A language is considered to be standardized when it has gone through substantial phases of codification which, consequently, results in people of a powerful socio-economic class endorsing it as the “correct” form of the language (superordinate), while other dialects are seen as “different from normal” (subordinate).
In the Bangladeshi context, as generalized as it may sound, people’s sense of nationalism is strongly connected to the history of 1952’s Language Movement. The feeling combined with the tendency of codifying is now prevalent in disparate spheres of Bangladeshi society.
People love romanticizing the language using the social, political, cultural, and historical elements that are perceived to be unique to the language. While the construction of such perceptions is predominantly political, the perpetuation of such ideas happens mostly within the socio-cultural realm of Bangladesh. Consequently, people not being able to speak in standard Bangla are ridiculed in different manners and degrees.
Unsure as to whether it has directly emerged from the repetitive endorsement of nationalistic narratives, the users of “pure Bangla” have a lot of privileges that are aspirational to many. Sometimes it is the explicitly mocking remarks and other times, it is the praise people receive for their capability of speaking “kabbik Bangla” (poetic Bengali) -- the pressure to sound proper is an inescapable reality for many Bangladeshis.
Being a university going, self-identified, urban upper-middle-class youth from Dhaka, I have many times encountered how easily university students make fun of people who are not capable of speaking “proper Bangla.” Admittedly, there are other heterogeneous clusters of people that quite casually tease local dialects.
Now, that is not inherently detrimental. Nevertheless, the contextual nuances that made a particular variation, unlike the dominant one, is a root worth tracing. Not pronouncing words in a standard Bengali manner, having different than standard Bengali word choice, and possessing an accent distinguishable from that of the standard Bangla language are often correlated with lack of smartness and basic education.
A massive threat to the social capital, being tagged as someone with lower social status is, in lots of cases, factorized by the way one speaks and/or uses the language. Given the pride Bengali-speaking Bangladeshi people take in the Language Movement of 1952, people love to talk about how much they love their mother tongue. In abruptly emerging nationalistic discourses -- memories of the event are quite frequently recollected, in the narratives of which the indigenous languages are readily discarded.
Romanticizing the Bengali language, quoting random literary anecdotes, and praising the Bengali vocabulary is something we regularly encounter. Every year, when celebrating International Mother Language Day, the frustration regarding the Bangladeshi youths’ inability of speaking proper Bengali (promito Bangla) refills. As per James Milroy, an important point is that the language of humans does not need to be categorized. Due to external factors such as social, cultural, and geographical ones, the language is divided into various forms.
Not only is the pride directly connected to the history, but also the general tendency of speaking in a “smart” manner or not, in a way inappropriate for the people from a “good” family (socio-economically affluent ones basically); all of which contributes to the pressure of speaking standard Bengali.
In one fascinating piece, Hasan and Adilur in 2014 discussed a 28-year-old parent, named Meghla, aspiring to teach their son standard Bangla. She thinks it is important to know standard Bangla in order to communicate with people. If taken into account the context that Meghla is from a multidialectal community, picking up a standard form of language might not seem like a big deal.
But in this case, the people Meghla refers to have a slightly different meaning. She is indicating the educated and upper-class elite people. Her anxiety is surrounding her son having the probability of facing discrimination for speaking a “not prestigious” and “unacceptable” form of the language.
Codification of Bangla is predominantly done based on the dialect spoken by the people from affluent social class who speak in standard Bangla. In order for the codification to happen and sustain, constant input is required. While this can be ensured in various ways, the focal point here is that the standardization of language can ensure the unobstructed flow of the immaterial, and in many cases, unintentional socio-political benefits.
There are people who are assigned with different roles in order for the standard language to sustain in a society as the standard. Norm enforcers, codifiers, authorities, among others, work in regulating and maintaining the standardization. That being said, it becomes more clearly visible that an inevitable aftermath of sustenance of standardization (the power of doing it) leads to shaming of regional dialects.
Even in recent Bangladeshi soap operas, we can see various characters speaking fluently in a regional dialect. In those cases, not the content but the style of presentation is what audiences laugh at. Besides, even in university spheres, say, during presentations, one of the criteria for proper presentation on a topic is the clarity of formal language.
For obvious reasons, (growing up in a region with barely any touch with the formal version of Bangla) many people are not able to speak in Bangla. In such cases, not being able to pronounce following the rules of standard Bangla is penalized.
With all that being said, it is for sure difficult to think beyond what one has learned as a norm within a societal context. From educational institutions to the forms of entertainment we consume, everywhere is subtle references of the regional dialects being subordinate to the not-so-dominant standard Bangla (considering, while talking among the peers, not many people care about their articulation). The contribution to the sustenance might be unintentional. It is detrimental nonetheless. For it stratifies certain groups of people.
Mashaekh Hassan is a freelance contributor and a student of Anthropology.