Bengali: the seventh UN official language?

London, England, April 08 — The Parliament of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh passed a resolution on Monday, April 6, 2009, to make Bengali an official language of the United Nations.

One Member of Parliament, Mr. Moinuddin Khan, who was elected from Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, or the National Socialist Party, put forth the motion in Parliament. MP Abdus Shaheed, the chief whip, later moved for an amendment to the resolution, which proposed to send the motion to the United Nations Secretariat, for it to take the necessary steps.

This movement for Bengali to become an official language of the UN is not new. Bengali speakers who are based in London started this movement a couple of years ago. A considerable number of British parliamentarians (25) have already lent their support to this cause.

With more than 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages in the world. At this moment, Bengali holds the fourth position (ranking fifth or sixth, according to some other sources, please see below) in terms of population, and people from more than 15 countries speak Bengali. But interestingly, the UN has recognized six other languages − Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish − as official languages of the United Nations.

Bengali speakers are mostly concentrated in Bangladesh and in the states of West Bengal and Tripura in India. There are also a number of Bengali communities scattered throughout northeast India, New Delhi, and the Indian states of Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharastra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa. In addition, there are significant Bengali communities beyond South Asia, in places such as Burma (the Rohingya people), the Middle East, the United Kingdom (in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, 30.5% of the population is British Bangladeshi; some 65,000 people), Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the United States, South Korea, Canada, Japan, and many other countries.

In the year 2000, UNESCO declared Feb. 21 as International Mother Language Day. That was a great honor for the Bengali language and for Bengali speakers as well, and it was really justified. But what is unjustified is not recognizing Bengali as an official language of the United Nations. This is an injustice against Bengali speakers worldwide.

At the same time, some critics also argue that Bengali does not have the potential to be the language of business, the language of conquest, or the language of information for the world. Bengali does not qualify in any of these categories. Thus, they say that this move is no more than a childish demand.

Now the issue is, what are the criteria behind selecting an official language of the United Nations?

There are some experts, columnists, and renowned personalities who write regularly on UPI Asia. So, I would like to open it up to everyone to find the correct information on this issue and to participate in the debate of whether Bengali should be the seventh official language of the United Nations.