At Santiniketan the environment is always present in one's consciousness. It becomes a part of one's being here, more than anywhere else, which is why it grows on you and having lived here once it is difficult to forget. The Santiniketan environment has changed, grown and evolved with its community .
Santiniketan is situated at an elevation of 200 feet above sea-level giving it a slight bulge in an otherwise flat landscape. The ground slopes gradually to 100 feet above sea-level near the Ajay river about 3 miles to the south and the Kopai stream,some 2 miles to the north. The southern boundary of Santiniketan merges into a vast plain of rice fields. On its northern fringes were the khoai lands with deeply indented
gullies caused by erosion over denuded land. The District Gazetteer of Birbhum records that in pre-British days, Birbhum had an extensive forest cover. Progressive denundation of forests played havoc with the porous laterite soil. During the hot months, fierce dust storms scattered the loose soil far and wide. During the rains heavy erosion took place as after every downpour water rushed through undulating land creating gullies and gorges in its relentless march.
source:visva-bharati.ac.in/Environment/santiniketan_environment.htm

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Official Language of Bangladesh

The Official Language of Bangladesh-Bangla

Bangla, being a member of the Indo-Aryan languages, is derived from Sanskrit, and hence appears to be similar to Hindi.Bengali or Bangla (IPA: [ˈbaŋla] (help·info) বাংলা) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, It is written left-to-right, top-to-bottom of page (same as English). Vocabulary is akin to Sanskrit, and whilst it is quite difficult at first, there are to some extent similarities with Latin as exemplified by the following words .

In West Bengal the language situation is somewhat different. Being predominantly a Hindu state, the Hindu greeting is "Namashkar". Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. There are also a significant number of Bengali speakers in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura. The way of addressing family members is somewhat different also: "ma" (mother), "baba" or "pita" (father). However, it is in the case of "dada" that confusion arises. For Muslims "dada" is paternal grandfather whereas for Hindus it is elder brother.

A strong influence of English in Bangla is easily noticeable. Primarily, during the days of the Raj many words of English origin such as "tebil" (table), "tiffin" (archaic in modern day English meaning snack box) entered Bangla. In more recent time the ever rising global nature of English has lead to words such as "television", "telephone", "video" and "radio" being adopted by Bangla.With its long and rich literary tradition, Bengali serves to bind together a culturally diverse region. In 1952, when Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan, this strong sense of identity led to the Bengali Language Movement ,However, unlike India, there has never been the need for English as a lingua franca and thus Bangla is the state language of Bangladesh.
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