Article

2009-02-07 Bangladesh

Bangla: 70pc can't read, write even after 5th grade

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Posted by Fred 2009-02-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11141 views ] Top

#1 They probably write with islamic ie arabic alphabet. A pure idiocy since it does not have vowels (and consonants are not that easy to discern) not a big problem in Arabic who has only three vowels but a big one in about every other language who have a dozen or so when you include variations (noted through diacritics in French.

When Mustafa Kemal had a new latin-based alphabet designed he toured through Turkey giving conferences and the end of them he picked people in the audience and made them write their names and simple words. Guess what? They succeeded.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2009-02-07 02:56|| 2009-02-07 02:56|| Front Page Top

#2 The official language is Bengali, which has a script similar to that of Sansckit IIRC.

Posted by lotp 2009-02-07 07:16|| 2009-02-07 07:16|| Front Page Top

#3 I have good news and bad news....

Posted by .5MT 2009-02-07 09:13|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2009-02-07 09:13|| Front Page Top

#4 This puts them on a par with the average education of delegates to the General Assembly of the United Nations. (And remember that the delegates from many western nations hold doctorates, when you figure that average.)

This is why Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) was hired by the UN to make picture books for illiterate delegates, explaining such complex issues as nuclear proliferation.

General Assembly delegates have on average 70 potentially lethal weapons, such as blow guns, knives, and poisons, confiscated from them on a daily basis by UN security. They annual vote that their favorite snack food is "fried locusts", and have only narrowly lost votes requiring "drums" to be one of the translation languages offered to delegates.

Now ask yourself why anyone in their right mind would want the UN to have actual authority in running the world?

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-02-07 09:19|| 2009-02-07 09:19|| Front Page Top

#5 Source, anon?

Posted by lotp 2009-02-07 09:40|| 2009-02-07 09:40|| Front Page Top

#6 JFM - the Japanese have a pictographic alphabet with thousands of characters PLUS two phonetic alphabets and they have 99% literacy. On the other hand, Japanese culture places a very high value on education.

Posted by DMFD 2009-02-07 10:44|| 2009-02-07 10:44|| Front Page Top

#7 DMFD

I juts wanted to emphasize that the use of an alphabet who is completely unadequate for a language has an influence on literacy (litteracy rates in Turkey went up fast after switching alphabets) and the role of Islam in illiteracy since ot shoves arabic alphabet in the throats of non-Arabic speaking populations.

I don't know Japanese but in Chinese it seems that the number of basic ideograms is relatively limited and the others are obtained by composition (where is Chang Fei when you need him) and their meaning can be deduced from the components.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2009-02-07 12:11|| 2009-02-07 12:11|| Front Page Top

#8 This is why Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) was hired by the UN

My personal favorite was "Horton hears a WMD" starring Hans Blix.

Nix, Nix, said Blix.
I do not see them here.
I do not see them there.
I do not see them anywhere.

Posted by SteveS 2009-02-07 12:44|| 2009-02-07 12:44|| Front Page Top

#9 "Also, 87 percent of these pupils failed to do simple mathematical calculations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division."

Posted by Frozen Al 2009-02-07 13:53|| 2009-02-07 13:53|| Front Page Top

#10 lotp: I said a bunch of stuff. What part(s) do you want sourced?

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-02-07 19:05|| 2009-02-07 19:05|| Front Page Top

#11 the Japanese have a pictographic alphabet with thousands of characters PLUS two phonetic alphabets and they have 99% literacy. On the other hand, Japanese culture places a very high value on education.

True, and trailing daughter #2 (the non-artistic one) is having great fun learning all that in her Japanese course at the university. But, while the Japanese are to be congratulated on their wonderfully high literacy rate, there are only 400-500 kanji in common usage, and those considered highly educated have a vocabulary of about 2000 characters. Also, there is a reason graphic novels are so popular over there -- reading non-picture books is hard work, and people, even the educated, quickly forget the kanji they don't use frequently... to the point that when an American colleague of Mr. Wife's, who was then working in Japan, asked one of his local people for help reading the newspaper, the Tokyo university graduate in question was unable to do so and advised him to wait for the television report. Very much like the way Americans test better in history and civics when they graduate from high school than than when they have been at university for a few years.

As for Bangladesh, some 50% of the population is female whose ability to read and do sums is deemed by the culture as unnecessary anyway... which only leaves about half of the male students as certifiable cabbage heads. ;-) Really, they ought to do as the Communist Chinese did: create a simplified alphabet that all can use to learn to read and write at a basic level (Mao's Little Red Book is written for kindergarteners! says my snobbish friend from Taiwan, who of course was taught the purist Mandarin), then let only the most advanced ones learn to read texts in classic Bengali Sanskrit-derivative and in Arabic as a reward for their diligence and cleverness. Or, as Kemal Ataturk did, transliterate to the Latin alphabet, and give the students a leg up in the world beyond their borders.

Anonymoose, where did you hear about the absurd weapons fetish of the UN delegates?

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2009-02-07 21:27|| 2009-02-07 21:27|| Front Page Top

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