Bangladesh
Hasan Mahmud Govt aims to make Bengali official language of UN: Foreign Minister
Dhaka, Feb 21: Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud said that the government's goal is to establish Bengali as an official language of the United Nations (UN).
He said this to reporters after offering flowers at the Central Shahid Minar on the morning of Great Martyrs' Day and International Mother Language Day on Wednesday (February 21).
The foreign minister said, "There are more than 35 crore Bengali speaking people in the whole world. Bengali language is probably in the 6th or 7th position. Our aim now is to establish Bengali as an official language of the United Nations.”
Highlighting the history of 1952's language movement, the minister said, "Sheikh Mujibur Rahman decided to celebrate protest day on February 21 while sitting in jail. In addition, it was recognized as International Mother Language Day after the initiative of two Bengali expatriates in Canada and the quick decision of Bangabandhu's daughter Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to send a proposal to the United Nations."
On November 17, 1999, UNESCO recognized February 21 as International Mother Language Day. Through this, the day of self-sacrifice of Bengali is recognized as the day to protect the mother tongue rights of every people in the world.
Bengali is now the fifth largest language in the world in terms of number of speakers. In view of that, the demand to make Bengali the official language of the United Nations has been for a long time. The Bangladesh government has also taken the matter of that demand to the United Nations at different times.
Even then, the then foreign minister AK Abdul Momen had explained why it did not happen three years ago.
He had said the process of making Bengali an official language of the United Nations was stalled due to the condition of "self-financing".
