November 13 is most remembered in the city for being the day of the announcement of the Nobel prize in literature for Rabindranath Tagore. But other events of significance had also occurred on the day in other years, in and around the city.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the East India Company felt a need for employees with a good knowledge of Bengali.
Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Orientalist and philologist, conceptualised a grammar of Bengali. When difficulty arose with a Bengali font, Orientalist Charles Wilkins, who first translated the Bhagwad Gita into English, took up the project and supervised Panchanan Karmakar to create the first Bengali typeface.
A Bengali press was established at Hooghly by Halhed almost at the same time James Augustus Hicky set one up in Calcutta. These are the first two Bengali presses.
The printing of the grammar was completed on November 13, 1778. The work was the property of the East India Company.
Halhed’s grammar is considered the first grammar in the Bengali language, though by the time it was printed Halhed had left Bengal.
