Bengali বাংলা Bangla
Spoken in:	Bangladesh, India, and several others
Region:	Eastern South Asia
Total speakers:	230 million (189 million native) [1]
Ranking:	6,[2] 5,[3]
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Eastern Group     Bengali-Assamese      Bengali
Writing system:	Bengali script
Official status
Official language in:	Bangladesh,  India (West Bengal and Tripura)
Regulated by:	Bangla Academy (Bangladesh) Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi (West Bengal)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	bn
ISO 639-2:	ben
ISO 639-3:	ben
Global extent of Bengali. ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family The Indo-Aryan languages include some 210 ( SIL estimate languages and dialects spoken by many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Bengali script ( Bengali: বাংলা লিপি Bangla lipi) is a variant of the Eastern Nagari script also used for Assamese and ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo poʃtʃim bɔŋgo is a state in eastern India. ( Bengali script: ত্রিপুরা is a state in North-East India. This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language Bangla Academy (বাংলা একাডেমী established on 3 December 1955, is the national academy for promoting Bangla language in Bangladesh Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ বাংলা আকাদেমি popularly known as Bangla Akademi ( Bengali ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages
This page contains Indic text. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Bengali or Bangla (IPA: [ˈbaŋla] (help·info)) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit languages. The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia For geopolitical treatments see South Asia. Magadhi Prakrit is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits the written languages of Ancient India after the decline of Sanskrit as an official language Pali ( ISO 15919 / ALA-LC: Pāḷi is a Middle Indo-Aryan language or Prakrit of India. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical

Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Etymology and ethnology The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo poʃtʃim bɔŋgo is a state in eastern India. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages (ranking fifth^[3] or sixth^[2] in the world). This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use Bengali is the primary language spoken in Bangladesh and is the second most spoken language in India. ^[4][5] Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-Iranian languages. Assamese (অসমীয়া) (ɔxɔmija is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, spoken mainly in the state of Assam in North-East The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages

With its long and rich literary tradition, Bengali serves to bind together a culturally diverse region. In 1952, when Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan, this strong sense of identity led to the Bengali Language Movement, in which several people braved bullets and died on February 21. East Pakistan ( Bengali: পূর্ব পাকিস্তান Purbo Pakistan, Urdu: مشرقی پاکستان Mashriqi Pakistan) was The Bengali Language Movement, also known as the Language Movement (ভাষা আন্দোলন Bhasha Andolon) was a political effort in Bangladesh Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland This day has now been declared as the International Mother Language Day. 21 February was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999.

Contents 1 History 2 Geographical distribution 2.1 Official status 2.2 Dialects 3 Spoken and literary varieties 4 Writing system 4.1 Spelling-to-pronunciation inconsistencies 4.2 Uses in other languages 4.3 Romanization 5 Sounds 5.1 Diphthongs 5.2 Stress 5.3 Intonation 5.4 Vowel length 5.5 Consonant clusters 6 Grammar 6.1 Word order 6.2 Nouns 6.3 Verbs 7 Vocabulary 8 Sample audio 9 Sample text 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 External links

History

Like other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali arose from the eastern Middle Indic languages of the Indian subcontinent. The Indo-Aryan languages include some 210 ( SIL estimate languages and dialects spoken by many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the The Middle Indo-Aryan ( Middle Indic) languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia For geopolitical treatments see South Asia. Magadhi Prakrit, the earliest recorded spoken language in the region and the language of the Buddha, had evolved into Ardhamagadhi ("Half Magadhi") in the early part of the first millennium CE. Magadhi Prakrit is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits the written languages of Ancient India after the decline of Sanskrit as an official language A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth. Siddhārtha Gautama ( Sanskrit; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual Teacher from Ancient India and the founder Jain Prakrit is a term loosely used for the language of the Jain canon ^[6][7] Ardhamagadhi, as with all of the Prakrits of North India, began to give way to what are called Apabhramsa languages just before the turn of the first millennium. ^[8] The local Apabhramsa language of the eastern subcontinent, Purvi Apabhramsa or Apabhramsa Abahatta, eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups: the Bihari languages, the Oriya languages, and the Bengali-Assamese languages. Abahatta (also Apabhramsa Avahatta, Apabhramsha Abahatta or Purvi Apabhramsa) is a stage in the evolution of the Eastern group of Indo-Aryan languages Bihari is a name given to the western group of Eastern Indic languages, spoken in Bihar and neighboring states in India. Oriya (ଓଡ଼ିଆ oṛiā) is one of the Indian Languages mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. Some argue for much earlier points of divergence—going back to even 500 CE^[9] but the language was not static; different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects. For example, Magadhi Prakrit is believed to have evolved into Apabhramsa Abahatta around the 6th century which competed with Bengali for a period of time. ^[10]

Usually three periods are identified in the history of Bengali:^[8]

1. Old Bengali (900/1000 CE–1400 CE)—texts include Charyapada, devotional songs; emergence of pronouns Ami, tumi, etc; verb inflections -ila, -iba, etc. The Charyapada ( Bangla: চর্যাপদ Assamese: চৰ্যাপদ is a collection of 8th-12th century Vajrayana Buddhist Caryagiti In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice Oriya and Assamese branch out in this period. Oriya (ଓଡ଼ିଆ oṛiā) is one of the Indian Languages mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. Assamese (অসমীয়া) (ɔxɔmija is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, spoken mainly in the state of Assam in North-East
2. Middle Bengali (1400–1800 CE)—major texts of the period include Chandidas's Srikrishnakirtan; elision of word-final ô sound; spread of compound verbs; Persian influence. Chandidas ( Bangla: চন্ডীদাস (born 1408 CE refers to (possibly more than one medieval poet of Bengal. Shreekrishna Kirtana Kabya (Bengali শ্রীকৃষ্ণকীর্তন কাব্য or Sri Krishna Kirtana Kabya is a pastoral Vaishnava drama in verse Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a Vowel, a Consonant, or a whole Syllable) in a word or phrase producing a result that is easier Some scholars further divide this period into early and late middle periods.
3. New Bengali (since 1800 CE)—shortening of verbs and pronouns, among other changes (e. g. tahar → tar "his"/"her"; koriyachhilô → korechhilo he/she had done). Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state

Historically closer to Pali, Bengali saw an increase in Sanskrit influence during the Middle Bengali (Chaitanya era), and also during the Bengal Renaissance. Pali ( ISO 15919 / ALA-LC: Pāḷi is a Middle Indo-Aryan language or Prakrit of India. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (also transliterated Caitanya, IAST caitanya mahāprabhu) ( Bengali চৈতন্য মহাপ্রভূ (1486 - The Bengal Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the region of Bengal in Undivided India during the ^[11] Of the modern Indo-European languages in South Asia, Bengali and Marathi maintain a largely Sanskrit vocabulary base while Hindi and others such as Punjabi are more influenced by Arabic and Persian. Marathi (mr मराठी Marāṭhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of what is considered western India. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Punjabi may refer to The Punjabi language of Pakistan and India Punjabi grammar List of Punjabi Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language ^[12]

Until the 18th century, there was no attempt to document the grammar for Bengali. The Shaheed Minar (শহীদ মিনার Shohid Minar) is a national monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, established to commemorate those killed Dhaka (also known as Dacca ( Bangla: ঢাকা ɖʱaka is the Capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka District. The first written Bengali dictionary/grammar, Vocabolario em idioma Bengalla, e Portuguez dividido em duas partes, was written by the Portuguese missionary Manoel da Assumpcam between 1734 and 1742 while he was serving in Bhawal. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. A missionary is a member of a Religion who works to convert those who do not share the missionary's faith someone who proselytizes. Manuel da Assumpção (sometimes spelled Manoel da Assumpçam) was a Portuguese Missionary who wrote the first grammar of Bengali language (Bangla ^[13] Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, wrote a modern Bengali grammar (A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778)) that used Bengali types in print for the first time. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed ( 25 May 1751 &ndash 18 February 1830) was an English Orientalist and Philologist. The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a State in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1800 Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium. ^[1] Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great Bengali reformer,^[14] also wrote a "Grammar of the Bengali Language" (1832). Ram Mohan Roy ( August 14, 1774 – September 27, 1833) was a founder in 1828 (with Dwarkanath Tagore and other Bengali

During this period, the Choltibhasha form, using simplified inflections and other changes, was emerging from Shadhubhasha (older form) as the form of choice for written Bengali. ^[15]

Bengali was the focus, in 1951–52, of the Bengali Language Movement (Bhasha Andolon) in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The Bengali Language Movement, also known as the Language Movement (ভাষা আন্দোলন Bhasha Andolon) was a political effort in Bangladesh East Pakistan ( Bengali: পূর্ব পাকিস্তান Purbo Pakistan, Urdu: مشرقی پاکستان Mashriqi Pakistan) was ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially ^[16] Although Bengali speakers were more numerous in the population of Pakistan, Urdu was legislated as the sole national language. Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and Urdu ( ur '''{{Nastaliq اردو}}''' trans Urdū, historically spelled Ordu) is a Central Indo-Aryan language Urdu is a standardised ^[17] On February 21, 1952, protesting students and activists walked into military and police fire in Dhaka University and three young students and several others were killed. Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The University of Dhaka (commonly referred to as Dhaka University or just DU) ( Bengali: ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় Đhaka ^[18] Later in 1999, UNESCO decided to celebrate every 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the deaths of the three students. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland 21 February was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. ^[19][20] In a separate event in May 1961, police in Silchar, India, killed eleven people who were protesting legislation that mandated the use of the Assamese language. WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Silchar (শিলচর Shilchôr, Assamese: শিলচৰ Xilsôr, Sylheti ^[21]

Geographical distribution

Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Etymology and ethnology The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo poʃtʃim bɔŋgo is a state in eastern India. Around 98% of the total population of Bangladesh speak Bengali as a native language. ^[22] There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in immigrant populations in the Middle East, West and Malaysia. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings For the biogeographical region see Malesia Malaysia (məˈleɪʒə or /məˈleɪziə/ is a country that consists of thirteen states and

Official status

Bengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India. ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially The Constitution of India envisages Hindi as the primary official language to be used by the Union Government, with English as the subsidiary official language ^[23] It is the official language of the states of West Bengal and Tripura. West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo poʃtʃim bɔŋgo is a state in eastern India. ( Bengali script: ত্রিপুরা is a state in North-East India. ^[24] It is a major language in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands is a Union territory of India. Informally the territory's name is often abbreviated to A & N Islands, or ANI ^[25][26] It was made an official language of Sierra Leone in order to honour the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force from the United Nations stationed there. Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security ^[27] It is also the co-official language of Assam, which has three predominantly Sylheti-speaking districts of southern Assam: Silchar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi. Sylheti (native name সিলটী Silôţi; Bengali name সিলেটী Sileţi) is the language of Sylhet, the north-eastern region WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Silchar (শিলচর Shilchôr, Assamese: শিলচৰ Xilsôr, Sylheti WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Karimganj is a city and a municipal board in Karimganj district in the Indian state WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Hailakandi is a city and a municipal board in Hailakandi district in the Indian state ^[28] The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Jana Gana Mana (জন গণ মন Jôno Gôno Mono) is the National anthem of India. Amar Shonar Bangla (My Golden Bengal ( Bangla:আমার সোনার বাংলা is a 1906 song written and composed by the poet Rabindranath ^[29]

Dialects

Main article: Bengali dialects

Regional variation in spoken Bengali constitutes a dialect continuum. The dialects of the Bengali language are part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan language group of the Indo-European language family A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee grouped these dialects into four large clusters — Rarh, Banga, Kamarupa and Varendra;^[1] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. Suniti Kumar Chatterji ( Bengali: সুনীতিকুমার চট্টোপাধ্যায় Shunitikumar Chôṭṭopaddhae) (1890-1977 was a ^[30] The south-western dialects (Rarh) form the basis of standard colloquial Bengali, while Bangali is the dominant dialect group in Bangladesh. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bengal (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal are pronounced as fricatives. Barisal City is an old Port at the mouth of the River Ganges on the northern shore of the Bay of Bengal in southern Bangladesh. Chittagong ( Bengali: চট্টগ্রাম Chôţţogram) is Bangladesh 's main Seaport and its second-largest city Dhaka (also known as Dacca ( Bangla: ঢাকা ɖʱaka is the Capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka District. This article is about the city For the upazila or district or the administrative division see Sylhet Sadar Upazila or Sylhet District or Sylhet Division Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Western palato-alveolar affricates চ [ tʃ], ছ [ tʃʰ], জ [[dʒ]] correspond to eastern চʻ [ts], ছ় [s], জʻ [dz]~[[z]]. Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels. The Tibeto-Burman family of languages (often considered a sub-group of the Sino-Tibetan Language family) is spoken in various central and south Asian countries including Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Chittagonian (চাটগাঁইয়া বুলি Chaţgãia Buli) is an Indo-European language spoken by the people of Chittagong in Bangladesh The Chakma language ( Changma Vaj or Changma Khoda) is an Indo-European language spoken in southeastern Bangladesh and neighboring areas of Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words

Rajbangsi, Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. NABARAJ is an Eastern Indic language spoken in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Similarly, Hajong is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. Hajong is an Indo-Aryan language with Tibeto-Burman roots spoken by about 19000 ethnic Hajong in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, ^[31]

During the standardization of Bengali in the late 19th and early 20th century, the cultural center of Bengal was its capital Kolkata (then Calcutta). What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia, a district located near Kolkata. Nadia is a district of the state of West Bengal, in the north east of the Republic of India. ^[32] There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use a different word than a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, nun (salt) in the west corresponds to lôbon in the east. ^[33]

Spoken and literary varieties

Bengali exhibits diglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. In Linguistics, diglossia is a situation where in a given society there are two (often closely-related languages one of high prestige, which is generally used ^[34] Two styles of writing, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax, have emerged:^[32][35]

1. Shadhubhasha (সাধু shadhu = 'chaste' or 'sage'; ভাষা bhasha = 'language') was the written language with longer verb inflections and more of a Sanskrit-derived (তৎসম tôtshôm) vocabulary. Sadhu Bhasa is a literary variation of Bengali language. It remained as a form only to be used in written form unlike the Chalit bhasa or the colloquial Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Songs such as India's national anthem Jana Gana Mana (by Rabindranath Tagore) and national song Vande Mātaram (by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay) were composed in Shadhubhasha. Jana Gana Mana (জন গণ মন Jôno Gôno Mono) is the National anthem of India. Bande Mataram redirects here for other uses of the term see Bande Mataram (disambiguation. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee ( 27 June[[ 838]] - 8 April[[ 894]] (বঙ্কিম চন্দ্র চট্টোপাধ্যায় Bôngkim However, use of Shadhubhasha in modern writing is negligible, except when it is used deliberately to achieve some effect.
2. Choltibhasha (চলতিভাষা ) or Cholitobhasha (চলিত cholito = 'current' or 'running') , known by linguists as Manno Cholit Bangla (Standard Colloquial Bengali), is a written Bengali style exhibiting a preponderance colloquial idiom and shortened verb forms, and is the standard for written Bengali now. This form came into vogue towards the turn of the 19th century, promoted by the writings of Peary Chand Mitra (Alaler Gharer Dulal, 1857),^[36] Pramatha Chowdhury (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. Peary Chand Mitra (প্যারীচাঁদ মিত্র (1814-1883 a member of Derozio’s Young Bengal group author and journalist played a leading Alaler Gharer Dulal (published in 1857 is a Bengali novel by Peary Chand Mitra (1814-1883 Pamathanath Chaudhuri (Bengali প্রমথনাথ চৌধুরী ( 7 August 1868 — 2 September 1946, known as Pramatha Chaudhuri It is modeled on the dialect spoken in the Shantipur region in Nadia district, West Bengal. for the towns in Nepal see Shantipur Nepal WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Shantipur (শান্তিপুর Nadia is a district of the state of West Bengal, in the north east of the Republic of India. West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo poʃtʃim bɔŋgo is a state in eastern India. This form of Bengali is often referred to as the "Nadia standard" or "Shantipuri bangla". ^[30]

Linguistically, cholit bangla is derived from sadhu bangla through two successive standard linguistic transformations.

While most writings are carried out in cholit bangla, spoken dialects exhibit a far greater variety. South-eastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in manno cholit bangla. Other parts of West Bengal and west Bangladesh speak in dialects that are minor variations, such as the Medinipur dialect characterised by some unique words and constructions. However, areas of Bangladesh, particularly the Chittagong region, speak in a dialect that bears very little superficial resemblance to manno cholit bangla. Chittagong ( Bengali: চট্টগ্রাম Chôţţogram) is Bangladesh 's main Seaport and its second-largest city ^[37] This is known as the Bongali sublanguage, or more informally as Chattagram bangla, and is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. ^[37] Writers (such as Manik Bandopadhyay in Padmanodir Majhi) have used the Bongali dialect in writing conversations. Manik Bandopadhay ( Bangla: মানিক বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায় (1908-1956 is one of the most influential novelists in Bangla literature Though formal spoken Bengali is modeled on manno cholit bangla, the majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety — often, speakers are fluent in choltibhasha and one or more Regional dialects. ^[15]

Even in Standard Bengali, vocabulary items often divide along the split between the Muslim populace and the Hindu populace. A Muslim (مسلم pronounced Muslim, not Muzlim) is an adherent of the Religion A Hindu ( Devanagari: हिन्दू is an adherent of the philosophies and scriptures of Hinduism, a set of religious, Philosophical Due to cultural and religious traditions, Hindus and Muslims might use, respectively, Sanskrit-derived and Perso-Arabic words. ^[38] Some examples of lexical alternation between these two forms are:^[33]

• hello: nômoshkar (S) corresponds to assalamualaikum/slamalikum (A)
• invitation: nimontron/nimontonno (S) corresponds to daoat (A)
• paternal uncle: kaka (S) corresponds to chacha (S/Hindi)
• water : jol (D) corresponds to pani (S)

(here S = derived from Sanskrit, D = deshi; A = derived from Arabic)

Writing system

Main article: Bengali script

The Bengali writing system is not purely alphabet-based such as the Latin script. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either Rather, it is written in the Bengali abugida, a variant of the Eastern Nagari script used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which The Eastern Nagari script (also known as the Eastern Neo-Brahmic script or the Purvi Script) is an Abugida system of writing It is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE,^[39] and is similar to the Devanagari abugida used for Sanskrit and many modern Indic languages such as Hindi. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is It has particularly close historical relationships with the Assamese script and the Oriya script (although the latter is not evident in appearance). The Assamese script (অসমীয়া আখৰ Ôxômiya Akhôr) is a variant of the Eastern Nagari script also used for Bengali and Bishnupriya The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language, and can be used for several other Indian languages for example Sanskrit. The Bengali abugida is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting the independent form of nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine signs denoting the consonants with the so called "inherent" vowels. For the indie rock band see Cursive (band. Cursive is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing down notes and In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal ^[39] The concept of capitalization is absent in Bengali writing system. There is no variation in initial, medial and final forms as in the Arabic script. The letters run from left to right on a horizontal line, and spaces are used to separate orthographic words.

Although the consonant signs are presented as segments in the basic inventory of the Bengali script, they are actually orthographically syllabic in nature. Every consonant sign has the vowel অ [ɔ] (or sometimes the vowel ও [o]) "embedded" or "inherent" in it. ^[40] For example, the basic consonant sign ম is pronounced [mɔ] in isolation. The same ম can represent the sounds [mɔ] or [mo] when used in a word, as in মত [mɔt̪] "opinion" and মন [mon] "mind", respectively, with no added symbol for the vowels [ɔ] and [o].

A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than [ɔ] is orthographically realized by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel ligature. Allography, from the Greek for "other writing" has several meanings which all relate to how Words and Sounds are written down These allographs, called kars (cf. Hindi matras) are dependent vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example, the graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i], where [i] is represented as the allograph ি and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma], মী [mi], মু [mu], মূ [mu], মৃ [mri], মে [me]/[mæ], মৈ [moj], মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. It should be noted that in these consonant-vowel ligatures, the so-called "inherent" vowel is expunged from the consonant, but the basic consonant sign ম does not indicate this change.

To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it, a special diacritic, called the hôshonto (্‌), may be added below the basic consonant sign (as in ম্‌ [m]). This diacritic, however, is not common, and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation.

Three other commonly used diacritics in the Bengali are the superposed chôndrobindu (ঁ), denoting a suprasegmental for nasalization of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed onushshôr (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bishôrgo (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!"). In Phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a " fricative " is a type of sound used in some spoken Languages which often behaves like a

The vowel signs in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent a vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি). A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realized using its independent form.

The Bengali consonant clusters (যুক্তাক্ষর juktakkhor in Bengali) are usually realized as ligatures, where the consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. Consonant clusters in Bengali are very common word-initially due to a long history of borrowing from English and Sanskrit, two languages In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Many of their shapes have to be learned by rote. Recently, in a bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from the graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognize both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden.

Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the daŗi (|), the Bengali equivalent of a full stop, have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. ^[1]

Whereas in western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc. ) the letter-forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms hang from a visible horizontal headstroke called the matra (not to be confused with its Hindi cognate matra, which denotes the dependent forms of Hindi vowels). The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example, the letter ত [tɔ] and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra, as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র [trɔ] and the independent vowel এ [e]. The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between the visible matra and an invisible baseline).

Spelling-to-pronunciation inconsistencies

In spite of some modifications in the nineteenth century, the Bengali spelling system continues to be based on the one used for Sanskrit,^[1] and thus does not take into account some sound mergers that have occurred in the spoken language. For example, there are three letters (শ, ষ, and স) for the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ], although the letter স does retain the voiceless alveolar fricative [s] sound when used in certain consonant conjuncts as in স্খলন [skʰɔlon] "fall", স্পন্দন [spɔndon] "beat", etc. The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative ( IPA) is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The voiceless alveolar fricatives are Consonantal sounds The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a There are two letters (জ and য) for the voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ] as well. The voiced palato-alveolar affricate, also described as voiced domed postalveolar affricate, is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages What was once pronounced and written as a retroflex nasal ণ [ɳ] is now pronounced as an alveolar [n] (unless conjoined with another retroflex consonant such as ট, ঠ, ড and ঢ), although the spelling does not reflect this change. In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants The near-open front unrounded vowel [æ] is orthographically realized by multiple means, as seen in the following examples: এত [æt̪o] "so much", এ্যাকাডেমী [ækademi] "academy", অ্যামিবা [æmiba] "amoeba", দেখা [d̪ækha] "to see", ব্যস্ত [bæst̪o] "busy", ব্যাকরণ [bækɔron] "grammar".

The realization of the inherent vowel can be another source of confusion. The vowel can be phonetically realized as [ɔ] or [o] depending on the word, and its omission is seldom indicated, as in the final consonant in কম [kɔm] "less".

Many consonant clusters have different sounds than their constituent consonants. For example, the combination of the consonants ক্‌ [k] and ষ [ʃɔ] is graphically realized as ক্ষ and is pronounced [kʰːo] (as in রুক্ষ [rukʰːo] "rugged") or [kʰo] (as in ক্ষতি [kʰot̪i] "loss") or even [kʰɔ] (as in ক্ষমতা [kʰɔmot̪a] "power"), depending on the position of the cluster in a word. The Bengali writing system is, therefore, not always a true guide to pronunciation.

For a detailed list of these inconsistencies, consult Bengali script. The Bengali script ( Bengali: বাংলা লিপি Bangla lipi) is a variant of the Eastern Nagari script also used for Assamese and

Uses in other languages

The Bengali script, with a few small modifications, is also used for writing Assamese. Assamese (অসমীয়া) (ɔxɔmija is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, spoken mainly in the state of Assam in North-East Other related languages in the region also make use of the Bengali alphabet. Meitei, a Sino-Tibetan language used in the Indian state of Manipur, has been written in the Bengali abugida for centuries, though Meitei Mayek (the Meitei abugida) has been promoted in recent times. Meitei-lon (মেইতেই লোন্ also Meitei-lol (মেইতেই লোল্ and Manipuri (মনিপুরি (and sometimes the 19th century The Sino-Tibetan languages form a Language family composed of at least the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of Manipur (mnipur in Meitei Mayek) is a state in northeastern India, making its capital in the city of Meitei Mayek script (also Meithei Mayek, Meetei Mayek, Manipuri script) (Manipuri Meetei Mayek) is an Abugida that was used The script has been adopted for writing the Sylheti language as well, replacing the use of the old Sylheti Nagori script. Sylheti (native name সিলটী Silôţi; Bengali name সিলেটী Sileţi) is the language of Sylhet, the north-eastern region ^[41]

Romanization

Main article: Romanization of Bengali

Several conventions exist for writing Indic languages including Bengali in the Latin script, including "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration" or IAST (based on diacritics),^[42] "Indian languages Transliteration" or ITRANS (uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards),^[43] and the National Library at Calcutta romanization. The Romanization of Bengali, or the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) The National Library at Kolkata Romanization is the most widely used Transliteration scheme in dictionaries and grammars of Indic languages ^[44]

In the context of Bangla Romanization, it is important to distinguish between transliteration from transcription. In Linguistics, romanization (or latinization, also spelled romanisation or latinisation) is the representation of a Word or Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing Transliteration is orthographically accurate (i. e. the original spelling can be recovered), whereas transcription is phonetically accurate (the pronunciation can be reproduced). Since English does not have the sounds of Bangla, and since pronunciation does not completely reflect the spellings, being faithful to both is not possible.

Although it might be desirable to use a transliteration scheme where the original Bangla orthography is recoverable from the Latin text, Bangla words are currently Romanized on Wikipedia mixed a phonemic transcription, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to how it is written. A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, with the IPA transcriptions as used above.

Vowels   Front Central Back Close i   u Close-mid e   o Open-mid ê   ô Open   a

Consonants   Labial Dental Alveolar Apico- Postalveolar Lamino- Postalveolar Velar Glottal Nasal m   n     ng   Plosive voiceless p ph t th   ţ ţh ch chh k kh   voiced b bh d dh   đ đ j jh g gh   Fricative       s     sh     h   Liquid     l, r ŗ

Sounds

Main article: Bengali phonology

The phonemic inventory of Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically Bengali phonology is the study of the inventory and patterns of the Consonants Vowels and Prosody of the Bengali language. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU In Phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by An approximate phonetic scheme is set out below in International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech

Vowels   Front Central Back Close i   u Close-mid e   o Open-mid æ   ɔ Open   a

Consonants   Labial Dental Alveolar Apico- Postalveolar Lamino- Postalveolar Velar Glottal Nasal m   n     ŋ   Plosive voiceless p pʰ1 t̪ t̪ʰ   ʈ ʈʰ ʧ ʧʰ k kʰ   voiced b bɦ d̪ d̪ɦ   ɖ ɖɦ ʤ ʤɦ ɡ ɡɦ   Fricative f       s z     ʃ       h   Liquid     l, r ɽ

Diphthongs

Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds ^[45] Several vowel combinations can be considered true monosyllabic diphthongs, made up of the main vowel (the nucleus) and the trailing vowel (the off-glide). Almost all other vowel combinations are possible, but only across two adjacent syllables, such as the disyllabic vowel combination [u. a] in কুয়া kua "well". As many as 25 vowel combinations can be found, but some of the more recent combinations have not passed through the stage between two syllables and a diphthongal monosyllable. ^[46]

Diphthongs

IPA	Transliteration	Example
/ij/	ii	nii "I take"
/iw/	iu	biubhôl "upset"
/ej/	ei	nei "there is not"
/ee̯/	ee	khee "having eaten"
/ew/	eu	đheu "wave"
/eo̯/	eo	kheona "do not eat"
/æe̯/	êe	nêe "she takes"
/æo̯/	êo	nêo "you take"
/aj/	ai	pai "I find"
/ae̯/	ae	pae "she finds"
/aw/	au	pau "sliced bread"
/ao̯/	ao	pao "you find"
/ɔe̯/	ôe	nôe "she is not"
/ɔo̯/	ôo	nôo "you are not"
/oj/	oi	noi "I am not"
/oe̯/	oe	dhoe "she washes"
/oo̯/	oo	dhoo "you wash"
/ow/	ou	nouka "boat"
/uj/	ui	dhui "I wash"

Stress

In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Bengali words are virtually all trochaic; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as shô-ho-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. A trochee or choree, choreus, is a Metrical foot used in formal Poetry. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable is stressed, causing them to be out of harmony with native Bengali words. ^[47]

Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left. An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word For example, while the word shob-bho "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob], adding the negative prefix [ô-] creates ô-shob-bho "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ ô. In Logic and Mathematics, negation or not is an operation on Logical values for example the logical value of a Proposition In any case, word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress. ^[47]

Intonation

For Bengali words, intonation or pitch of voice has minor significance, apart from a few isolated cases. However in sentences intonation does play a significant role. ^[48] In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in Bengali carry a rising tone,^[49] with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. In Linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it often preceded and followed Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words This intonational pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence. In Linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch whilst speaking which is not used to distinguish words

In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone. Focus is a concept in linguistic theory that deals with how information in one phrase relates to information that has come before ^[49] This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone. ^[50]

Vowel length

Vowel length is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel",^[51] unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound However, when morpheme boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. This is due to the fact that open monosyllables (i. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types. ^[52] For example, the vowel in cha: "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in chaţa "licking", as cha: is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a colon : in these examples. ) The suffix ţa "the" can be added to cha: to form cha:ţa "the tea". An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word Even when another morpheme is attached to cha:, the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation. ^[52]

Furthermore, using a form of reduplication called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in cha: can be copied into the reduplicant ţa:, giving cha:ţa: "tea and all that comes with it". Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated Thus, in addition to cha:ţa "the tea" (long first vowel) and chaţa "licking" (no long vowels), we have cha:ţa: "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels).

Consonant clusters

Main article: Bengali consonant clusters

Native Bengali (tôdbhôbo) words do not allow initial consonant clusters;^[53] the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i. Consonant clusters in Bengali are very common word-initially due to a long history of borrowing from English and Sanskrit, two languages In Linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of Consonants which have no intervening Vowel. e. one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV. CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC. CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school".

Sanskrit (তৎসম tôtshômo) words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the mr in মৃত্যু mrittu "death" or the sp in স্পষ্ট spôshţo "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী bideshi) borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity to CCCVCCCC, as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন ţren "train" and গ্লাস glash "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries.

Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali. ^[54] Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্‌ট lifţ "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক bêņk "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ gônj, which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ Nôbabgônj and মানিকগঞ্জ Manikgônj. Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ chand "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of chand would be চাঁদ chãd, with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster.

Grammar

Main article: Bengali grammar

Bengali nouns are not assigned gender, which leads to minimal changing of adjectives (inflection). Bengali grammar (বাংলা ব্যাকরণ is the study of the morphology and Syntax of Bengali, an Indo-European language spoken In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice However, nouns and pronouns are highly declined (altered depending on their function in a sentence) into four cases while verbs are heavily conjugated. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the In Linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a Verb, Noun or Adjective from its Principal parts by Inflection

As a consequence, unlike Hindi, Bengali verbs do not change form depending on the gender of the nouns.

Word order

As a Head-Final language, Bengali follows Subject Object Verb word order, although variations to this theme are common. The Head directionality parameter is a proposed parameter that classifies Word order. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic ^[55] Bengali makes use of postpositions, as opposed to the prepositions used in English and other European languages. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. Determiners follow the noun, while numerals, adjectives, and possessors precede the noun. A determiner is a Noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase in the context including quantity rather than attributes expressed by Adjectives In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the Possession, in the context of Linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents the Referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses ^[56]

Yes-no questions do not require any change to the basic word order; instead, the low (L) tone of the final syllable in the utterance is replaced with a falling (HL) tone. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Additionally optional particles (e. In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore g. কি -ki, না -na, etc. ) are often encliticized onto the first or last word of a yes-no question. In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word.

Wh-questions are formed by fronting the wh-word to focus position, which is typically the first or second word in the utterance. Focus is a concept in linguistic theory that deals with how information in one phrase relates to information that has come before

Nouns

Nouns and pronouns are inflected for case, including nominative, objective, genitive (possessive), and locative. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location ^[8] The case marking pattern for each noun being inflected depends on the noun's degree of animacy. Animacy is a grammatical and/or Semantic category of Nouns based on how Sentient or alive the Referent of the noun is When a definite article such as -টা -ţa (singular) or -গুলা -gula (plural) is added, as in the tables below, nouns are also inflected for number. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one"

Singular Noun Inflection Animate Inanimate Nominative ছাত্রটা chhatro-ţa the student জুতাটা juta-ţa the shoe Objective ছাত্রটাকে chhatro-ţa-ke the student জুতাটা juta-ţa the shoe Genitive ছাত্রটার chhatro-ţa-r the student's জুতাটার juta-ţa-r the shoe's Locative - জুতাটায় juta-ţa-(t)e on/in the shoe

Plural Noun Inflection Animate Inanimate Nominative ছাত্ররা chhatro-ra the students জুতাগুলা juta-gula the shoes Objective ছাত্রদের(কে) chhatro-der(ke) the students জুতাগুলা juta-gula the shoes Genitive ছাত্রদের chhatro-der the students' জুতাগুলার juta-gula-r the shoes' Locative - জুতাগুলাতে juta-gula-te on/in the shoes

When counted, nouns take one of a small set of measure words. In Linguistics, measure words, known more formally as numeral classifiers and also called counters, count words, counter words, or As in many East Asian languages (e. East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia: Languages which have been greatly influenced by g. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and ), nouns in Bengali cannot be counted by adding the numeral directly adjacent to the noun. The noun's measure word (MW) must be used between the numeral and the noun. Most nouns take the generic measure word -টা -ţa, though other measure words indicate semantic classes (e. g. -জন -jon for humans).

Measure Words

Bengali	Bengali transliteration	Literal translation	English translation
নয়টা গরু	Nôe-ţa goru	Nine-MW cow	Nine cows
কয়টা বালিশ	Kôe-ţa balish	How many-MW pillow	How many pillows
অনেকজন লোক	Ônek-jon lok	Many-MW person	Many people
চার-পাঁচজন শিক্ষক	Char-pãch-jon shikkhôk	Four-five-MW teacher	Four or five teachers

Measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e. g. আট বিড়াল aţ biŗal instead of আটটা বিড়াল aţ-ţa biŗal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, when the semantic class of the noun is understood from the measure word, the noun is often omitted and only the measure word is used, e. g. শুধু একজন থাকবে। Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain. ") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain. ", given the semantic class implicit in -জন -jon.

In this sense, all nouns in Bengali, unlike most other Indo-European languages, are similar to mass nouns. In Linguistics, a mass noun (also uncountable noun or non-count noun) is a common Noun that presents entities as an unbounded mass

Verbs

Verbs divide into two classes: finite and non-finite. A finite verb is a Verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs Non-finite verbs have no inflection for tense or person, while finite verbs are fully inflected for person (first, second, third), tense (present, past, future), aspect (simple, perfect, progressive), and honor (intimate, familiar, and formal), but not for number. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state An honorific is a word or expression that conveys esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person Conditional, imperative, and other special inflections for mood can replace the tense and aspect suffixes. The conditional mood is the form of the verb used in Conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. The number of inflections on many verb roots can total more than 200.

Inflectional suffixes in the morphology of Bengali vary from region to region, along with minor differences in syntax. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the

Bengali differs from most Indo-Aryan Languages in the zero copula, where the copula or connective be is often missing in the present tense. Zero copula is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the presence of the copula is implied rather than stated explicitly as a Verb or Suffix. ^[1] Thus "he is a teacher" is she shikkhôk, (literally "he teacher"). ^[57] In this respect, Bengali is similar to Russian and Hungarian. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe.

Vocabulary

Main article: Bengali vocabulary

Bengali has as many as 100,000 separate words, of which 50,000 (67%) are considered tôtshômo (direct reborrowings from Sanskrit), 21,100 (28%) are tôdbhôbo (native words with Sanskrit cognates), and the rest being bideshi (foreign borrowings) and deshi (Austroasiatic borrowings) words. The origins of words in the Bengali vocabulary are numerous and diverse due to centuries of contact with various languages The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh.

However, these figures do not take into account the fact that a large proportion of these words are archaic or highly technical, minimizing their actual usage. The productive vocabulary used in modern literary works, in fact, is made up mostly (67%) of tôdbhôbo words, while tôtshômo only make up 25% of the total. ^[58][59] Deshi and Bideshi words together make up the remaining 8% of the vocabulary used in modern Bengali literature.

Due to centuries of contact with Europeans, Mughals, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Afghans, and East Asians, Bengali has incorporated many words from foreign languages. The European peoples are the various Nations and Ethnic groups of Europe. The Mughal Empire ( Persian and self-designation گورکانی; مغلیہ سلطنت) was an Islamic imperial power which ruled most The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding The Turkish people (Türk Halkı also known as " Turks " ( Türkler) are defined mainly as being speakers of Turkish as a First language layout and formatting it should ensure no clashes with the top of the infobox The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Close contact with neighboring peoples facilitated the borrowing of words from Hindi, Assamese and several indigenous Austroasiatic languages (like Santali). Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Assamese (অসমীয়া) (ɔxɔmija is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, spoken mainly in the state of Assam in North-East The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. Santali is a Language in the Munda subfamily of Austro-Asiatic, related to Ho and Mundari. ^[60] of Bengal. After centuries of invasions from Persia and the Middle East, numerous Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Pashtun words were absorbed into Bengali. The Persian Empire was a series of Iranian empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland and beyond in Western Asia The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Pashto ( Naskh: پښتو‎ pəʂ'to also rendered as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto, Pashtu, Pushtu, also known as Portuguese, French, Dutch and English words were later additions during the colonial period. Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States For usage see British rule in India British Raj ( rāj, lit "reign" in Hindustani) primarily refers to the British

Sample audio

Sample text

The following is a sample text in Bengali of the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):

Bengali in Eastern Nagari script

ধারা ১: সমস্ত মানুষ স্বাধীনভাবে সমান মর্যাদা এবং অধিকার নিয়ে জন্মগ্রহণ করে। তাঁদের বিবেক এবং বুদ্ধি আছে; সুতরাং সকলেরই একে অপরের প্রতি ভ্রাতৃত্বসুলভ মনোভাব নিয়ে আচরণ করা উচিৎ।

Bengali in Romanization

Dhara êk: Shômosto manush shadhinbhabe shôman môrjada ebong odhikar nie jônmogrohon kôre. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly ( 10 December 1948 at Palais The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security The Eastern Nagari script (also known as the Eastern Neo-Brahmic script or the Purvi Script) is an Abugida system of writing The Romanization of Bengali, or the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script. Tãder bibek ebong buddhi achhe; shutorang shôkoleri êke ôporer proti bhrattrittoshulôbh mônobhab nie achorôn kôra uchit.

Bengali in IPA

d̪^ɦara æk: ʃɔmost̪o manuʃ ʃad̪^ɦinb^ɦabe ʃɔman mɔrdʒad̪a eboŋ od̪^ɦikar nie dʒɔnmogrohon kɔre. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic t̪ãd̪er bibek eboŋ bud̪^ɦːi atʃʰe; ʃut̪oraŋ ʃɔkoleri æke ɔporer prot̪i b^ɦrat̪ːrit̪ːoʃulɔb^ɦ mɔnob^ɦab nie atʃorɔn kɔra utʃit̪.

Gloss

Clause 1: All human free-manner-in equal dignity and right taken birth-take do. Their reason and intelligence is; therefore everyone-indeed one another's towards brotherhood-ly attitude taken conduct do should.

Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

Notes

References

Alam, M (2000), Bhasha Shourôbh: Bêkorôn O Rôchona (The Fragrance of Language: Grammar and Rhetoric), S. N. Printers, Dhaka. Ali, Shaheen Sardar & Javaid Rehman (2001), Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan: Constitutional and Legal Perspectives, Routledge, ISBN 0700711597. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (2003), Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Baxter, C (1997), Bangladesh, From a Nation to a State, Westview Press, ISBN 0813336325. Bhattacharya, T (2000), "Bangla (Bengali)", in Gary, J. and Rubino. C. , Encyclopedia of World's Languages: Past and Present (Facts About the World's Languages), WW Wilson, New York, ISBN 0824209702, <http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uclyara/bong_us.pdf>. Cardona, G & D Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan languages, RoutledgeCurzon, London. Chakrabarti, Byomkes, A Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali, K. P. Bagchi & Co. , Kolkata, 1994, ISBN 8170741289 Byomkes Chakrabarti Chatterji, SK (1921), "Bengali Phonetics", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Dr Byomkes Chakrabarti (also spelled Byomkesh Chakraborty or Byomkesh Chakrabarty) (1923–1981 was a Bengali Chatterji, SK (1926), The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language. Chisholm, H (1910), Hugh Chisholm, ed. , The Encyclopædia Britannica : A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, Cambridge, England ; New York : At the University Press, ISBN OCLC 266598. The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose Ferguson, CA & M Chowdhury (1960), "The Phonemes of Bengali", Language, 36(1), Part 1.

Haldar, Gopal (2000), Languages of India, National Book Trust, India, ISBN 81-237-2936-7. Hayes, B & A Lahiri (1991), "Bengali intonational phonology", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory (Springer Science). Natural Language & Linguistic Theory (often abbreviated NLLT is a leading international Peer-reviewed quarterly journal in Theoretical linguistics, founded in 1983 Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1998), The Sanskrit Drama, Motilal Banarsidass Publ, ISBN 8120809777. Klaiman, MH (1987), "Bengali", in Bernard Comrie, The World's Major Languages, Croon Helm, London and Sydney, ISBN 0195065115. Masica, C (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge Univ. Press. Radice, W (1994), Teach Yourself Bengali: A Complete Course for Beginners, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company, ISBN 0844237523. Ray, P; MA Hai & L Ray (1966), Bengali language handbook, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, ISBN ASIN B000B9G89C. The Amazon Standard Identification Number ( ASIN) is a unique identification number assigned by Amazon Sen, D (1996), Bengali Language and Literature, International Centre for Bengal Studies, Calcutta. Shah, Natubhai (1998), Jainism: The World of Conquerors, ISBN 1898723311. Tagore, Rabindranath & Sisir Kumar Das (1996), The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8126000945. Wilson, A. J & D Dalton (1982), The States of South Asia: Problems of National Integration. Essays in Honour of W. H. Morris-Jones, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0824811836.

External links

• Ethnologue report for Bengali
• Bengali Language: A Brief Introduction
• Samsad Bengali-English dictionary. 3rd ed. online. Requires unicode enabled browser. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's
• Free Bangla Unicode Solutions.
• The South Asian Literary Recordings Project, The Library of Congress. Bengali Authors.

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