Language is one of the means of expressing the thoughts of the human species. Every nation including the smallest ethnic groups have their own language to express themselves. Throughout the ages people have traditionally comprehended the language from their mother which we call our mother tongue. However, these languages were not created in a day among different nations, there is a history of hundreds of years behind it. Language has evolved extensively in the evolution of time. If we listen to the language that our ancestors used to speak, we may not understand a single word. However, as a result of various researches, there is no doubt that language is rich enough now and that is why communication between us is so easy today.
In ancient times, people used gestures to express their thoughts. Since we humans are the most intelligent and the greatest species on earth, later realized that we have the ability to make words and gradually began to use those. This is followed by the invention of letter, word and the complete sentence. Instead of gestures, the expression of senses is introduced through language. However, the use of this language has not been stabilized in one point, it has gradually become richer through evolution and still moving forward in the same direction.
As a Bengali nation, Bangla is our mother tongue. However, like other languages, this language has a rich history. If we give a closer look at the history of the Bangla language, it has three periods: the ancient, medieval and the modern period. Talking about each of these eras of the history of the Bangla language, writing a separate blog for each of them may not be sufficient. However, I have a strong desire to review the languages of different eras in depth and write about them separately. Anyway, since I am a person of this time, I am more interested in the Bangla modern language. Bangla language which was built based on Prakrit or Apabhramsa, later Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul Islam have contributed a lot to give it today’s shape. In their time, Bangla literature reached its zenith of success.
Like other Bengalis, I am a little more emotional to my mother tongue. The main reason for this is that we are the only nation in the world who have sacrificed their lives for their mother tongue. And that is the day of February 21, which was later recognized as an international mother language day by UNESCO. On the eve of this special day, my only wish is that we can keep the dignity of our mother tongue and not annihilate it in the name of modernity. A special reason for saying this is that a group of people feel ashamed to speak in their mother tongue and they are doing it consciously. In my opinion it is absolutely inappropriate. There is no harm speaking in other language but one should not despise one's mother tongue. It may evolve for the sake of language enrichment but it should not be lost in the aggression of other cultures. If this continues, the souls of the language martyrs will agonize and they will never forgive us.
