Renowned writer and academician Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal has urged the youth to help turn Bangla into ‘one of the languages’ of science.
He said this while talking to bdnews24.com after paying homage at the Central Shaheed Minar to the martyrs of the Language Movement who died for the cause of the mother tongue in 1952.
“Our first generation has gifted the nation a state language in exchange of their lives. The second generation has gifted the independence through the great Liberation War. It’s the responsibility of the new generation to protect the language and independence.”
“Grief is our strength. The whole world now remembers the Bangla language. The world now observes February 21 as the International Mother Language Day. We want Bangla to be as one of the languages of science.”
The Shahjalal University of Science & Technology (SUST) Professor said that it was the youths who had launched the country’s first search engine for Bangla contents on the Internet, pipilika.com, aiming to bring about further advancement of the language.
The site is backed up by a dictionary of the Bangla Academy spelling rules, which suggests corrections for language errors. The search engine will fish out content from all Bangla newspapers, blogs, encyclopaedia, business, politics, entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and government websites.
“There are enough skilled and intelligent youths in our country. If they come forward, then it will be possible to make Bangla one of the languages of science.”
In this connection, he urged people concerned to translate into Bangla the science-related textbooks from the primary level to the university level.
That is what he expected, he said, of the youth and the government on this year’s Language Martyrs’ Day and International Mother Language Day.
Several students also expressed their support for the noted author’s demand.
Kaikobad, a student at the Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Department of Dhaka University, said, “Many go to foreign countries and achieve higher degree in science by learning the language of that country. But in our country, we learn science in another medium.”
Syed Monayem, a master’s student at the Genetics and Plant Breeding Department of the Sher-E-Bangla Agricultural University, said that in many countries, including Germany and Sweden, science was taught in their own language.
He felt Bangladesh was lagging behind because students had to study science in a foreign language.
Source: Bd news24
