 Late
Dr. Bhakti Prasad Mallik was born on 29thOctober,
1922 at North Calcutta in West Bengal. After passing
the Intermediate examination he had taken admission
to the Scottish Church College with honours in Economics.
He completed his BA honours degree from this college
and was admitted to the department of Comparative
Philology (now Linguistics) of the University of
Calcutta for the M.A. degree. After passing M.A.
in Comparative Philology he registered his name
as a Ph.D. student under Professor Sukumer Sen,
the then Head of the Department. He got his Ph.D.
degree from the University in 1964.
Late Dr. Mallik's name is inextricably linked with
the department of Linguistics, Sanskrit College,
Kolkata, the only institution in West Bengal where
Linguistics is being taught at the undergraduate
level. He was in fact the founder of the department
of Linguistics in this college. He was appointed
the first permanent Lecturer in the department of
Linguistics. However, from the very beginning till
his retirement (1960-1984) Professor Mallik served
the department of Linguistics, Sanskrit college
as a devoted teacher and scholar.
Professor Late Bhakti Prasad Mallik (M. A., Ph.
D., University of Calcutta) is in the Department
of Linguistics, Government Sanskrit
College, University of Calcutta. Dr. Mallik's main
contributions -to linguistics have been in the areas
of Under world Languages, social dialects, and
Bengali phonology. He represented
India in different international
conferences and was
invited to preside
over Psycholinguistic Section, Group II, of the
Eleventh International Congress of Linguists, Bologna,
Italy, in 1972.
He is the
author of Language of the
Underworld of West Bengal,
Aparadh-jagater bhasha, the last two
books were awarded
Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Prize
by the Goverment of West Bengal in 1973 and of papers
published in technical and professional journals.
Late Dr. Bhakti Prasad Mallik's name is known to
the academic world through his contribution to the
field of Language and Linguistics. He was the pioneer
of studying the type and style of the Languages
of the Underworld. He obtained his Doctorate degree
from the University of Calcutta on this topic in
the year 1964. Later on, several books were written
by him on this topic both in English as well as
in Bengali. These are –
- Aparadh Jagater Bhasha (Language of the Underworld). 1971. Calcutta: Nababharat Publishers; revisededn. 198l. Dey's Publishing;
- Dictionary of the Underworld Argot. 1976.Calcutta: Indian Journal of Linguistics.
- Aparadh Jagater Bhasha O Sabdakosh. 1993. Calcutta: Dey's Publishing.
Dr Mallik's greatest contribution to the field of Linguistics is the Linguistic -Statistical Analysis of some of the writings of Tagore. After his retirement from Sanskrit College he was appointed the principal investigator of a project sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo and Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. It was the project on the Linguistic - Statistical Analysis of some of the writings of Tagore. Later on, it continued for more than ten years under some other sponsorship. During that period many young scholars all over Bengal were inspired by him to work in the field of Linguistics. Under his editorship as well as guidance many scholars joined the project. As a result of this research work several books were published. These are –
- Rabindranath Tagore's Sheshlekha -a Linguistic- Statistical Analysis. 2001. Calcutta: Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi.
- Linguistic -Statistical Analysis of Sabhyatar Sankat. 1996. Calcutta: Rabindra Bharati University.
- Linguistic - Statistical Analysis of Gitanjalt 1994. Calcutta: Indian Statistical Institute
In recognition
of his contribution to the field of the language
of the underworld Dr. Mallik was awarded the Rabindra
Puraskar by the Govt., of West Bengal in the year
1973. His another important contribution is - Phonemic
- Morphemic Frequencies of Bangla.1998. Calcutta:
The Asiatic society under joint authorship. He was
the general editor of the Suniti Kumar Chatterji
Commemoration Volume. 1981. Calcutta: The University
of Burdwan. This volume contains a paper by Dr.
Mallik, where he has discussed about Rabindranath
Tagore's styles of pronunciation.
He was the chief editor and the founder of
Indian Journal of Linguistics since its
birth. Prof. M.A.K. Haliday made out a journal named
" Language of the Under World of West Bengal"
where he introduced three men, Late Dr. Bhakti Prasad
Mallik was one of them.
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