Projects
First Fairytale Book
ABM Nazmul HUDA
- Bangladesh
- 70min
- mov
- color
Synopsis
As a child, Younguang loved listening to fairytales from his mother like all children do, but while studying at university he deeply realizes that their fairytales will be lost into the broad sweep of history. This thought moves him very much and he decides to do something about it. He starts travelling through the hills and seasons to collect and reconcile these fairytale stories from Mro elders. At one stage when he plans to publish a book of their fairytales after this hardship, he found no publisher immediately and also faces difficulties with the font for printing. But, he searches for a way out and finally makes it. Thus, the first literature book in the Mro language gets published in Bangladesh. This book impacts his life in many ways and also sets a mark in Mro history, and possibly in the history of world languages. Now he is collecting Mro traditional rhymes/poems, besides fruit-farming and novel writing, to publish another book in the Mro language.
Review
Among the indigenous communities that live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Mro are poor, humble, hard-working people in the remote areas of hills. Mro language is from the Tibeto-Burman sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and didn’t have an alphabet for a long time. In 1982, a young Mro invented Mro script & a writing system that inspired Mro people to learn their mother language and to get educated. Every 14 days one language dies and 90% of the world languages will become extinct by 2050, due to the small populations within communities. Mro in Bangladesh has a population of around 40,000 (2011 census), surrounded by dominant languages like Bangla, Marma, Chakma. Against such a backdrop, Younguang’s book Mro Fairytales seems to be a significant addition to Mro history & also to the history of languages. It’s like a beacon to celebrate diversity & identity from within! I would like to explore his journey & what impact this journey brought to his life and to his community.
Director
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ABM Nazmul HUDA
Credit
- Producer나즈물 후다 ABM Nazmul HUDA