NEW YORK, July 6: Ab 0 recognition of the presence of .1 large Bangladeshi immigrant population. Bengali has been made the second language in several schools in New York, according to India Abroad News Service.

It Is taught as a second language in some schools on Long Island. Queens and downtown Manhattan.

Hie office of bilingual education in New York State's Education Department had to make a list of languages to be used in an experimental school--The Newcomers -for freshly landed immigrants who had little or no knowledge of English.

The office had a difficult task. At least 80 major languages are in use among new New Yorkers, ranging from Amharic to Zulu. But there were funds for the use of only 15 languages. The only South Asian language that could make it to the last 15 was neither Urdu nor Hindi but Bengali.

Among the 40 to graduate from The Newcomers, as many as five were Bangladeshis, who two years ago did not know enough English to be even able to spell the names of their new neighbourhoods in New York. Now they are high school grad-

uates.

According to the Bureau of Statistical Records in Albany, the Bangladeshi community is among the fastest emerging immigrant groups. It is because of the presence of sizable Bengali-speaking immigrants in Queens that the Pubfic Library there decided to recognise Bengali as a language. There are 8.000 Bengali tines in the library now.