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"Bangla" redirects here. For Bengali speaking people, see Bengali people. 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),  Sierra Leone 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. This page contains Indic text. 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 Bengali people are the ethnic community from Bengal (divided between India and Bangladesh) on the Indian subcontinent with a history dating back four millennia. ... Map of South Asia (see note on Kashmir). ... This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. ... The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages include some 210 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the Indo-Aryan language family. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... It has been suggested that Robert B. Wray be merged into this article or section. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Bangladesh. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_India. ... , West Bengal (Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchimbôŋgo) is a state in eastern India. ... Tripura   (Bengali: ত্রিপুরা, Hindi: त्रिपुरा) is a state in North East India. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Sierra_Leone. ... Bangla Academy, established on 3 December 1955, is the national academy for promoting Bangla language in Bangladesh. ... Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi (পশ্চিমবঙ্গ বাংলা আকাদেমি in Bangla), or West Bengal Bangla Academy, established on 20 May 1986, is the main academy for promoting Bangla language in West Bengal. ... 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 is an international standard for language codes. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 407 pixelsFull resolution (2753 × 1400 pixel, file size: 123 KB, MIME type: image/png) This is a . ... Image File history File links Example. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... Image File history File links Hi-Bangla. ... The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. ... Map of South Asia (see note) This article deals with the geophysical region in 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. ... Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... 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. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages (ranking 5th[3] or 6th[2] in the world). 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. Map of South Asia (see note on Kashmir). ... For other uses, see Bengal (disambiguation). ... , West Bengal (Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchimbôŋgo) is a state in eastern India. ... This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... Assamese ( ) (IPA: ) is a language spoken in the state of Assam in northeast India. ... The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... The Bangla language, with its long and rich literary tradition, 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. This day has now been declared as the International Mother Language Day. East Pakistan was a former province of Pakistan which existed between 1955 and 1971. ... This article is about the language movement in Bangladesh. ... is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... There is a disputed proposal that this article should be merged with Language Martyrs Day 21st February has been proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by the UNESCO in 2000. ... 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 [edit] History Like other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bangla arose from the eastern Middle Indic languages of the Indian subcontinent. 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. 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.[6] 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. Some argue for much earlier points of divergence—going back to even 500 CE[7] 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.[8] The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages include some 210 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the Indo-Aryan language family. ... The Middle Indo-Aryan (Middle Indic) languages are the medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the medieval languages such as apabhramsha or abahatta, which eventually evolved into contemporary Indo-Aryan languages like Hindustani, Bangla... Map of South Asia (see note) This article deals with the geophysical region in 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. ... Spoken language is a language that people utter words of the language. ... Siddhartha and Gautama redirect here. ... Prakrit (Sanskrit prakrta: natural, usual, vulgar) refers to the broad family of the Indic languages and dialects spoken in ancient India. ... The Apabhramsa language was the next modification in the spoken language of North India after Prakrit, in a period broadly lasting from the 5th to the 10th century. ... Abahatta is a stage in the evolution of the Eastern group of Indo-Aryan languages such as Bangla, Maithili, Oriya. ... Bihari is a name given to the western group of Eastern Indic languages, spoken in Bihar and neighboring states in India. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Usually three periods are identified in the history of Bangla:[6] Old Bangla (900/1000 CE–1400 CE)—texts include Charyapada, devotional songs; emergence of pronouns Ami, tumi, etc; verb inflections -ila, -iba, etc. Oriya and Assamese branch out in this period. Middle Bangla (1400–1800 CE)—major texts of the period include Chandidas's Srikrishnakirtan; elision of word-final ô sound; spread of compound verbs; Persian influence. Some scholars further divide this period into early and late middle periods. New Bangla (since 1800 CE)—shortening of verbs and pronouns, among other changes (e.g. tahar → tar "his"/"her"; koriyachhilô → korechhilo he/she had done). Historically closer to Pali, Bengali saw an increase in Sanskrit influence during the Middle Bengali (Chaitanya era), and also during the Bengal Renaissance. 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. Charyapada is the oldest known Bengali written form. ... Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Assamese ( ) (IPA: ) is a language spoken in the state of Assam in northeast India. ... Chandidas (Bangla: চন্ডীদাস) (born 1408 CE) refers to (possibly more than one) medieval poet of Bengal. ... Shreekrishna Kirtana Kabya was composed by Boru Chandidas. ... In music, see elision (music). ... For other uses, see Point of view (literature). ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ... Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Deities of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu (right) and Sri Nityananda (left) at Radha-Krishna temple in Radhadesh, Belgium Caitanya Mahaprabhu (also transliterated Chaitanya) (1486 - 1534), was an ascetic Hindu monk and social reformer in 16th century Bengal, India (present-day West Bengal and Bangladesh). ... 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 period of British rule. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... Marathi is one of the widely spoken languages of India, and has a long literary history. ... Hindi (DevanāgarÄ«: or , IAST: , IPA:  ), an Indo-European language spoken all over India in varying degrees and extensively in northern and central India, is one of the 22 official languages of India and is used, along with English, for central government administrative purposes. ... Punjabi (also Panjabi; in GurmukhÄ«, PanjābÄ« in ShāhmukhÄ«) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ... Arabic can mean: From or related to Arabia From or related to the Arabs The Arabic language; see also Arabic grammar The Arabic alphabet, used for expressing the languages of Arabic, Persian, Malay ( Jawi), Kurdish, Panjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Urdu, among others. ... Farsi redirects here. ... Shaheed Minar, or the Martyr's monument, in Dhaka, commemorates the struggle for the Bengali language Until the 18th century, there was no attempt to document the grammar for Bengali. 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.[9] 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.[1] Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great Bengali Reformer, also wrote a "Grammar of the Bengali Language" (1832). Image File history File links Shaheed_minar_Roehl. ... Image File history File links Shaheed_minar_Roehl. ... Image:Shaheed minar. ... Dhaka (previously Dacca; Bengali: Ḍhākā; IPA: ) is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka District. ... For other uses, see Missionary (disambiguation). ... Manoel da Assumpcam was a Portuguese missionary who wrote the first grammar of Bengali language (Bangla language), titled Vocabolario em idioma Bengalla, e Portuguez dividido em duas partes. ... Bhawal Estate (Bengali: ) was a large zamindari estate in Bengal in modern-day Bangladesh. ... Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (May 25, 1751 - February 18, 1830), English Orientalist and philologist, was born at Westminster. ... This article is about grammar from a linguistic perspective. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Indian reformer Ram Mohan Roy died in Bristol, England, where this statue of him stands. ... 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.[10] Bengali was the focus, in 1951–52, of the Bengali Language Movement (Bhasha Andolon) in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).[11] Although Bengali speakers were more numerous in the population of Pakistan, Urdu was legislated as the sole national language. 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. Subsequently, UNESCO has declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day. 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.[12] This article is about the language movement in Bangladesh. ... East Pakistan was a former province of Pakistan which existed between 1955 and 1971. ... Urdu ( , , trans. ... is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ... is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... There is a disputed proposal that this article should be merged with Language Martyrs Day 21st February has been proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by the UNESCO in 2000. ... , Silchar (Bengali: Shilchôr, Assamese: শিলচৰ Xilsôr, Sylheti: শিলচর Hilsôr) is the headquarters of Cachar district in the state of Assam in India. ... [edit] Geographical distribution The native geographic extent of Bengali Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Around 98% of the total population of Bangladesh speak Bengali as a native language.[13] There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in immigrant populations in the Middle East, West and Malaysia. Image File history File links Location-Bangla01. ... Image File history File links Location-Bangla01. ... Map of South Asia (see note on Kashmir). ... For other uses, see Bengal (disambiguation). ... , West Bengal (Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchimbôŋgo) is a state in eastern India. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Occident redirects here. ... [edit] Official status Bengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India.[4] It is the official language of the state of West Bengal and the co-official language of the state of Tripura, Cachar,Karimganj and Hailakandi Districts of southern Assam and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bengali speakers make the majority in Neil Island and Havelock Island. It was made an official language of Sierra Leone in order to honour the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force from the United Nations stationed there.[14] It is also the co-official language of Assam, which has three predominantly Sylheti-speaking districts of southern Assam: Silchar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi.[15] The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore. India has a diverse list of spoken languages among different groups of people. ... , West Bengal (Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchimbôŋgo) is a state in eastern India. ... Tripura   (Bengali: ত্রিপুরা, Hindi: त्रिपुरा) is a state in North East India. ... Cachar is an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. ... Karimganj is an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. ... , Hailakandi is a city and a municipal board in Hailakandi district in the Indian state of Assam. ... , Assam (  ) (Assamese: অসম Ôxôm) is a north eastern state of India with its capital at Dispur, a suburb of the city Guwahati. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Andaman Islands. ... Neil Island is an island in the Andaman Islands of India. ... Havelock Island (often just Havelock for short) with an area of some 92 km2 is the largest of the islands which comprise Ritchies Archipelago, a chain of islands to the east of Great Andaman in the Andaman Islands. ... UN and U.N. redirect here. ... Sylheti (native name সিলটী Silôţi; Bengali name সিলেটী SileÅ£i) is the language of Sylhet proper, the north-eastern region of Bangladesh and southern districts of Assam around Silchar. ... , Silchar (Bengali: Shilchôr, Assamese: শিলচৰ Xilsôr, Sylheti: শিলচর Hilsôr) is the headquarters of Cachar district in the state of Assam in India. ... Karimganj is an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. ... , Hailakandi is a city and a municipal board in Hailakandi district in the Indian state of Assam. ... (Bengali: , IPA: ) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... [edit] Dialects Main article: Bengali dialects Regional variation in spoken Bengali constitutes a dialect continuum. 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.[16] 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. Western palato-alveolar affricates চ [ tʃ], ছ [ tʃʰ], জ [[dʒ]] correspond to eastern চʻ [ts], ছ় [s], জʻ [dz]~[[z]]. The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels. Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. 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 in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... Chatterji, Suniti Kumar (1890-1977) linguist, educationist, litterateur, was born on 26 October 1890 at Shivpur in Howrah, son of Haridas Chattopadhyay. ... Barisal is a district in southern Bangladesh. ... This article is about Chittagong as a city in Bangladesh. ... Dhaka (previously Dacca; Bengali: Ḍhākā; IPA: ) is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka District. ... Sylhet (previously Shilhat and Jalalabad; Sylheti: Bengali: সিলেট, SileÅ£) is a major city in north-eastern Bangladesh. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... 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 Myanmar (Burma), northern Thailand, and parts of Western China (Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai (Amdo), Gansu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan), Nepal, Bhutan, India (Himachal... Chittagonian is an Indo-European language spoken by the people of Chittagong in Bangladesh and the much of the southeast of the country. ... The Chakma language (Changma Vaj or Changma Kodha) is an Indo-European language spoken in southeastern Bangladesh and neighboring areas of India. ... Some web browsers may not be able to view this correctly; you may see transcriptions in parentheses after the character, like this: () instead of on top of the character as intended. ... Rajbangsi, Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects.[17] Rajbangsiis an Indo-European; Indic langauge spoken in India by over 3,000,000 people according to the 1991 census, the actual number of speakers may vary due to acculturation into the more predominant Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) languages or by how many people were reach for the survery and furthermore... Hajong is an Indo-Aryan language with Tibeto-Burman roots spoken by about 19,000 ethnic Hajong in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal in India and the Mymensingh District in Bangladesh. ... 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.[18] 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.[19] , “Calcutta” redirects here. ... Nadia is a district of the state of West Bengal, in the north east of the Republic of India. ... [edit] Spoken and literary varieties Bengali exhibits diglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax, have emerged:[18][20] Look up Diglossia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 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. 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. However, use of Shadhubhasha in modern writing is negligible, except when it is used deliberately to achieve some effect. Choltibhasha (চলতিভাষা ) or Cholitobhasha (চলিত cholito = 'current' or 'running') , known by linguists as Manno Cholit Bangla (Standard Current Bangla), 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),[21] Pramatha Chowdhury (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. It is modeled on the dialect spoken in the Shantipur region in Nadia district, West Bengal. This form of Bengali is often referred to as the "Nadia standard" or "Shantipuri bangla".[16] Linguistically, cholit bangla is derived from sadhu bangla through two successive standard linguistic transformations. Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Jana Gana Mana (Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People) is the national anthem of India. ... (Bengali: , IPA: ) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Vande Mataram (in Bangla: বন্দে মাতরম Bônde Matôrom) is the national song of India. ... Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (26 June 1838 - 8 April 1894) (Bengali: Bôngkim Chôndro Chôţţopaddhae) (Chattopadhyay in the original Bengali; Chatterjee as spelt by the British) was a Bengali Indian poet, novelist, essayist and journalist, most famous as the author of Vande Mataram or Bande Mataram... Peary Chand Mitra (1814-1883), a member of Derozio’s renowned Young Bengal group, author and journalist, played a leading role in the Bengal renaissance with the introduction of simple Bengali prose which everybody could understand. ... Alaler Gharer Dulal (published in 1857) is a Bengali novel by Peary Chand Mitra (1814-1883). ... Pramatha Chowdhury (Bengali: ) (1868-1946) Bengali literature analyst and essayist. ... (Bengali: , IPA: ) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Shantipur is a town in the district of Nadia in West Bengal,India. ... Nadia is a district of the state of West Bengal, in the north east of the Republic of India. ... , West Bengal (Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchimbôŋgo) is a state in eastern India. ... 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, including an entirely different vocabulary. The difference is so much that a person from West Bengal will be very hard pressed to understand even a single sentence in a passage of this dialect. This is known as the Bongali sublanguage, or more informally as Chattagram bangla. Writers (such as Manik Bandopadhyay in Padmanodir Majhi) have used the Bongali dialect in writing conversations. 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.[10] This article is about Chittagong as a city in Bangladesh. ... Manik Bandopadhay (Bangla: মানিক বন্দোপাধ্যায়) (1908-1956) is one of the most influential novelists in Bangla literature. ... A variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. ... Even in Standard Bengali, vocabulary items often divide along the split between the Muslim populace and the Hindu populace. Due to cultural and religious traditions, Hindus and Muslims might use, respectively, Sanskrit-derived and Perso-Arabic words. Some examples of lexical alternation between these two forms are:[19] There is also a collection of Hadith called Sahih Muslim A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم, Persian: Mosalman or Mosalmon Urdu: مسلمان, Turkish: Müslüman, Albanian: Mysliman, Bosnian: Musliman) is an adherent of the religion of Islam. ... This article discusses the adherents of Hinduism. ... 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) [edit] Writing system Main article: Bengali script Anandabazar Patrika, a news daily published from Kolkata in Bengali. The Bengali writing system is not purely alphabet-based such as the Latin script. Rather, it is written in the Bengali abugida, a variant of the Eastern Nagari script used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India. It is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE,[22] and is similar to the Devanagari abugida used for Sanskrit and many modern Indic languages such as Hindi. It has particularly close historical relationships with the Assamese script and the Oriya script (although the latter is not evident in appearance). 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.[22] 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. It has been suggested that Robert B. Wray be merged into this article or section. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 1419 KB) Author: Myself Source: photo taken on 20th November, 2006 Description: Front page and some other pages of Anandabazar Patrika, a news daily published from Kolkata, India File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 1419 KB) Author: Myself Source: photo taken on 20th November, 2006 Description: Front page and some other pages of Anandabazar Patrika, a news daily published from Kolkata, India File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this... Anandabazar Patrika is a Bengali language broadsheet published from Kolkata. ... ABCs redirects here. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, the standard script of the English language and most of the languages of western and central Europe, and of those areas settled by Europeans. ... An inscription of Swampy Cree using Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, an abugida developed by Christian missionaries for Aboriginal Canadian languages An abugida, alphasyllabary, or syllabics is a writing system in which consonant signs (graphemes) are inherently associated with a following vowel. ... The Kanai Baraxiboa rock inscription near Guwahati. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century) DevanāgarÄ« (देवनागरी — in English pronounced ) (ISCII – IS13194:1991) [1] is an abugida alphabet used to write several Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri and Nepali from Nepal. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. ... Hindi (DevanāgarÄ«: or , IAST: , IPA:  ), an Indo-European language spoken all over India in varying degrees and extensively in northern and central India, is one of the 22 official languages of India and is used, along with English, for central government administrative purposes. ... The Assamese script belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts and is very similar to Devanagari. ... The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language. ... Cursive is any style of handwriting which is designed for writing down notes and letters by hand. ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... 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.[23] 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. 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. Allography, from the Greek for other writing, has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Ligature (palaeography). ... 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 air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ... The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a fricative, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior. ... 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. 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 260 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. Consonant clusters in Bengali are very common word-initially due to a long history of borrowing from English and Sanskrit, two languages with a large cluster inventory. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Ligature (palaeography). ... 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). Signature of Rabindranath Tagore — an example of penmanship in Bengali. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... (Bengali: , IPA: ) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ... [edit] 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. There are two letters (জ and য) for the voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ] as well. 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. 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 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 voiced palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Sub-apical retroflex plosive In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... 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. It has been suggested that Robert B. Wray be merged into this article or section. ... [edit] Uses in other languages The Bengali script, with a few small modifications, is also used for writing Assamese. 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. The script has been adopted for writing the Sylheti language as well, replacing the use of the old Sylheti Nagori script.[24] Assamese ( ) (IPA: ) is a language spoken in the state of Assam in northeast India. ... Meitei-lon , also Meitei-lol, and Manipuri (and sometimes, the 19th century British term, Meithei, which is the name of the people, not of the language), is the predominant language and lingua-franca in the Southeastern Himalayan state of Manipur, in northeastern India. ... The Sino-Tibetan languages form a putative language family composed of Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia. ... , Manipur   (Bengali: মনিপুর, Meitei Mayek: mnipur) is a state in northeastern India making its capital in the city of Imphal. ...   Sample of Meitei Mayek script, showing the main consonants in the alphabet Meitei Mayek script (also Meithei Mayek, Meetei Mayek, Manipuri script) (Manipuri: Meetei Mayek) is a syllabic script used for the Meitei language (Manipuri), one of the official languages of the Indian state of Manipur. ... Sylheti is the language of Sylhet, the North Eastern province of Bangladesh and a few southern districts of Assam. ... [edit] 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),[25] "Indian languages Transliteration" or ITRANS (uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards),[26] and the National Library at Calcutta romanization.[27] The Romanization of Bengali, or the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script, is hardly as uniform as the Romanizations of many other languages such as Japanese, Sanskrit, or Chinese. ... IAST, or International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is the academic standard for writing the Sanskrit language with the Latin alphabet and very similar to National Library at Calcutta romanization standard being used with many Indic scripts. ... The Indian languages TRANSliteration (ITRANS) is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly, but not exclusively, for DevanāgarÄ« (used for the Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Nepali, Sindhi and other languages). ... Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... The National Library at Calcutta romanization is the most widely used in dictionaries and grammars of Indic languages. ... In the context of Bangla Romanization, it is important to distinguish between transliteration from transcription. 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. Languages can be romanized in a variety of ways, as shown here with Mandarin Chinese In linguistics, romanization (or Latinization, also spelled romanisation or Latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ... 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. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, with the IPA transcriptions as used above. A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. ... Vowels   Front Central Back High i   u High-mid e   o Low-mid ê   ô Low   a   Consonants   Labial Dental Apico- Alveolar Apico- Postalveolar Lamino- Postalveolar Velar Glottal Voiceless stops p f t th   ţ ţh ch chh k kh   Voiced stops b bh d dh   đ đh j jh g gh   Voiceless fricatives     s   sh   h Nasals m   n     ng   Liquids     l, r ŗ       [edit] Sounds