Bengali language

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Bengali
Bangla
বাংলা
Bangla Script.svg
"Bangla" in Bengali script
Pronunciation[ˈbaŋla] (About this soundlisten)
RegionBangladesh and India
EthnicityBengalis
Native speakers
250–300 million (2017)[1][2][3]
(L1 plus L2 speakers)
Early forms
Abahattha
  • Old Bengali
Dialects
Eastern Nagari script (Bengali alphabet)
Bengali Braille
Bengali signed forms[4]
Official status
Official language in
 Bangladesh
 India (in West Bengal, Tripura and Barak Valley)
Regulated byBangla Academy
Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi
Language codes
ISO 639-1bn
ISO 639-2ben
ISO 639-3ben
Glottologbeng1280
Linguasphere59-AAF-u
Bengalispeaking region.png
Bengali speaking region of South Asia
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.


Bengali is the most eastern Indo-Aryan language from South Asia. It developed from a language called Pali.

Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura.

There are about 220 million native speakers and about 250 million total speakers of Bengali. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, ranking seventh.[5]

Almost all of the people in Bangladesh speak Bengali, and many famous books and poems are written in Bengali. Rabindranath Tagore was a famous poet who wrote in Bengali. Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written in this language.[6]

Bengali has developed over the course of more than 1,300 years. Bengali literature, with its millennium-old literary history, has extensively developed since 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 Bengali to 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.[7][8] The Bengali language is the quintessential element of Bengali identity and binds together a culturally diverse region.

History

The descent of proto-Gauda, the ancestor of the modern Bengali language, from the proto-Gauda-Kamarupa line of the proto-Magadhan(Magadhi Prakrit).[9]

Ancient

Although Sanskrit was practised by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, the local Buddhist population were speaking in some varieties of the Prakrita languages. These varieties generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji,[citation needed] as the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire, and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit.[10] Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam, and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi.[11][12] Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what is known as Apabhraṃśa, by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language by the course of time.[13]

Early

Though some 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 Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating.[14] The local Apabhraṃśa of the eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta ("Meaningless Sounds"), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups of the Bengali–Assamese languages, the Bihari languages, and the Odia language. Some argue that the points of divergence occurred much earlier – going back to even 500 CE[15] but the language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time.[16][better source needed] Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty.[17][18]


Medieval

Silver Taka from the Sultanate of Bengal, circa 1417
Silver coin with proto-Bengali script, Harikela Kingdom, circa 9th–13th century

During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs, and influence from the Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages. The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist-ruling Pala Empire, from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. Starting with Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest in the 13th century, the subsequent Muslim expeditions to Bengal greatly encouraged the migratory movements of Arab Muslims and Turco-Persians, who heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah.[19] Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali,[20] allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate.[21] Bengali gained many vocabulary from Arabic and Persian, which cultivated a manifestation of Islamic culture on the language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Shreekrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire colonised Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century.[22]

Modern

The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a strong case of diglossia, with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language.[23] The modern Bengali vocabulary contains the vocabulary base from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, also tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and other major borrowings from Persian, Arabic, Austroasiatic languages and other languages in contact with.

During this period, there were two main forms of written Bengali:

  • চলিতভাষা Chôlitôbhasha; colloquial form of Bengali using simplified inflections
  • সাধুভাষা Sadhubhasha; Sanskritised form of Bengali.[24]

In 1948, the Government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, starting the Bengali language movement.[25] The Bengali Language Movement was a popular ethno-linguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh), which was a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis to gain and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as a state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan. On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan.[25] The day has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and is also commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000.

In 2010, the parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language,[26] though no further action was taken on this matter.

The Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Language Martyr's Memorial at Silchar Railway Station in Assam, India.

Geographical distribution

A Bengali sign in Brick Lane in London, which is home to a large Bengali diaspora

Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming a rounded total of 261 million) worldwide.

  Bangladesh (61.3%)
  India (37.2%)
  Other (1.5%)

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 Tripura, southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bengali is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand, and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi, Mumbai, Thane, Varanasi, and Vrindavan. There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East,[27][28][29] the United States,[30] Singapore,[31] Malaysia, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Official status

See also: States of India by Bengali speakers

The 3rd article of the Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh.[32] The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh.[33] It is also the de facto national language of the country

In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages.[34] It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam.[35][36] Bengali is a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It is also a recognised secondary language in the City of Karachi in Pakistan.[37][38][39] The Department of Bengali in the University of Karachi also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature.[40] The national anthems of both Bangladesh (Amar Sonar Bangla) and India (Jana Gana Mana) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.[41] Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram, a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Matha) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore,[42][43][44][45] while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala.[46][47][48][49] 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.[50][51][52][53]

In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali language to be made an official language of the United Nations.[54]


Dialects

Main article: Bengali dialects
A map of Bengal (and some districts of Assam and Jharkhand) which shows the dialects of the Bengali Language.[citation needed]
  Bangali dialect
  Manbhumi dialect
  Varendri dialect
  Rarhi dialect
  Sundarbani dialect
  Rajbanshi dialect/language*
  Chittagonian dialect/language*
  Sylheti dialect/language*
(those marked with an asterisk * are sometimes considered dialects or sometimes as separate languages.[citation needed])

Regional variation in spoken Bengali constitutes a dialect continuum. Linguist Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay grouped the dialects of the eastern Magadhan languages into four large clusters that included Assamese and Oriya – Rarhi, Vangiya, Kamrupi and Varendri;[55][56] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed.[57] 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 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 West Bengal). Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Rangpuri, 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.[58]

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 District, located next to the border of Bangladesh and 76 miles north of Kolkata.[59] 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 নুন nun in the west which corresponds to লবণ lôbôṇ in the east.[60]

Bengali exhibits diglossia, though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language.[23] Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax:[59][61]

  1. Shadhu-bhasha (সাধুভাষা "uptight 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.
  2. Cholito-bhasha (চলিতভাষা "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),[62] Pramatha Chaudhuri (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. It is modelled 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", "Nadia dialect", "Southwestern/West-Central dialect" or "Shantipuri Bangla".[57]

Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises the language as:

  • Madhya Rādhi dialect
  • Kanthi (Contai) dialect
  • Kolkata dialect
  • Shantipuri (Nadia) dialect
  • Shershabadia (Maldahiya/ Jangipuri) dialect
  • Barendri dialect
  • Rangpuriya dialect
  • Sylheti dialect
  • Dhakaiya (Bikrampuri) dialect
  • Jessor/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 speak in dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB.[63] The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis.[63] 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.[24]

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 native words respectively whereas Hindus are more likely to use words derived from Sanskrit.[64] For example:[60]

Predominantly Hindu usage Predominantly Muslim usage Translation
নমস্কার nômôshkar আসসালামু আলাইকুম Assalamu-Alaikum hello
নিমন্ত্রণ nimôntrôn দাওয়াত dawat invitation
জল jôl পানি pani water
স্নান snan গোসল gosôl bath
দিদি didi আপু apu sister / elder sister
দাদা dada ভাইয়া bhaiya brother / elder brother[65]
মাসী mashi খালা khala maternal aunt
পিসি pishi ফুফু phuphu paternal aunt
কাকা kaka চাচা chacha paternal uncle
প্রার্থনা prarthona দুআ dua prayer
প্রদীপ prodeep বাতি bati light
লঙ্কা lonka মরিচ morich chilli

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).

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close ই~ঈ
i
i		 উ~ঊ
u
u
Close-mid এ
e
e		 ও
o
o
Open-mid অ্যা
ɛ
ê		 অ
ɔ
ô
Open আ
a
a
Nasalized vowels
Front Central Back
Close ইঁ~ঈঁ
ĩ
ĩ 		উঁ~ঊঁ
ũ
ũ
Close-mid এঁ
ẽ
ẽ 		ওঁ
õ
õ
Open-mid এ্যাঁ / অ্যাঁ
ɛ̃ 		অঁ
ɔ̃
Open আঁ
ã
Consonants
Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Retroflex Palatoalveolar Velar Glottal
Nasal m n   ŋ  
Plosive voiceless unaspirated p t ʈ tʃ k
aspirated pʰ~f tʰ ʈʰ tʃʰ kʰ
voiced unaspirated b d ɖ dʒ ɡ
aspirated bʱ~v dʱ ɖʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ
Fricative s ʃ ɦ
Approximant (w) l (j)
Rhotic r ɽ~ɽʱ


Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs, combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.[66] Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/, are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of a diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following:[67]

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

Main article: Bengali consonant clusters

Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters;[68] 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".

Number system

Bengali numbers are written as follows.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
০ ১ ২ ৩ ৪ ৫ ৬ ৭ ৮ ৯

Writing system

Main articles: Bengali-Assamese Script, Bengali alphabet, and Bengali Braille
An example of handwritten Bengali. Part of a poem written in Bengali (and with its English translation below each Bengali paragraph) by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary

Bengali-Assamese script is an abugida, a script with letters for consonants, diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked.[69] The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century).[70] Note that despite Bangladesh being majority Muslim, it uses the Bengali alphabet rather than an Arabic-based one like the Shahmukhi script used in Pakistan. However, throughout history there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in Perso-Arabic. The use of the Sylheti Nagari script also emerged in the Sylhet region of the Bengal.[71]

The Bengali script is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers.[70] There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words. Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra.[72]

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 allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures. These allographs, called কার kar, are diacritical 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 diacritical allographি (called ই-কার i-kar) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma], মী [mi], মু [mu], মূ [mu], মৃ [mri], মে [me~mɛ], মৈ [moj], মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures, the so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ].

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 nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow").

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.


Phonology

Main article: Bengali phonology


References

  1. ↑ "Article 3. The state language". The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Retrieved 1 February 2017. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  2. ↑ "Scheduled Languages in descending order of speaker's strength - 2011" (PDF). Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. 29 June 2018.
  3. ↑ Bengali at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
  4. ↑ "Bangla Sign Language Dictionary". www.scribd.com. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
  5. ↑ "Statistical Summaries". Ethnologue. 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  6. ↑ "Statement by Hon'ble Foreign Minister on Second Bangladesh-India Track II dialogue at BRAC Centre on 07 August, 2005". Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 2008-04-18. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  7. ↑ "Amendment to the Draft Programme and Budget for 2000–2001 (30 C/5)" (PDF). General Conference, 30th Session, Draft Resolution. UNESCO. 1999. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2008.
  8. ↑ "Resolution adopted by the 30th Session of UNESCO's General Conference (1999)". International Mother Language Day. UNESCO. Archived from the original on 1 June 2008. Retrieved 27 May 2008.
  9. ↑ (Toulmin 2009:220)
  10. ↑ Shariful Islam (2012). "Bangla Script". In Islam, Sirajul; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir (eds.). Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. Retrieved 2 June 2025.
  11. ↑ Shah 1998, p. 11
  12. ↑ Keith 1998, p. 187
  13. ↑ (Bhattacharya 2000)
  14. ↑ "Within the Eastern Indic language family the history of the separation of Bangla from Oriya, Assamese, and the languages of Bihar remains to be worked out carefully. Scholars do not yet agree on criteria for deciding if certain tenth century AD texts were in a Bangla already distinguishable from the other languages, or marked a stage at which Eastern Indic had not finished differentiating." (Dasgupta 2003:386–387)
  15. ↑ (Sen 1996)
  16. ↑ "Banglapedia". En.banglapedia.org. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  17. ↑ "Pala dynasty – Indian dynasty". Global.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 5 March 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  18. ↑ nimmi. "Pala Dynasty, Pala Empire, Pala empire in India, Pala School of Sculptures". Indianmirror.com. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  19. ↑ "What is more significant, a contemporary Chinese traveler reported that although Persian was understood by some in the court, the language in universal use there was Bengali. This points to the waning, although certainly not yet the disappearance, of the sort of foreign mentality that the Muslim ruling class in Bengal had exhibited since its arrival over two centuries earlier. It also points to the survival, and now the triumph, of local Bengali culture at the highest level of official society." (Eaton 1993:60)
  20. ↑ Rabbani, AKM Golam (7 November 2017). "Politics and Literary Activities in the Bengali Language during the Independent Sultanate of Bengal". Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics. 1 (1): 151–166. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017 – via www.banglajol.info.
  21. ↑ Eaton 1993.
  22. ↑ (Eaton 1993:167–174)
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Bengali Language at Cornell". Department of Asian Studies. Cornell University. Archived from the original on 15 November 2012.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Ray, S Kumar. "The Bengali Language and Translation". Translation Articles. Kwintessential. Archived from the original on 25 September 2006. Retrieved 19 November 2006.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Thompson, Hanne-Ruth (2012). Bengali (Paperback with corrections. ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Co. p. 3. ISBN 978-90-272-3819-1.
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  27. ↑ "Kuwait restricts recruitment of male Bangladeshi workers | Dhaka Tribune". www.dhakatribune.com. 7 September 2016. Archived from the original on 30 August 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  28. ↑ "Bahrain: Foreign population by country of citizenship, sex and migration status (worker/ family dependent) (selected countries, January 2015) – GLMM". GLMM. 20 October 2015. Archived from the original on 16 December 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  29. ↑ "Saudi Arabia". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 23 November 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  30. ↑ "New York State Voter Registration Form" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 January 2018. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  31. ↑ http://blls.sg Archived 5 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine Bangla Language and Literary Society, Singapore
  32. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named constitution
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  34. ↑ "Languages of India". Ethnologue Report. Archived from the original on 26 December 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2006.
  35. ↑ "Language". Government of Assam. Archived from the original on 26 August 2006. Retrieved 20 June 2006.
  36. ↑ Bhattacharjee, Kishalay (30 April 2008). "It's Indian language vs Indian language". NDTV.com. Archived from the original on 23 July 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2008.
  37. ↑ Syed Yasir Kazmi (16 October 2009). "Pakistani Bengalis". DEMOTIX. Archived from the original on 2 January 2015. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  38. ↑ "کراچی کے 'بنگالی پاکستانی'(Urdu)". محمد عثمان جامعی. 17 November 2003. Archived from the original on 19 November 2003. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  39. ↑ Rafiqul Islam. "The Language Movement : An Outline". Archived from the original on 19 November 2012. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  40. ↑ "Karachi Department of Bengali". Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  41. ↑ "Statement by Hon'ble Foreign Minister on Second Bangladesh-India Track II dialogue at BRAC Centre on 07 August, 2005". Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 18 April 2008. Retrieved 27 May 2008.
  42. ↑ "Sri Lanka". The World Factbook. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  43. ↑ "Man of the series: Nobel laureate Tagore". The Times of India. Times News Network. 3 April 2011. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  44. ↑ "Sri Lanka I-Day to have anthem in Tamil". The Hindu. 4 February 2016. Archived from the original on 4 February 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  45. ↑ "Tagore's influence on Lankan culture". Hindustan Times. 12 May 2010. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  46. ↑ Wickramasinghe, Nira (2003). Dressing the Colonised Body: Politics, Clothing, and Identity in Sri Lanka. Orient Longman. p. 26. ISBN 978-81-250-2479-8. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  47. ↑ Wickramasinghe, Kamanthi; Perera, Yoshitha. "Sri Lankan National Anthem: can it be used to narrow the gap?". The Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka). No. 30 March 2015. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  48. ↑ Haque, Junaidul (7 May 2011). "Rabindranath: He belonged to the world". The Daily Star (Bangladesh). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  49. ↑ Habib, Haroon (17 May 2011). "Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore's legacy". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 13 June 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  50. ↑ "How Bengali became an official language in Sierra Leone". The Indian Express. 2017-02-21. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  51. ↑ "Why Bangla is an official language in Sierra Leone". Dhaka Tribune. 23 Feb 2017.
  52. ↑ Ahmed, Nazir (21 Feb 2017). "Recounting the sacrifices that made Bangla the State Language".
  53. ↑ "Sierra Leone makes Bengali official language". Pakistan. 29 Dec 2002. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013.
  54. ↑ Bhaumik, Subir (22 December 2009). "Bengali 'should be UN language'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  55. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named huq_sarkar
  56. ↑ "Note that Chatterji’s classification of ‘Bengali dialects’ includes lects ancestral to both Asamiya and Oriya. However, Chatterji does not intend to classify these lects as dialects of Bangla. Therefore, Chatterji’s four dialects—Rāḍha, Varêndra, Vaŋga, and Kāmrupa—should not be termed ‘dialects of Bengali’ but rather, ‘dialects [in the sense of historical derivatives] of eastern Magadhan’ (cf. Chatterji 1926:92ff.)." (Toulmin 2009:218)
  57. ↑ 57.0 57.1 Morshed, Abul Kalam Manjoor (2012). "Dialect". In Islam, Sirajul; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir (eds.). Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. Retrieved 2 June 2025.
  58. ↑ "Hajong". The Ethnologue Report. Archived from the original on 15 November 2006. Retrieved 19 November 2006.
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  60. ↑ 60.0 60.1 "History of Bengali (Banglar itihash)". Bengal Telecommunication and Electric Company. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 20 November 2006.
  61. ↑ Huq, Mohammad Daniul (2012). "Sadhu Bhasa". In Islam, Sirajul; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir (eds.). Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. Retrieved 2 June 2025.
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  66. ↑ (Masica 1991, pp. 116)
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  69. ↑ Escudero Pascual Alberto (23 October 2005). "Writing Systems/ Scripts" (PDF). Primer to Localization of Software. it46.se. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2006.
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 Bangalah Archived 5 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine in Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 2003
  71. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named bpedia
  72. ↑ "banglasemantics.net". Archived from the original on 24 December 2010.
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