Bengali language
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Bengali | |
---|---|
Bangla | |
বাংলা | |
Bengali script | |
Pronunciation | [ˈbaŋlaˑ] ⓘ |
Native to | Bangladesh and India |
Region | |
Ethnicity | Bengalis |
Speakers | L1: 240 million (2011–2021)[1][2] L2: 41 million (2011–2021)[1] |
Early forms | Magadhi Prakrit
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Dialects |
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Official status | |
Official language in |
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Regulated by |
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | bn |
ISO 639-2 | ben |
ISO 639-3 | ben |
Glottolog | beng1280 |
Geographical distribution of the Bengali language. Darker shades imply a greater percentage of native speakers. | |
Bengalophone diaspora worldwide.
National and official language with majority native speakers
Official language with large number of native speakers
Large diaspora (more than 100,000)
Smaller diaspora (more than 10,000) | |
Part of a series on |
Bengalis |
---|
Bengali,
Bengali is the
Bengali is the fourth fastest growing
Bengali has developed over more than 1,300 years.
History
Ancient
Although
The local varieties had no official status during the
Early
Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when
Medieval
During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the
Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the
Modern
The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in the
In the 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali:
- চলিতভাষা Chôlitôbhasha, a colloquial form of Bengali using simplified inflections.
- সাধুভাষা Sadhubhasha, a formal and genteel form of Bengali.[42][43]
In 1948, the Government of Pakistan tried to impose
In 2010, the parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language.[45] As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India.[46]
Geographical distribution
The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal, which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in
Official status
The 3rd article of the
In India, Bengali is one of the 23
In Pakistan, Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi[55][56][57] mainly spoken by Stranded Bengalis of Pakistan). The Department of Bengali in the University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature.[58]
The national anthems of both Bangladesh (
After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, the government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002.[68][69][70][71]
In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations.[72]
Dialects
Regional
During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in
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]
- Sadhu bhasha (সাধু ভাষা "upright language") was the written language, with longer verb inflections and more of a Pali and Sanskrit-derived Tatsama vocabulary. Songs such as India's national anthem Jana Gana Mana (by Rabindranath Tagore) were composed in this style. Its use in modern writing however is uncommon, restricted to some official signs and documents in Bangladesh as well as for achieving particular literary effects.
- Chôlito bhasha (চলিত ভাষা "running language"), known by linguists as Standard Colloquial Bengali, is a written Bengali style exhibiting a preponderance of 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),[81] Pramatha Chaudhuri (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. It is modelled on the dialect spoken in the Shantipur and Shilaidaha region in Nadia and Kushtia Districts. This form of Bengali is often referred to as the "Kushtia standard"(Bangladesh), "Nadia dialect" (West Bengal), "Southwestern/West-Central dialect" "Shantipuri Bangla" or "Shilaidahi Bangla".[75]
Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises the language as:
- Madhya Rarhi dialect
- Kanthi (Contai) dialect
- Kolkatadialect
- Shantipuriya (Nadia) dialect
- Shershahabadia(Maldahiya/ Jangipuri) dialect
- Barendri dialect
- Rangapuriya dialect
- Sylheti dialect
- Dhakiya (Bikrampuri) dialect
- Jashore/Jessoriya dialect
- Barisal (Chandradwip) dialect
- Chattal (Chittagong) dialect
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]
Predominantly Hindu usage | Origin | Predominantly Muslim usage | Origin | Translation |
---|---|---|---|---|
নমস্কার nômôskār | Directly borrowed from namaskāra |
আসসালামু আলাইকুম āssālāmu ālāikum | Directly from Arabic as-salāmu ʿalaykum | hello |
নিমন্ত্রণ nimôntrôṇ | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit nimantraṇa as opposed to the native Bengali nemôntônnô | দাওয়াত dāowāt | Borrowed from Arabic Persian |
invitation |
জল jôl | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit jala | পানি pāni | Native, compare with Sanskrit pānīya | water |
স্নান snān | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit snāna | গোসল gosôl | Borrowed from Arabic ghusl via Persian | bath |
দিদি didi | Native, from Sanskrit devī |
আপা āpā | From Turkic languages | sister / elder sister |
দাদা dādā | Native, from Sanskrit dāyāda | ভাইয়া bhāiyā | Native, from Sanskrit bhrātā | brother / elder brother[84] |
মাসী māsī | Native, from Sanskrit mātṛṣvasā | খালা khālā | Directly borrowed from Arabic khālah | maternal aunt |
পিসী pisī | Native, from Sanskrit pitṛṣvasā | ফুফু phuphu | Native, from Prakrit phupphī | paternal aunt |
কাকা kākā | From Persian or Dravidian kākā | চাচা chāchā | From Prakrit cācca | paternal uncle |
প্রার্থনা prārthonā | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit prārthanā | দোয়া doyā | Borrowed from Arabic du`āʾ | prayer |
প্রদীপ prôdīp | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit pradīp | বাতি bāti | Native, compare with Prakrit batti and Sanskrit barti | lamp |
লঙ্কা lônkā | Native, named after Lanka | মরিচ môrich | Directly borrowed from Sanskrit marica | chilli |
Phonology
The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels. The inventory is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme).
Non-nasalised | Nasalised | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Front | Central | Back | Front | Central | Back | |
Close | ই~ঈ i i |
উ~ঊ u u |
ইঁ~ঈঁ ĩ ĩ |
উঁ~ঊঁ ũ ũ | ||
Close-mid | এ e e |
ও o o |
এঁ ẽ ẽ |
ওঁ õ õ | ||
Open-mid | অ্যা æ æ |
অ ɔ ô |
অ্যাঁ æ̃ æ̃ |
অঁ ɔ̃ ɔ̃ | ||
Open | আ a a |
আঁ ã ã |
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | Palato-
alveolar |
Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n |
ŋ | |||||
Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | unaspirated | p | t |
ʈ | tʃ |
k | |
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | |||
voiced | unaspirated | b | d |
ɖ | dʒ |
ɡ | ||
aspirated | bʱ | dʱ | ɖʱ | dʒʱ | ɡʱ | |||
Fricative | voiceless | (ɸ) | s | ʃ | (h) | |||
voiced | (β) | (z) | ɦ | |||||
Approximant | (w) | l |
(j) | |||||
Rhotic | unaspirated | r |
ɽ | |||||
aspirated | (ɽʱ) |
Bengali is known for its wide variety of
e̯ | i̯ | o̯ | u̯ | |
---|---|---|---|---|
a | ae̯ | ai̯ | ao̯ | au̯ |
æ | æe̯ | æo̯ | ||
e | ei̯ | eu̯ | ||
i | ii̯ | iu̯ | ||
o | oe̯ | oi̯ | oo̯ | ou̯ |
u | ui̯ |
Stress
In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. 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 in সহযোগিতা shô-hô-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress.
Consonant clusters
Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters;[87] the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.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".
Writing system
The
Since the Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments, but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel, either [ɔ] as in মত [mɔt] "opinion" or [o], as in মন [mon] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ]. To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it, a special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্), may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m]). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô, may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in the final ন in মন [mon] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla]).
A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel
The vowel graphemes 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 formি). A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form.
In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô, three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are the superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ), denoting a suprasegmental for
The Bengali consonant clusters (যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn) are usually realised 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 the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them 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 recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden.
Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi – the Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar.[91]
Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra. The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example, the letter ত tô 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 trô and the independent vowel এ e, also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô. The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between the visible matra and an invisible baseline).
There is yet to be a uniform standard
Alternative and historic scripts
Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on a large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore, which borders Odisha, have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar, some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari, Kaithi and Tirhuta.[92]
In
Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in the east to Meherpur in the west.[94][95][96] The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam, composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet.[97][98] After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement.[99]
In the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as
Bengali script like others does have
Orthographic depth
The Bengali script in general has a comparatively shallow orthography when compared to the Latin script used for English and French, i.e., in many cases there is a one-to-one correspondence between the sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) of Bengali. But grapheme-phoneme inconsistencies do occur in many other cases. In fact, Bengali-Assamese script has the deepest orthography (deep orthography) among the Indian scripts. In general, the Bengali-Assamese script is fairly transparent for grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, i.e., it is easier to predict the pronunciation from spelling of the words. But the script is fairly opaque for phoneme-to-grapheme conversion, i.e., it is more difficult to predict the spelling from the pronunciation of the words.
One kind of inconsistency is due to the presence of several letters in the script for the same sound. In spite of some modifications in the 19th century, the Bengali spelling system continues to be based on the one used for Sanskrit,
Another kind of inconsistency is concerned with the incomplete coverage of phonological information in the script. The inherent vowel attached to every consonant can be either [ɔ] or [o] depending on vowel harmony (স্বরসঙ্গতি) with the preceding or following vowel or on the context, but this phonological information is not captured by the script, creating ambiguity for the reader. Furthermore, the inherent vowel is often not pronounced at the end of a syllable, as in কম [kɔm] "less", but this omission is not generally reflected in the script, making it difficult for the new reader.
Many consonant clusters have different sounds than their constituent consonants. For example, the combination of the consonants ক্ [k] and ষ [ʂ] is graphically realised as ক্ষ and is pronounced [kkʰo] (as in রুক্ষ [rukkʰo] "coarse"), [kʰɔ] (as in ক্ষমতা [kʰɔmota] "capability") or even [kʰo] (as in ক্ষতি [kʰoti] "harm"), depending on the position of the cluster in a word. Another example is that there are around 7 or more graphemes to represent the sound [ʃ]. These are 'শ' as in শব্দ ("shabda", pronounced as "shôbdo")(meaning"word"), 'ষ' as in ষড়যন্ত্র ("şaḍjantra", pronounced as "shôḍojontro")(meaning "conspiracy"), 'স' as in সরকার ("sarkāra", pronounced as "shôrkār")(meaning "government"), 'শ্ব' as in শ্বশুর (written as "shbashura" but pronounced with the ব 'b' silent, i.e., as "shoshur")( meaning "father in law"), 'শ্ম' as in শ্মশান (written as "shmashāna" but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as "shôshān")( meaning "crematorium"), 'স্ব' as in স্বপ্ন (written as "sbapna" but pronounced with the ব 'b' silent, i.e., as "shôpno")( meaning "dream"), 'স্ম' as in স্মরণ (written as "smaraṅa" but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as "shôron")( meaning "remember"), 'ষ্ম' as in গ্রীষ্ম (written as "grīşma" but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as "grīshsho")( meaning "summer") and so on. In most of the consonant clusters, only the first consonant is pronounced and rest of the consonants are silent. Examples are লক্ষ্মণ (written as "lakşmaṅa" but pronounced as "lôkkhon")(Lord Rama's brother in the Hindu epic Ramayana), বিশ্বাস (written as "bishbāsa" but pronounced as "bishshāsh")( belief ), বাধ্য (written as "bādhja" but pronounced as "bāddho")( bound ( to do something) )and স্বাস্থ্য (written as "sbāsthja" but pronounced as "shāstho") (health). Some consonant clusters have completely different pronunciation as compared to the constituent consonants. For example, 'হ্য' as in ঐতিহ্য where 'hy' is pronounced as 'jjh' (written as "aitihya" but pronounced as "oitijjho")(tradition). The same হ্য is pronounced as 'hæ' as in হ্যাঁ (written as "hjāṅ" but pronounced as nasalised "hæ").
Another example of inconsistency in the script is that of words like, অন্য (written as "anja" but pronounced as "onno")(other/different) and অন্ন (written as "ann'a" but pronounced as "ônno")(food grain); in these words, the letter অ is combining with two different consonant clusters ন্য ("nja") and ন্ন ("nna"), and while the same letter অ has two different pronunciations, o and ô, the two different consonant clusters have the same pronunciation, "nno". Thus, same letters and graphemes can often have different pronunciations depending on their position in a word and different graphemes and letters often have the same pronunciation.
The main reason for these numerous inconsistencies is that there have been lots of sound mergers in Bengali, but the script has failed to account for the sound shifts and consonant mergers in the language. Bengali has lots of tatsam words (words directly derived from Sanskrit) and in all these words, the original spelling has been preserved but the pronunciations have changed due to consonant mergers and sound shifts. In fact, most of the tatsam words have a lot of grapheme-to-phoneme inconsistencies while most of the tadbhav words (native Bengali words) have fairly consistent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. The Bengali writing system is, therefore, not often a true guide to pronunciation.
Uses
The script used for Bengali, Assamese, and other languages is known as Bengali script. The script is known as the Bengali alphabet for Bengali and its dialects and the Assamese alphabet for Assamese language with some minor variations. Other related languages in the nearby region also make use of the Bengali script like the Meitei language in the Indian state of Manipur, where the Meitei language has been written in the Bengali script for centuries, though the Meitei script has been promoted in recent times.
Number system
Bengali digits are as follows.
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
০ | ১ | ২ | ৩ | ৪ | ৫ | ৬ | ৭ | ৮ | ৯ |
There are additional digits for fractions and prices, though they are little used any longer.[vague]
Romanisation
There are various romanisation systems used for Bengali created in recent years which have failed to represent the true Bengali phonetic sound. The Bengali alphabet has often been included with the group of Brahmic scripts for romanisation where the true phonetic value of Bengali is never represented. Some of them are the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, or IAST system (based on diacritics);[103] "Indian languages Transliteration", or ITRANS (uses upper case letters suited for ASCII keyboards);[104] and the National Library at Kolkata romanisation.[105]
In the context of Bengali
Although it might be desirable to use a transliteration scheme where the original Bengali orthography is recoverable from the Latin text, Bengali words are currently romanised on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the true phonetic pronunciation of Bengali is represented with no reference to how it is written.
The most recent attempt has been by publishers Mitra and Ghosh with the launch of three popular children's books, Abol Tabol, Hasi Khusi and Sahoj Path, in Roman script at the Kolkata Book Fair 2018. Published under the imprint of Benglish Books, these are based on phonetic transliteration and closely follow spellings used in social media but for using an underline to describe soft consonants.
Grammar
Bengali nouns are not assigned gender, which leads to minimal changing of adjectives (inflection). However, nouns and pronouns are moderately declined (altered depending on their function in a sentence) into four cases while verbs are heavily conjugated, and the verbs do not change form depending on the gender of the nouns.
Word order
As a
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. Additionally, optional particles (e.g. কি -ki, না -na, etc.) are often encliticised onto the first or last word of a yes–no question.
Wh-questions are formed by fronting the wh-word to focus position, which is typically the first or second word in the utterance.
Nouns
Nouns and pronouns are inflected for case, including nominative, objective, genitive (possessive), and locative.[28] The case marking pattern for each noun being inflected depends on the noun's degree of animacy. When a definite article such as -টা -ṭa (singular) or -গুলো -gulo (plural) is added, as in the tables below, nouns are also inflected for number.
In most of Bengali grammar books, cases are divided into 6 categories and an additional possessive case (the possessive form is not recognised as a type of case by Bengali grammarians). But in terms of usage, cases are generally grouped into only 4 categories.
Animate | Inanimate | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | ছাত্রটি chatrô-ṭi the student |
ছাত্ররা chatrô-ra /
ছাত্রগণ
the students |
জুতোটি juto-ṭa the shoe |
জুতাগুলা juta-gula / / জুতোগুলো juto-gulo the shoes |
Objective | ছাত্রটিকে chatrô-ṭi-ke the student |
ছাত্রদের(কে) chatrô-der(ke) the students |
জুতোটা juto-ṭa the shoe |
জুতাগুলা juta-gula / / জুতোগুলো juto-gulo the shoes |
Genitive | ছাত্রটির chatrô-ṭi-r the student's |
ছাত্রদের chatrô-der the students' |
জুতোটার juto-ṭa-r the shoe's |
জুতাগুলা juta-gula / / জুতোগুলোর juto-gulo-r the shoes' |
Locative | – | – | জুতোটায় juto-ṭa-y on/in the shoe |
জুতাগুলা juta-gula / / জুতোগুলোতে juto-gulo-te on/in the shoes |
When counted, nouns take one of a small set of measure words. Nouns in Bengali cannot be counted by adding the numeral directly adjacent to the noun. An appropriate measure word (MW), a classifier, must be used between the numeral and the noun (most languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area are similar in this respect). Most nouns take the generic measure word -টা -ṭa, though other measure words indicate semantic classes (e.g. -জন -jôn for humans). There is also the classifier -khana, and its diminutive form -khani, which attaches only to nouns denoting something flat, long, square, or thin. These are the least common of the classifiers.[108]
নয়টা Nôy-ṭa nine-MW গরু goru cow Nine cows |
কয়টা Kôy-ṭa how many-MW বালিশ balish pillow How many pillows |
অনেকজন Ônek-jôn many-MW লোক lok person Many people |
চার-পাঁচজন Ĉar-pãc-jôn four-five-MW শিক্ষক shikkhôk teacher Four to five teachers |
Measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. আট বিড়াল aṭ biṛal instead of আটটা বিড়াল aṭ-ṭa biṛal "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-jôn thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", given the semantic class implicit in -জন -jôn.
In this sense, all nouns in Bengali, unlike most other Indo-European languages, are similar to mass nouns.
Verbs
There are two classes of verbs: finite and non-finite. 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 honour (intimate, familiar, and formal), but not for number. Conditional, imperative, and other special inflections for mood can replace the tense and aspect suffixes. 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.
Bengali differs from most Indo-Aryan Languages in the zero copula, where the copula or connective be is often missing in the present tense.[91] Thus, "he is a teacher" is সে শিক্ষক se shikkhôk, (literally "he teacher").[109] In this respect, Bengali is similar to Russian and Hungarian. Romani grammar is also the closest to Bengali grammar.[110]
Vocabulary
Bengali has as many as 100,000 separate words, of which 50,000 are considered Tadbhavas, 21,100 are Tatsamas and the remainder loanwords from Austroasiatic and other foreign languages. Bengali is reportedly similar to Assamese and has a lexical similarity of 40 per cent with Nepali.[111]
However, these figures do not take into account the large proportion of archaic or highly technical words that are very rarely used. Furthermore, different dialects use more
According to Suniti Kumar Chatterji, dictionaries from the early 20th century attributed a little more than 50% of the Bengali vocabulary to native words (i.e., naturally modified Sanskrit words, corrupted forms of Sanskrit words, and loanwords non-Indo-European languages). About 45% per cent of Bengali words are unmodified Sanskrit, and the remaining words are from foreign languages.[114] Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms. More recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style.[114] Because of centuries of contact with Europeans, Turkic peoples, and Persians, Bengali has absorbed numerous words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary.
The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. After close contact with several indigenous Austroasiatic languages,[115][116][117][118] and later the Delhi Sultanate, the Bengal Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire, whose court language was Persian, numerous Arabic, Persian, and Chaghatai words were absorbed into the lexicon.[44]
Later, East Asian travellers and lately European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English during the colonial period.
Sample text
The following is a sample text in Bengali of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
সমস্ত
Sômôstô
ʃɔmosto
All
মানুষ
manush
manuʃ
human
স্বাধীনভাবে
shadhinbhabe
ʃadʱinbʱabe
free-manner-in
সমান
sôman
ʃoman
equal
মর্যাদা
môrjada
mɔɾdʒada
dignity
এবং
ebông
eboŋ
and
অধিকার
ôdhikar
odʱikaɾ
right
নিয়ে
niye
nie̯e
taken
জন্মগ্রহণ
jônmôgrôhôn
dʒɔnmoɡrohon
birth-take
করে।
kôre.
kɔɾe
do.
তাঁদের
Tãder
tãdeɾ
Their
বিবেক
bibek
bibek
reason
এবং
ebông
eboŋ
and
বুদ্ধি
buddhi
budʱːi
intelligence
আছে;
achhe;
atʃʰe
exist;
সুতরাং
sutôrang
ʃutoraŋ
therefore
সকলেরই
sôkôleri
ʃɔkoleɾi
everyone-indeed
একে
êke
ɛke
one
অপরের
ôpôrer
ɔporeɾ
another's
প্রতি
prôti
proti
towards
ভ্রাতৃত্বসুলভ
bhratrittôsulôbh
bʱratritːoʃulɔbʱ
brotherhood-ly
মনোভাব
mônobhab
monobʱab
attitude
নিয়ে
niye
nie̯e
taken
আচরণ
achôrôn
atʃorɔn
conduct
করা
kôra
kɔra
do
উচিত।
uchit.
utʃit
should.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They possess conscience and reason. Therefore, everyone should act in a spirit of brotherhood towards each other.
See also
- Bangla Academy
- Bengali dialects
- Bengali numerals
- Bengali-language newspapers
- Chittagonian language
- Languages of Bangladesh
- Rangpuri language
- Romani people
- Sylheti language
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An Indic language spoken in India and Bangladesh.
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{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ (Masica 1991, pp. 125)
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- ^
Hübschmannová, Milena (1995). "Romaňi čhib – romština: Několik základních informací o romském jazyku". Bulletin Muzea Romské Kultury (4/1995). Brno.
Zatímco romská lexika je bližší hindštině, marvárštině, pandžábštině atd., v gramatické sféře nacházíme mnoho shod s východoindickým jazykem, s bengálštinou.
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References
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Further reading
- Thompson, Hanne-Ruth (2012). Bengali. Volume 18 of London Oriental and African Language Library. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 90-272-7313-8.