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PM-DISCUSSION-EKUSHEY-IMLI 2 DHAKA
Referring to a comment of Professor Pabitra Sarkar, who presented the keynote speech at the function, the prime minister said: “The noted Indian educationist made a true remark that narrow mindness works among us while practicing our own language.”
Sheikh Hasina said there are some people who think that their children will not get job or cannot move in the society if they (children) do not study in English medium. “There is no doubt that they (those people) are suffering from mental poorness,” she said.
In this connection, the prime minister said she and her younger sister had to lead a refugee life abroad after the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.
“We had not that fortune that from the beginning we will provide education to our children in Bangla medium, rather we had to get admitted them to foreign schools and foreign soil,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina went on saying: “On the foreign soil we always tried to teach our children in Bangla language and we also always talked in our mother language in our house.”
The prime minister said their children started going to school or mixing with other kids there from their childhood and it is natural for them they will learn foreign language.
“Simultaneously we the two sisters tried so that our children can speak in our mother language and they now also speak Bangla. There is nothing to blame them if any problem on accent happens while speaking in Bangla,” she said.
The prime minister said she likes to talk in mother language or her village language. “However we try to speak Bangla properly in the meetings, but when we talk in the house we speak mixing the languages of Gopalganj and Dhaka,” she noted.
“We speak in the both languages as we moved to Dhaka during the childhood and born on the soil of Tungipara. So there are influences of both the languages in our talk and we don’t feel ashamed in this regard,” she said.
Referring to the historic March 7 speech of Bangabandhu, Sheikh Hasina said the Father of the Nation unhesitatingly uttered the language of Gopalganj which created an appeal among the people.
“Bangabandhu had been able to reach the hearts of the people very fast and also had been able to tell the words of the people. That’s why whatever directives he had given the people accepted those,” she said.
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