Bengali language
Bengali,[a] also known by its endonym Bangla (বাংলা, Bāṅlā, [ˈbaŋlaˑ] ⓘ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With approximately 240 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2021,[1] Bengali is the sixth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world.[7][8] It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language.[9]
"Bangla language" redirects here. Not to be confused with Bangala language.Bengali
Bangladesh and India
- Magadhan Apabhraṃśa
- Abahaṭṭha
- Old Bengali
- Middle Bengali
- Old Bengali
- Abahaṭṭha
- See Bengali dialects
- Bangladesh
- India
- West Bengal
- Tripura
- Assam (Barak Valley)
- Jharkhand (additional official)[3]
- Bangla Academy (Bangladesh)
- Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi (West Bengal)
Bengali is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh,[10][11][12] with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language.[13][14] It is the second-most widely spoken language in India. It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam. It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011.[3] It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal,[15] and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha and Uttarakhand.[16] Bengali is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas (Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and other countries.[17]
Bengali is the fourth fastest growing language in India, following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei (Manipuri), along with Gujarati, in the third place, according to the 2011 census of India.[18]
Bengali has developed over more than 1,300 years. Bengali literature, with its millennium-old literary history, was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the language movement.[19][20]
Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum. Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters- Rarhi, Vangiya, Kamrupi and Varendri;[73][74] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed.[75] The south-western dialects (Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form the basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives. Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [tɕɔ], ছ [tɕʰɔ], জ [dʑɔ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ], ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ], জ [dzɔ~zɔ]. The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti,[76] Chittagonian and Chakma, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. 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.[77]
During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata, a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District.[78] There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use a different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west.[79]
Bengali exhibits diglossia, though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language.[41] Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax:[78][80]
Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises the language as:
While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However, a majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB.[82] The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis.[82] The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects.[42]
Even in SCB, the vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit (tadbhava), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit).[83] For example:[79]