LANGUAGES, NAMES AND ENGLISH IN BANGLADESH
Bangla (Bengali) is the official and most widely spoken language in Bangladesh. It is an Indo-European language with Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese and English words. According to the CIA World Factbook, 98.8 percent of Bangladeshis speak it. The other 1.2 percent speak other languages, primarily tribal languages and Urdu spoken by Biharis. (2011 estimated). Many people speak English as a second language. It is widely used in business and often preferred over Bangla for official and legal purposes.
Many Bangladeshis speak Bangla at home and have had classes in Bangla and English in school. Bangla has its own Hindi-like script but most signs are also written in English. Some people speak Urdu (the most widely spoken language in Pakistan). or Hindi (the most widely spoken language in India). Hindi and Urdu are more similar to each other — in many ways they are the same language — than they are to Bangla. In many ways, since Bangladesh has traditionally had low literacy rates, it is an oral country.
Many Non-Bengali migrants from India and their descendants still speak Urdu (and Hindi). Urdu is still understood in urban areas. Tribal peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts speak Tibeto-Burmese languages like those spoken by the Burmese in Myanmar and the Assamese in northeast India. There are a number of different Bangla dialects rooted in different regions. The dialects spoken in Chittagong, Noakhali, and Sylhet are known for being particularly distinctive. [Source: Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Thomson Gale, 2007]
English is spoken in urban areas and among the educated. Educated people and people who come in contact with travelers throughout the country speak English. Even the prime minister says things like "best wishes and hearty felicitations." According to “Cities of the World”: “Although English is spoken in some urban areas and among the educated, Bangla (also referred to as Bengali) is the official language. English is no longer used for instruction in public primary or secondary schools; it is used sporadically in judicial proceedings, businesses and universities. Technical writing is in English. [Source: “Cities of the World” , The Gale Group Inc. 2002]
Many rural people use only one name.
The family name can be first or last.
Various honorifics and family names are used.
Bengali (Bangla) Language
Like most of the languages of northern South Asia, Bengali (Bangla) belongs to the Indo-Iranian (sometimes called Indo-Aryan) branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Descended from ancient Sanskrit, it contains 47 sounds: 11 vowels, 25 consonants, four semi-vowels and seven “breath sounds” (including sibilants and spirates). The script is also derived from Sanskrit. It contains 57 letter symbols.
The Bengali language has been described as "mellifluous and cultured." It has a long literary tradition, of which Bengalis take pride and is key to their identity. The literary language however is quite different from the language less educated Bengalis speak. The eastern dialects of Bangladesh, notably on Sylhet and Chittagong districts, are quite different from dialects spoken in West Bengal in India.
Among intellectuals in Calcutta, Bengali is being replaced more and more with English. In 2000, new laws were passed that stated that all government business had to be conducted in Bengali; that official forms had to be in Bengali, that responses to government letters and police reports had to be written in Bengali. Realizing the importance of English as an international language, many Bengali parents want their children to study English in school. Some have even enrolled their children in schools that specialize in teaching English.
Activists involved in preserving the Bengali language demanded that the name of Calcutta be changed to Kolkota — which has happened — and want the name of West Bengal to be changed to Banga. They also want Bengali to be the language of mandatory subjects in school and of television broadcasts. They also wanted shopkeepers and bureaucrats to speak the language and more computer software to use the Bengali script.
World’s Most Widely Spoken Languages
World’s most widely spoken languages based on the number of native speakers: 1) Chinese — 1.3 billion native speakers; 2) Spanish — 460 million native speakers; 3) English — 379 million native speakers; 4) Hindi — 341 million native speakers; 5) Arabic — 315 million native speakers; 6) Bengali — 228 million native speakers; 7) Portuguese — 220 million native speakers; 8) Russian — 153 million native speakers; 9) Japanese — 128 million native speakers; 10) Lahnda (Western Punjabi) — 118 million native speakers. [Source: Babbel.com]
World’s most widely spoken languages based on the number of total speakers — 1) English — 1.132 billion total speakers; 2) Mandarin Chinese — 1.117 billion total speakers; 3) Hindi — 615 million total speakers; 4) Spanish — 534 million total speakers; 5) French — 280 million total speakers; 6) Standard Arabic — 274 million total speakers; 7) Bengali — 265 million total speakers; 8) Russian — 258 million total speakers; 9) Portuguese — 234 million total speakers; 10) Indonesian — 199 million total speakers,
Many people are surprised that Bengali is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. The above numbers are total number of people who speak the languages with some speaking it as their mother tongue and others speaking it as lingua franca, and others simply speaking it, perhaps to get ahead in business. Eight of the 10 languages are also most widely spoken languages based on the number of native speakers. But there are some key differences. English narrowly beats out Chinese for the top spot; Japanese and Punjabi drop out while French and Indonesian move up due to the fact that that more people speak them as a second language than as a native language.
The ten most widely spoken first languages in the early 1990s: 1) Chinese (700,000,000); 2) English (400,000,000); 3) Russian (265,000,000); 4) Spanish (240,000,000); 5) Hindi (230,000,000); 6) Arabic (146,000,000); 7) Portuguese (145,000,000); 8) Bengali (144,000,000); 9) German (119,000,000);
Most common first languages (number of speakers) in the early 2000s. 1) Mandarin Chinese (885 million); 2) Spanish (332 million); 3) English (322 million); 4) Arabic (220 million); 5) Bengali (189 million); 6) Hindi (182 million); 7) Portuguese (170 million); 8) Russian (170 million); 9) Japanese (120 million); 10) German (98 million). [Source: Worldwatch Institute 2001]
History and Flavor of Bangla
Like Hindi and Urdu, the most widely spoken languages in India and Pakistan, Bangla is derived from Sanskrit (the ancient Brahman language), and is a member Indo-European family of languages (like English).
According to AFP: “The history of Bengali, which originated some 1,000 years ago and is spoken by at least 250 million people on the subcontinent, is wrapped up with the creation of Bangladesh as a country in 1972. The country was previously part of British India and then part of Pakistan. Its independence movement was fuelled partly by the attempt by Pakistani administrators to impose Urdu as the state language. [Source: AFP, February 17, 2012]
Badiuzzaman Bay wrote in the Daily Force: “Bangla has historically been dependent on other languages for its development. A majority of Bangla words came from other languages including modified, unmodified and corrupted forms of Sanskrit words, as well as loanwords from various other sources. Language, like culture, is ever-evolving, and with globalisation allowing languages and cultures to mingle at a scale never seen before, the pace of evolution will only quicken, whether we like it or not. [Source: Badiuzzaman Bay, Daily Force, January 31, 2018]
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: Bangla, called Bengali by most nonnatives, is spoken not just by Bangladeshis, but also by people who are culturally Bengali. This includes about 300 million people from Bangladesh, West Bengal, and Bihar, as well as Bengali speakers in other Indian states. The language dates from well before the birth of Christ. Bangla varies by region, and people may not understand the language of a person from another district. However, differences in dialect consist primarily of slight differences in accent or pronunciation and minor grammatical usages. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
“Language differences mirror social and religious divisions. Bangla is divided into two fairly distinct forms: sadhu basha, learned or formal language, and cholit basha, common language. Sadhu basha is the language of the literate tradition, formal essays and poetry, and the well educated. Cholit basha is the spoken vernacular, the language of the great majority of Bengalis. Cholit basha is the medium by which the great majority of people communicate in a country in which 50 percent of men and 26 percent of women are literate. There are also small usage variations between Muslims and Hindus, along with minor vocabulary differences.
Language Issue is East and West Pakistan
One of the most divisive issues confronting Pakistan in its infancy was the question of what the official language of the new state was to be. Jinnah yielded to the demands of refugees from the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who insisted that Urdu be Pakistan's official language. Speakers of the languages of West Pakistan — Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushtu, and Baluchi — were upset that their languages were given second-class status. In East Pakistan, the dissatisfaction quickly turned to violence. The Bengalis of East Pakistan constituted a majority (an estimated 54 percent) of Pakistan's entire population. Their language, Bangla (then commonly known as Bengali), shares with Urdu a common Sanskritic-Persian ancestor, but the two languages have different scripts and literary traditions. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
Jinnah visited East Pakistan on only one occasion after independence, shortly before his death in 1948. He announced in Dhaka that "without one state language, no nation can remain solidly together and function." Jinnah's views were not accepted by most East Pakistanis, but perhaps in tribute to the founder of Pakistan, serious resistance on this issue did not break out until after his death. On February 22, 1952, a demonstration was carried out in Dhaka in which students demanded equal status for Bangla. The police reacted by firing on the crowd and killing two students. (A memorial, the Shaheed Minar, was built later to commemorate the martyrs of the language movement.) Two years after the incident, Bengali agitation effectively forced the National Assembly to designate "Urdu and Bengali and such other languages as may be declared" to be the official languages of Pakistan. *
The language issue stirred Bengali nationalism. A nationalist movement grew with Bengalis politicians claiming they were not given a say in national affair or an ability to govern. To counteract this development the four province of western Pakistan were united into a single unit. The independence movement that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh began in earnest with the Language Movement of 1952, a drive to recognize Bangla as a state language along with Urdu. This was the first popular uprising against the autocratic government in West Pakistan. All movements that led to Bangladeshis independence in 1971 were based on the 1952 demonstration. Amara Ekushe, a national Day of Mourning held today, commemorates the deaths of students killed in demonstrations in 1952. *
Language Debate in East Pakistan, the First Step Towards War?
Anirban Mahapatra wrote in Ozy.com: Aroma Dutta was in her early 20s when her grandfather, Dhirendranath Datta, was arrested at their home in Comilla on a fateful March night in 1971. Those were turbulent times in what was then the Pakistan-administered province of East Bengal (also called East Pakistan). An independence movement seeking sovereignty from Pakistani control had begun to gain rapid momentum among the region’s Bengali-speaking population, and the state had launched a crushing military drive to weed out prominent separatist leaders suspected of playing a part. Atop the list of wanted men — mostly eminent members of the Bengali intelligentsia — was Datta. He died in confinement soon after, succumbing to torture at the hands of his captors. [Source: Anirban Mahapatra, Ozy.com, May 4 2018]
“Far from a mere act of intellectual cleansing, Datta’s death was not without grave context. “They [the government] had decided long ago that Dhirendranath would have to pay with his life for his advocacy of the Bengali language,” contends his granddaughter, now one of Bangladesh’s foremost social and human rights activists. “He never compromised on his demand to instate Bengali as the lingua franca of Pakistan, and that never went down well with most members of the government who had no inherent regard for the language.”
“The story begins in 1948 — with Datta, of course. Attending a constituent assembly meeting in the Pakistani city of Karachi in February that year, Datta — as an elected assembly representative from East Pakistan — put forth an earnest demand to recognize Bengali as the official language of the country. The leader’s logic was simple. “Out of six crores and 90 lakhs [69 million] of people inhabiting this state [Pakistan], four crores and 40 lakhs [44 million] of people speak the Bengali language,” he reasoned before the house. “So, sir, what should be the state language?”
“The argument behind the rhetorical question was sound, but it failed to resonate with the house. Pakistan’s administrative power was in the western mainland, where the native population spoke languages such as Punjabi, Urdu or Pashto, but not Bengali. Moreover, as an overarching answer to Pakistan’s complex linguistic matrix, the government had recently ruled that Urdu would be adopted as the state language, even though that decision alienated the majority of citizens in its eastern province.
“Soon after Datta’s petition was quashed in the assembly, Muhammad Ali Jinnah — governor-general of Pakistan — visited East Pakistan and delivered a conclusive speech at the University of Dhaka. “The state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language,” he said. “Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan. In its unequivocal prioritization of Urdu over Bengali, Jinnah’s speech sparked mass outrage among East Pakistan’s Bengalis. Waves of public criticism denouncing the government’s linguistic policy swept through the region over the next few years, before coming to a head in 1952. “On the morning of February 21 that year, as political debate spearheaded by Dhirendranath raged in Dhaka’s Provincial Assembly house over the recognition of the Bengali language,” recalls Dutta, “thousands of university students, college students and common people assembled on the adjacent university grounds to stage a public protest.”
“Despite starting off as a peaceful assembly, the day’s proceedings began to reel out of control as the hours went by. Before long, organized protest had given way to frenzied chaos, forcing the police to open fire on the gathering. Four students were killed, and their deaths sparked further civic unrest, which resulted in even more death and destruction of what was widely believed to be the state’s cultural hegemony over its Bengali population.
“Looking back on the remains of the day, many of Bangladesh’s leading thinkers concur that the tidings of 1952 — as well as the people involved in the affairs — played a critical role in shaping and foreshadowing Bangladesh’s subsequent path to independence. “There were many language activists who were in the vanguard of the formative phase of the Language Movement, and among those, however, Shaheed [martyr] Dhirendranath Dutta’s role was seminal by any measure,” noted academic and political observer M. Waheeduzzaman Manik in his column in Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star in 2014. In a written statement issued in 1994 while she was opposition leader in Parliament, current Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina observed that “the groundwork of nationalism founded by the Language Movement eventually shaped Bangladesh’s struggle for independence,” and that freedom was finally obtained in exchange for “the lives of 3 million martyred men and the dignity of 2 million violated women.”
Language in Education: Bangla, English or Arabic
Bangla (Bengali) is the official and most widely spoken language in Bangladesh. It is an Indo-European language with Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese and English words. According to the CIA World Factbook, 98.8 percent of Bangladeshis speak it. Many Bangladeshis speak Bangla at home and have had classes in Bangla and English in school. Bangla has its own Hindi-like script but most signs are also written in English. English is spoken in urban areas and among the educated. English is no longer used for instruction in public primary or secondary schools.
Following the birth of Bangladesh, Bangla came to replace English as the medium of instruction. Bangla also became the sole national language and the standard language of communications. The initial shortage of Bangla textbooks and other instructional materials was alleviated by the accelerated production of textbooks in the vernacular under the patronage of government education departments. The Bangla Academy also played a pioneering role in this area. In the 1980s, British education was maintained marginally through private English-language institutions attended by upper class children. English continued to be offered as an elective subject in most institutions of higher education and was offered as a subject for bachelor's and master's degrees. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
Initially, Arabic also lost ground in independent Bangladesh. This trend ended in the late 1970s, however, after Bangladesh strengthened its ties with Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich, Arabicspeaking countries. An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1983 to introduce Arabic as a required language in primary and secondary levels. In the late 1980s, Arabic was studied in many Muslim homes in Bangladesh as an integral part of religious instruction. Aside from courses in religious schools, however, Arabic was not a popular subject at the college and university level.
Bangla Swear Words
Phrase or word — Meaning
amar nunu chat — Suck my dick!
Ashiq — Penis Hair
baal bichi — hair on your balls
Baal Halaidheese — Eat your pubic hair
Baba choda rendi — Prostitute who fucks her father
banchod — sister fucker
bara — penis
bara / bada — dick / cock
Bessha — Whore
bhuski maagi — whore with a used & loose pussy
boga baicha tor March boonie sirilymu — dick boy i will rip your mums boobs
Boga Khaa — Suck My Dick
boka choda — stupid fucker
bokachoda — dickhead
Booni — Tits/Breast
chodna — fucker
Chodon Boiraagi — Boiraagi Fucker
Chodon Idli — Tamil Fucker
chood — fuck/fucker
chudir bhai — brother of a whore
Chudir Bhai — Brother of slut
fungi — sex in smelly pussy
fuun-ga — cunt
gorur bachcha — child of a cow
gud — pussy
gud/guud — pussy
Hauwa — Arsehole
[Source: youswear.com]
khanki — whore
khanki chudi magir gude poka — insect on the pussy of whore
khanki/maggi — whore
khankir chele — son of prostitute
Khankir Pola — Son of a whore
khobis or goror khobis — fuck your mum and dad
Kuth-tar Bachcha — Son of a bitch
kuttar chod — dog fucker
Kuttar gu — Dog shit
laora — penis
maggir putt — prostitutes child
Moga choder bacha — Mother fucker
mother chod — mother fucker
nankta kuttar baccha — naked son of dog
nunu — dick
pagol sagol — crazy sheep
podmarani — assfucker
shuorer baccha — son of a swine
Suourer bachcha — Son of a wild boar
thor maa suda — fuck your mum
thor maar bothoy kha — eat your mums dick
Thumi amar nunu khoa, onek mishti — Eat my dick, its very sweet
Thuuii Bandhorr — You're A Monkey
Thuuii Gaadhaa — You're A Donkey
to-mar ma hetta — your mums pussy
Tor baaf fel Khai — Your dad sucks Dick
Tor Bafor Boga Saat — Lick Your Dad's Dick
tor ma amar fell — your mum is my dik
tor ma boga cha — eat your moms pussy
tor maa booni nay — your mom has no boobs
tor maa ke chudi — I'll fuck your Mother
Tor nanire chudi — I fuck your Granny
tor nunu bouut boro — your penis is very big
Tor pasha mota — Your buttock is fat
tu ekta bandar — Your a dumbass/monkey/idiot
Tur booga sooto — Your dick is small.
tur March booni khaa — suck your mums tits
tuy ath marros — you’re a wanker
Bengali Proverbs
A bad workman quarrels with his tools.
A bad penny always turns up.
A beggar cannot be a bankrupt.
Bachelors' wives' and maids' children are always well taught.
A beggar may sing before a pick-pocket.
A bully is always a cow.
A burnt child dreads the fire
Using a thorn to remove a thorn
One’s harvest month, is another’s complete devastation
Misfortune never comes alone
A prophet is not honoured in his own country
Even death is preferable to bondage
He is wicked to the backbone
You must not see things with half an eye
The devil would not listen to the scriptures
The very ruins of greatness are great
To break a butterfly on a wheel
To cherish a serpent in one’s bossom
[Source: advocatetanmoy.com]
One swallow does not make a summer
Out of debt, out of danger
What is sport to the cat is death to the rat
Too much cunning over reaches itself
Too much courtesy, too much craft
Non-violence is a supreme virtue
Empty vessels sound much
A tree is known by its fruits
Oil your own machine
Black will take no other hue
To the pure all things are pure
Example is better than precept
Constant dripping wears out the stone
Every dog is a lion at home
Banglish
Banglish is Bengali mixed with English terms along with anglicised versions of Bangla words and Bengalized versions of English words. People who speak Bangla and English have often switched between the two languages as other bilingual people do between their languages. The process was made more obvious and codified with online communication platforms, particularly Facebook. From this the hybrid language of Banglish was born. Researchers have investigated why Bangladeshi people, particularly those residing in the UK, switch between Bangla and English languages in online communication. The word ‘Banglish’ was first used to describe the hybrid language spoken by British Bangladeshis in East London. Afterwards, its use became recognized in many places and settings. [Source: termcoord.eu, March 25, 2018]
According to termcoord.eu: “Some recent studies have demonstrated that Banglish language may facilitate the communication within the community. This may hold true especially for those who are not proficient in one of the two languages: English and Bangla. Besides, Banglish can have social and economic impacts, and affect positively the Bangladeshis’ integration into the UK society. Though Banglish is not yet considered to be a fully diasporic language, many Bangladeshi locals residing in the UK started using the assimilation of the Bangla and the adopted English languages in their business logos, shop corners, and sign boards (Chowdhury, 2018).
“Examples of Banglish:
“Amader exam routine publish hoyese.” (Translation: “Our exam routine has been published”)
“Stop writing. Somoy sesh.” (Translation: “Stop writing. Time is up”)
“I do not know. Ata kivabe korbo.” (Translation: “I do not know how to do it”)
“Tomar barir interior ta onek sundor decorate and design koreso.” (Translation: “You have decorated and designed beautifully the interior of your house”)
'Banglish' Banned in Bangladesh Bans
In 2012, a Bangladesh court outlawed “Banglish” on television and radio stations, a move that was welcomed by experts worried about a foreign take over of their language. AFP reported: “The High Court issued the order in an effort to protect Bengali and its 1,000-year history, a state prosecutor said, adding that the court felt that the move was necessary “to uphold the sanctity of our mother tongue”. [Source: AFP, February 17, 2012]
“The head of the Bangla Academy, a state-run institution that publishes books and conducts research on Bengali, said the verdict was “long overdue”. “These FM radios and televisions were creating a strange language and almost destroyed the dynamics of our beautiful mother tongue,” Shamsuzzaman Khan told AFP. “It is a timely order. It will save our language from destruction. We have already seen how the Filipino language lost its glory due to the imposition of American English,” he said.
“The court order comes just days before the country celebrates the 60-year anniversary of the Language Movement, a protest in which half a dozen students were shot dead as they protested Pakistan’s move to impose Urdu.
“Dozens of private television stations and radio stations that feature music and talk-shows directed at teenagers and people in their twenties have sprouted in Bangladesh over the last five or six years.
“Use of “Banglish” in which Bengali and English words are mixed seamlessly together is widespread, as is “Hinglish” in India – a combination of Hindi and English. “The court has ordered them not to use words which are foreign to our language,” deputy attorney general Altaf Hossain told AFP. “It asked them not to broadcast or anchor programmes using distorted Bengali language or pronounce Bengali words in a distorted form,” he said.
“The court said this distortion of the language was tantamount to “rape”, Hossain said, adding it had also ordered a committee to be set up to oversee how the language should be used by broadcasters. The court order followed a newspaper commentary piece titled “Language pollution is as deadly as river pollution” by English language professor and Bengali fiction writer Syed Manjurul Islam.
“Professor Islam told AFP that he was concerned about the role the FM radios and television stations played in creating a language that was completely foreign to Bengali. “I am a teacher and I can see everyday how these youths were distorting the language. Because of these stations, they are now talking in a language that’s not Bengali. They can’t even talk or write properly in Bengali,” he said. “I am greatly concerned. They are turning Bengali into a street language. It’s like a developer constructing a building by uprooting the grave of his forefathers,” he said.
“Sabbir Hasan, a radio jockey at private Radio Today, also welcomed the verdict, but said the media was not the only one to blame. “I understand the intention is to uphold the sanctity of our language, for which our students gave their lives,” he said in a reference to the pre-independence protesters. “But the reality is not only the media is responsible. Our young generation likes to talk this way, mixing English words in Bangla sentences. The tendency is more rampant in upper class people and private university students.” “Upper class people think it gives them status,” he said.
Bangladesh Government Tries Again to Reign in Banglish Use
In January 2018, State Minister for Information Tarana Halim directed radio stations to avoid using “Bangreji” or “Banglish.” A few weeks earlier, the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology. Mustafa Jabbar said he wouldn't accept any letter written in English at his ministry. It has to be in Bangla.
Badiuzzaman Bay wrote in the Daily Force: “Normally, statements like these are orchestrated to please populist sentiments: They excite the crowd for a while, the speaker is showered with praise for saying the “right” thing, but eventually nothing happens. Halim's was also greeted with cheers. It was in part a response to concerns among academics and linguists about the increasing tendency to speak a distorted form of Bangla by radio jockeys and others. In February last year, while inaugurating an event observing the International Mother Language Day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also expressed her concern about Banglish. She made an impassioned appeal to the youth to avoid the tendency, which she likened to an “epidemic,” and urged the educationalists to find a way to prevent it. [Source: Badiuzzaman Bay, Daily Force, January 31, 2018]
“The debate over Banglish goes back nearly a decade. It started after the proliferation of private television and radio stations and the rise of social media when people's distinct linguistic choices became more apparent. There seems to be a general consensus that Bangla and English should not be mixed. That understanding, however, hasn't translated into action especially in quarters deemed particularly responsible for promoting the mix. But coming up with a ministerial directive to stop it, or imposing Bangla over English for that matter, is unprecedented and marks a radical shift in policy responses to our fast-changing linguistic pattern.
“Ironically, Bangla has historically been dependent on other languages for its development. A majority of Bangla words came from other languages including modified, unmodified and corrupted forms of Sanskrit words, as well as loanwords from various other sources. Language, like culture, is ever-evolving, and with globalisation allowing languages and cultures to mingle at a scale never seen before, the pace of evolution will only quicken, whether we like it or not.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022