Prime Minister Sushila Karki Trolled For Writing In Bengali Without Knowing Nepali Script

Kathmandu: Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s secretariat has come under fire for the script used in a recent social media post. Some users mocked the original script of the Nepal Bhasa (Nepal script) used in the government’s progress report from November 2 to 7, calling it “Bengali.”

The weekly progress report was posted on the Prime Minister’s official Facebook page in English, Nepali, and Maithili. The secretariat had posted the Nepali version twice, once in the Devanagari script and once in the Nepal Bhasa (Newa Unicode). The post written in this original script was widely misinterpreted on social media.

Font designer and Newa language scholar Anand Maharjan said the controversy arose due to a lack of knowledge about the script. Speaking to TechPana, he confirmed that the font used on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page is the Unicode version of the Nepal Bhasa.

“The name of this script is Nepal script,” Maharjan explained. “Just as we call Newari a Nepali language, this script is known as the Nepal script. It has been our script since the ninth century.”

According to him, the font used in the Prime Minister’s post is Google’s ‘Noto Sans Newa,’ which was made available in 2018. Maharjan said he was also involved in developing this font.

He added that the confusion spread because many people are unfamiliar with the script, and tools like Google Translate cannot detect or translate it. He explained that the script is known as “Newa Unicode,” and its ninth version was officially approved in 2016.

The proposal for Newa Unicode was sent in 2012. In 2018, Google made the ‘Noto Sans Newa’ font available, and the script has since been used in Keyman and other third-party keyboards. Maharjan said people have been chatting in Nepal script on mobile phones since 2018, after Google introduced it in the Android “Pie” version.

Although it has been in community use for years, the Prime Minister’s decision to publish the progress report using the Nepal script has been hailed as a historic step. Maharjan said, “This is the first time a Prime Minister has posted a progress report in the Nepal script. It gives importance to both the language and the script.”

You can click the link to convert the script into Devanagari.

 

पछिल्लो अध्यावधिक: कात्तिक २५, २०८२ १८:११

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