The government will develop a guideline on the use of Bangla on online media and internet-based platforms to ensure proper use of the language in the technology domain.
The guideline will also help solve the complexities faced by the global internet community on some letters and characters of the Bangla alphabet.
Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology has been working with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to finalise the guideline to enrich Bangla language on the internet.
The ministry has also been working on the international standard of Label Generation Regulation (LGR) for generating a more compatible Domain Name System (DNS) in Bangla.
While talking to the daily sun, Telecom and ICT minister Mustafa Jabbar said discussions on enriching the quality of Bangla on the internet had started a long time ago.
The ICANN sent a draft document to the ministry, pointing to the compatibility issues of some Bangla letters and characters on the internet.
“The use of Bangla on the internet came to the fore when we started getting Bangla domain names. Some Bangla letters and characters are compatible with the internet technology. We nominated a representative to continue the discussions with the ICANN to fix those issues,” Mustafa Jabbar said.
Two meetings were held in this regard in July and September with the participation of technology experts and linguistics.
The minister also said the ministry has already directed Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to ask all mobile operators to prohibit the use of Bangla in English characters in text messages.Mustafa also urged all to use the name of the language as ‘Bangla’ instead of Bengali or any other names.
“We have own alphabet with prime letters. We want to ensure proper use of our alphabet on the internet. There is no option to avoid any letters and characters while using Bangla in any medium,” the minister added.
The International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN) officially allotted the dot Bangla (.bangla) internet domain to Bangladesh in late 2016 after long procedures.
