect, life would be much easier speakin shuddho rather than some half intelligble dialect mixture hehe.

languages are a wonderful tool that ppl fail to take advantage of. remember its still not too late to learn (unless ur really old ) so use ur time constructively n try and improve ur bangla

[Marawak_Bhai]

If you are born of a place, and raised in a place and belong in a place, no matter where it is, it is difficult to learn a language, and even if it is your mother-tongue, reading difficulties are not uncommon.

One reason for this could be what you are talking about-the influence of other places on you. There were a few poems written a while back about people who felt they had lost their mother-tongue by living in another community. This is not necessarily so, but to keep a language at hand it needs to be practised and remembered, because it is easy to lose touch.

There are also the different dialects which have certain differences. Some of my friends are Sylhetis, others are from Chittagong, and others are Nokhalis (I had never heard of these so may have spelt it wrong), and half the time they cannot understand each other. Language speaking is a talent - it grows as you learn more.

[Marawak_Bhai]

I only disagree with you on one issue: I think that it is in other countries like this one that your language is most important. A lot of people that come here do not want to lose touch with their home due to pride, love or whatever. One thing people should be proud of is a language, especially in a country that does not share its language with anywhere else.........








.....so America are lying when they say they speak American English - there is no such thing