DHAKA: A Bangladesh court on Thursday outlawed the use of “Banglish” on television and radio stations in an effort to protect the Bengali language from English slang, a state prosecutor said.

The high court issued the order over rampant use of English words by radio and TV presenters on scores of new private stations.

“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.

He said the court order was aimed at “upholding the sanctity” of the Bengali language, which originated some 1,000 years ago in the region which today comprises Bangladesh and India's West Bengal and is now the mother tongue of at least 250 million people.