Bengali Language

The Bengali language has its origins in ancient Sanskrit, yet this Indo-European language also has been heavily influenced by other cultures. Both formal and informal styles are spoken. A few dialects are so distinctive that other speakers of the language may not be able to make sense of them.

More than two hundred million people speak Bengali, which is also called Bangla. Most speakers live in Bangladesh and India in south-central Asia, but immigrants have carried the language to many parts of the world.

Bengali has played a part in the fight for independence of Bangladesh. Both Bangladesh and India were under British rule from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, but the latter comprised two regions—West Pakistan and East Pakistan—separated by the large expanse of India. Cultural differences, including a desire to speak native languages, further divided the two regions and resulted in riots. In 1971, Bangladesh gained independence. West Pakistan became Pakistan, and East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

The earliest examples of Bengali are the Buddhist mystic songs known as the Charyapadas. These works are also part of the cultures of the Oriya and Assamese people of India, whose languages share a common origin with Bengali. While Bengali is similar to Sanskrit, it also resembles Latin due to a European influence in Asia. For example, the word mother is mater in Latin, matar in Sanskrit, and mata in Bengali. Many English words entered the language during British rule of the region, for example tebil, which means "table." Names of modern conveniences are also commonly used, including telephone, television, and video. At the same time, words such as jute and bungalow, which are of Bengali origin, are commonly used in English.

History and Classification

Bengali is an Indo-European language, a common ancestor of many modern languages that originated about 4000 BCE. It is a member of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the language family. Indo-Aryan developed primarily in three stages: Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit), Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrit and Apabhramsha stages), and New Indo-Aryan, which began about the tenth century CE.

According to some scholars, Bengali dates to the tenth century and has its roots in the spoken language Magahi Prakrit and the written form in Magahi Apabhramsha. Others disagree, however, and propose its origins in the seventh century with Gauda, a spoken and written language.

Chaltibhasa is the colloquial or everyday style, while Sadhubhasa is more formal and traditionally literary. Sadhubhasa is the style of early poetic texts and was widely used during the nineteenth century in literary works and business.

Chaltibhasa is based on the dialects of Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, and other communities along the Bhagirathi River. It largely replaced Sadhubhasa in literature and most communication beginning in the early twentieth century, when a number of prominent novelists published works in the colloquial style.

Bengali has four primary dialects that approximately follow ancient political lines. The dialects are Radha, from West Bengal; Pundra (Varendra), from northern West Bengal and Bangladesh; Kamrupa, from northeastern Bangladesh; and Bangla, the dialects spoken in other parts of Bangladesh. Two other distinct dialects have developed in the cities of Sylhet and Chittagong.

Bengali sentences generally are structured as subject, object, verb. A negative particle is placed at the end of a sentence. Verbs linking subjects and predicates are frequently left out, and adjectives generally are not adjusted to reflect the number or case of nouns.

The language is known for having compound verbs, which include a root or stem and a suffix. The three verb tenses expand through variations to include ten. The language uses moods: conditional, indicative, and imperative. First, second, and third person may be expressed as everyday or formal forms. Bengali uses natural gender. Third-person pronouns are expressed in degrees of proximity: the person is near, slightly distant, or not present.

The written form originates in the ancient Indian script Brahmi. Until about the eleventh century, it also closely resembled the Devanagari alphabet. The characters are much like the Assamese scripts from northern India. The written form has changed little since the twelfth century, though it was adapted in the nineteenth century. Script flows from left to right, beginning at the top of the page, and follows a horizontal line. It uses conjuncts, downstrokes, and upstrokes, and punctuation almost exclusively follows English.

The syllabic alphabet pairs twenty-nine consonants with vowels, which have two pronunciations. Vowels may have diacritical marks, or symbols indicating different pronunciations. These are written in conjunction with the consonants to which they belong. The marks may be above, below, before, or after a consonant. Conjunct letters are used when consonants are grouped, and the vowel is paired with the final consonant. The Bengali alphabet is also used to write several other languages, including Garo and Manipuri.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh. It is also recognized in the constitution of India.

It is spoken as a first or second language by more than 210 million people. About 100 million speakers of Bengali live in Bangladesh, while about 85 million live in India. Many people in immigrant communities around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Middle East, also speak Bengali. It is the world's seventh most spoken language.

More than half the words of modern Bengali have been found to be native words. Another 45 percent are Sanskrit, while a small percentage are foreign words. The most influential language is Persian, which has contributed both words and grammatical forms to Bengali.

In 1936 the University of Calcutta began a system of standardization, including spelling. Other institutions, primarily the Bangla Academy and the Visva-Bharati University, have created their own standard forms. Some organizations have chosen to follow earlier or later reforms, and some businesses in the publishing industry have also established their own styles. Scholars say these competing projects have in fact made it difficult to standardize the language.

Bibliography

"Bengali." Accredited Language Services. Accredited Language Services. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. HYPERLINK "https://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Bengali/" https://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Bengali/

"Bengali Alphabet." Omniglot, the Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages. Simon Ager. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/bengali.htm

"Bengali Language." Languages of India. ILoveIndia.com. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. YPERLINK "http://languages.iloveindia.com/bengali.html" http://languages.iloveindia.com/bengali.html

Brady, Anita J. and Shabbir A. Bashar. "Bangla." BETELCO. Bengal Telecommunication and Electric Co. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. LINK "http://www.betelco.com/bd/bangla/bangla.html" http://www.betelco.com/bd/bangla/bangla.html

Thompson, Irene. "Bengali." About World Languages. The Technology Development Group. 29 March 2015. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. http://aboutworldlanguages.com/bengali" http://aboutworldlanguages.com/bengali

also

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Bengali-language