Comilla
is now Cumilla. The English spelling of the Comilla district has been changed based on a decision from
the Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. The name / spelling of
five districts have been changed in line with their Bangla spelling and accent.
The five districts are Chittagong, Comilla, Barisal, Jessore and Bogra.
On
29th March, 2018 there was an announce from the Government about to
change the English spellings of Chittagong, Barisal, Comilla, Jessore and Bogra
districts. On 2nd April, 2018 the decisions were taken at a meeting
of the (NICAR) National Implementation Committee on Administrative Reforms held
at the Prime Minister's Office of Bangladesh.
After
the meeting the cabinet division secretary NM Ziaul Alam announced the changes
of the name as follows:
Comilla > Cumilla
Chittagong > Chattogram
Barisal > Barishal
Jessore > Jashore
Bogra > Bogura
The
secretary also said “Spellings of some districts date back to the British era. They
needed to be changed in accordance with their Bangla pronunciation.” The aim of
the changing was to remove the existing inconsistency with Bangla spellings of
these five districts names.
Reactions
about five district name changes:
Peoples
across the country express mixed reaction about these spelling changes on Newspapers,
Electronic Medias and also on Social Medias. This administrative change
received a lukewarm welcome from people. Some people appreciated the changes
but some peoples said that it will create some unnecessary confusion.
- Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam criticized this initiative, and termed it unnecessary. “This decision will erase the traditionality of these district's names. It will cost us a huge amount of public money that we cannot afford to spend”.
- Mir Nasir Hossain, former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FBCCI), believes the impact would be temporary, he added “Changes like this are not new. If we look at our neighbor India, they have changed the spellings of a number of their cities, such as Mumbai and Kolkata. The confusion will not last for long and everyone will get used to the new spellings”.
- Mostafiz Uddin, managing director of Denim Expert Ltd. and chief executive officer of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE), said business is often affected by name changes. “Changes such as this take time to get used to. People will get confused when they come across the new spellings as most people are still unaware of such development,”
- The director-general (DG) of Bangla Academy Mr. Shamsuzzaman Khan said, “The authorities concerned never sought the academy’s opinion on this matter. We have experts who could have provided their opinion on the proper English spellings for these five districts, which would have been better. When the spelling of the capital was changed from ‘Dacca’ to ‘Dhaka’ there were two different sets of opinion, but, later, the current spelling was accepted”.
- Professor emeritus Dr Anisuzzaman said that changing the English spellings of the five districts was unnecessary. “There was no confusion over the English spellings of these five districts, which have been in use for long,”
Source:
Bangla Tribune & Bangladesh Independent.
Thanks
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