CALCUTTA: Under the presidentship of the Hon’ble Khan Bahadur Saiyyid Muazzamuddin Husain, a meeting of the ‘East Pakistan Renaissance Society,’ was held at Kitab Mahal, 52, Lower Circular Road, Calcutta, on Sunday, the 19th December last… Mr. Mizanur Rahman read an article entitled “Our Mother Tongue…”

Mr. M. Rahman dealt with the kindred character of the real mother-tongue of Muslim Bengal. He quoted a large number of words in common use in popular parlance of Bengal, which were intrinsically foreign but naturalised as Bengali by centuries of use. He showed that these words were also common use in Urdu and in fact in the Bengal might justifiably be claimed by the Urdu-speaking people as Urdu and by the Bengali-speaking people as Bengali.

Mr. Rahman suggested that it was the substance that counted and not the name. The real point was the discovery and determination of the true nature of the mother tongue with a view to its development. The name being immaterial, there need be no quarrel or wise of words over it. The suggestion was made and well received that the mother tongue of East Pakistan might even be called, “Pakistani”.…

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2018