According to Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahamud, there are more over 350 million speakers of Bangla spoken worldwide, making it one of the most widely spoken languages worldwide.
“That is why, we would like to establish Bangla as the official language of the United Nations,” he said while talking to the media after paying respects to language martyrs at Central Shaheed Minar on Wednesday morning.
He said: “The recognition of Bangla as an international language is a great achievement for a nation in the international arena. Today our dream is to turn Bangla into the official language of the United Nations.”
The foreign minister said: “Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman decided to celebrate February 21 as protest day while sitting in jail. After this, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, February 21 has been anointed as International Mother Language Day in view of sending a proposal to the United Nations.”
The official languages of the United Nations are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
Prior to this, there had been multiple attempts to make Bangla an official language of the UN.
The proposal to make Bangla an official language was met with no resistance from any member state, but the UN was unable to implement it for budgetary concerns, according to Dr. AK Abdul Momen, the former foreign minister, in February 2021.
