Bangladesh has changed the English name of its second largest city from Chittagong to Chattogram, in line with how locals pronounce and write the name in Bengali, United News of Bangladesh reported on Monday.
The government also changed the English spellings of four other districts to reflect the indigenous names. Comilla will now be written as Cumilla, Barisal will now be spelled Barishal, Jessore will be Jashore, and Bogra is now Bogura.
The English spellings were till now inconsistent with how the names are written in Bangla, Cabinet Division Secretary NM Ziaul Alam said. “Spellings of some districts date back to the British era,” he said, according to BDNews24.com. “They needed to be changed.”
The National Implementation Committee on Administrative Reforms, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, took the decision to change the spellings.
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