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Bengali or Bangla (বাংলা, IPA: ['baŋla]) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit. 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 native speakers, Bengali is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world (it is ranked fourth in the world[3]). Bengali is the main language spoken in Bangladesh; in India, and is ranked as the second[4][5] most spoken language. Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-European languages.
History
Usually three periods are identified in the history of Bengali:[6]
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 retain a largely Sanskrit vocabulary base while Hindi and others are more influenced by Arabic and Persian. Image:Shaheed minar Roehl.jpg 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.[10] Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great Bengali Reformer, also wrote a "Grammar of the Bengali Language" (1832).
Bengali was the focus, in 1951–52, of the Language movement (Bhasha Andolon) in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).[12] 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.[13][14] Geographical distributionImage:Location-Bangla01.png 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.[15] There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in immigrant populations in the Middle East, West and Malaysia. Official statusBengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 national 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 District 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.[16] It is also the co-official language of Assam, which has three predominantly Sylheti-speaking districts of southern Assam: Silchar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi.[17] The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore. DialectsRegional variation in spoken Bengali constitutes a dialect continuum. Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee grouped these dialects into four large clusters — Radh, Banga, Kamarupa and Varendra;[10] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed.[18] The south-western dialects (Radh) form the basis of standard colloquial Bangla, 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. 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.[19] During 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.[20] 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.[21] Spoken and literary varietiesBengali exhibits strong diglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax, have emerged:[20][22]
Though formal spoken Bengali is modeled on Choltibhasha, 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.[11] 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:[21]
(here S = derived from Sanskrit; A = derived from Arabic, P = derived from Persian) Writing systemImage:Anandabazarsnap1.JPG Anandabazar Patrika, a news daily published from Kolkata in Bengali. Bengali is written in the Bengali abugida. It is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE,[24] and is similar to the Devanagari abugida used for Hindi, Sanskrit, and many other Indic languages. The Bengali abugida is a cursive script with eleven vowel characters and thirty-nine consonant characters.[24] As in all abugidas, every consonant in the Bengali script can come with what is called an "embedded" or "inherent" vowel sound.[25] For example, the simple letter ম can represent the consonant [m] in a word like কম [kɔm] "less". However, in another word, the same letter ম can represent the sequences [mɔ] or [mo], as in মত [mɔt̪] "opinion" and মন [mon] "mind", respectively, with no added symbol for the vowels [ɔ] or [o]. If the consonant sound is followed by some other vowel sound in the pronunciation, this can be written by using a variety of vowel diacritics above, below, before, after, or around the consonant they belong to. Vowels not associated with a consonant (for example, vowels at the beginning of a word) are written with separate symbols. To emphatically indicate that a consonant is not pronounced with the embedded vowel, an extra diacritic may be added below the consonant. Consonant clusters are typically indicated by ligating two or more consonant symbols. In spite of some modifications in the nineteenth century, the Bengali spelling system continues to be based on the Sanskrit alphabet, [10]and thus does not take into account some sound mergers that have occurred in the spoken language. For example, the alphabet has two letters for the sound [dʒ] (জ and য) and three for the sound [ʃ] (শ, ষ, and স). Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the daŗi (|), or full stop, have been adopted from Western languages.[10] Image:Tagoresignature.png Signature of Rabindranath Tagore — an example of penmanship in Bengali. This same 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.[26] RomanizationSeveral conventions exist for writing Indic languages including Bengali in the Latin script, including "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration" or IAST (based on diacritics),[27] "Indian languages Transliteration" or ITRANS (uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards),[28] and the National Library at Calcutta romanization.[29] Bengali words are currently Romanized on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to the spelling. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, with IPA transcriptions found under the heading "Sounds".
SoundsThe phonemic inventory of Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels. An approximate phonetic scheme is set out below in International Phonetic Alphabet.
DiphthongsMagadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.[30] Several vowel combinations can be considered true monosyllabic diphthongs, made up of the main vowel (the nucleus) and the trailing vowel (the off-glide). Almost all other vowel combinations are possible, but only across two adjacent syllables, such as the disyllabic vowel combination [u.a] in কুয়া kua "well". As many as 25 vowel combinations can be found, but some of the more recent combinations have not passed through the stage between two syllables and a diphthongal monosyllable.[31]
StressIn 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 shô-ho-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However, in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable has stress, out of harmony with the situation with native Bengali words.[32] Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left; for example, while the word shob-bho "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob], adding the negative prefix [ô-] creates ô-shob-bho "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ ô. In any case, word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word, and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress.[32] IntonationFor Bengali words, intonation or pitch of voice have minor significance, apart from a few isolated cases. However in sentences intonation does play a significant role.[33] In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in Bengali carry a rising tone,[34] with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. This intonational pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence. In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone.[34] This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone.[35] Vowel lengthVowel length is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel",[36] unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. However, when morpheme boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. This is due to the fact that open monosyllables (i.e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types.[37] For example, the vowel in cha: "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in chaţa "licking", as cha: is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a colon : in these examples.) The suffix ţa "the" can be added to cha: to form cha:ţa "the tea". Even when another morpheme is attached to cha:, the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation.[37] Furthermore, using a form of reduplication called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in cha: can be copied into the reduplicant ţa:, giving cha:ţa: "tea and all that comes with it". Thus, in addition to cha:ţa "the tea" (long first vowel) and chaţa "licking" (no long vowels), we have cha:ţa: "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels). Consonant clustersNative Bengali (tôdbhôb) words do not allow initial consonant clusters;[38] 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". Sanskrit (তৎসম tôtshôm) words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the mr in মৃত্যু mrittu "death" or the sp in স্পষ্ট spôshţo "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী bideshi) borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity to CCCVCCCC, as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন ţren "train" and গ্লাস glash "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries. Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali.[39] Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্ট lifţ "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক bêņk "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ gônj, which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ Nôbabgônj and মানিকগঞ্জ Manikgônj. Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ chand "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of chand would be চাঁদ chãd, with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster. GrammarBengali nouns are not assigned gender, which leads to minimal changing of adjectives (inflection). However, nouns and pronouns are highly declined (altered depending on their function in a sentence) into four cases while verbs are heavily conjugated. As a consequence, unlike Hindi, Bengali verbs do not change form depending on the gender of the nouns. Word orderAs a Head-Final language, Bengali follows Subject Object Verb word order, although variations to this theme are common.[40] Bengali makes use of postpositions, as opposed to the prepositions used in English and other European languages. Determiners follow the noun, while numerals, adjectives, and possessors precede the noun.[41] 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 encliticized 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. NounsNouns and pronouns are inflected for case, including nominative, objective, genitive (possessive), and locative.[6] The case marking pattern for each noun being inflected depends on the noun's degree of animacy. When a definite article such as -টা -ţa (singular) or -গুলা -gula (plural) is added, as in the tables below, nouns are also inflected for number.
When counted, nouns take one of a small set of measure words. As in many Asian languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc.), nouns in Bengali cannot be counted by adding the numeral directly adjacent to the noun. The noun's measure word (MW) must be used between the numeral and the noun. Most nouns take the generic measure word -টা -ţa, though other measure words indicate semantic classes (e.g. -জন -jon for humans).
Measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. আট বিড়াল aţ biŗal instead of আটটা বিড়াল aţ-ţa biŗal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, omitting the noun and preserving the measure word is commonly encountered: e.g. শুধু একজন থাকবে। Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", given the semantic class implicit in -জন -jon. In this sense, all nouns in Bengali, unlike most other Indo-European languages, are similar to mass nouns. VerbsVerbs divide into two classes: 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 honor (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.[10] Thus "he is a teacher" is she shikkhôk, (literally "he teacher").[42] In this respect, Bengali is similar to Russian and Hungarian. VocabularyImage:Bengali Vocabulary.GIF Sources of Bengali words Bengali has as many as 75,000 separate words, of which 50,000 (67%) are considered tôtshôm (direct reborrowings from Sanskrit), 21,100 (28%) are tôdbhôb (native Bengali vocabulary), and the rest being bideshi (foreign) and deshi (indigenous Austroasiatic) words. However, these figures do not take into account the fact that a large proportion of these words are archaic or highly technical, minimizing their actual usage. The productive vocabulary used in modern literary works, in fact, is made up mostly (67%) of tôdbhôb words, while tôtshôm only make up 25% of the total.[43][44] Deshi and Bideshi words together make up the remaining 8% of the vocabulary used in modern Bengali literature. Due to centuries of contact with Europeans, Mughals, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Afghans, and East Asians, Bengali has borrowed many words from foreign languages. The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. Close contact with neighboring peoples facilitated the borrowing of words from Hindi, Assamese, Chinese, Burmese, and several indigenous Austroasiatic languages of Bengal. After centuries of invasions from Persia and the Middle East, numerous Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Pashtun words were absorbed into Bengali. Portuguese, French, Dutch and English words were later additions during the colonial period. Sample
See also
Notes
References
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