“Discarding Bangla”
Sadia Siddique's letter 'Discarding Bangla' (November3) reminds us of a growing contradiction between English and one's mother language, not only in Bangladesh but in other countries as well in this subcontinent. Has English suddenly got entry into these countries formerly under the British rule? Surely not. English was there but there was no shame if one mastered his mother language side by side with English.
Take the case of Bengali speaking people in those days gone by. Even those who could not go beyond school education due to personal constraints could write correct English and Bengali. They read not only Bengali books but they liked to read English books too. But were they comfortable in speaking English? Not perhaps though in case of need they did not backtrack. With sufficient knowledge of English reading and writing and moderate ability to speak the language, they could work efficiently in offices.
But things have changed. Now if you go for a job interview, more important point would be to test how confident you are in speaking English, and more importantly, how close to American pronunciation yours is. How strong you are in writing good English may be important, but surely not that important.
In some advertisements from institutions imparting English speaking skill, stress is noticed sometimes that they do discourage use of one's mother language there, so that the students can pick up correct English pronunciation. Do all jobs need now skill to speak English in the American way? If that be true, the sooner we forget our respective mother languages, the better. If not, let us learn both the languages with equal command and let us not feel nervous if we speak English in our own way. After all the English speaking people do not speak the language with so uniform accents that we cannot differentiate between them. In our own domain if we speak English in our own accents there is nothing wrong, if the employers and the employees are mostly from our respective countries.
Our forefathers did show us that they mastered basic language skills since they mastered two languages equally . With two eyes we can get better view of an object. With command over two languages we can equip us with better communication skill. Why should we set aside our respective and respected mother languages?
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The situation described by Sadia Siddique in her letter “Discarding Bangla” was not really earth shaking but a narrow perspective of a rather important debate. Our children need to learn English not only from a global perspective but also for their own survival. I heartily object to English taking precedence in our billboards and signboards. And what that girl did in the shop was vanity personified. Blame their parents for the mishap but please don't stop our children from learning any foreign language to enhance their skills. And to me English is and can only be a foreign language. And it has got nothing to do with my mother tongue.
Sazzad Hossain, Gulshan, Dhaka
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