Bangla is the state language of Bangladesh and one of 18 languages listed in the Indian Constitution. It is the administrative language of the Indian states of Tripura and west bengal as well as one of the administrative languages of Kachar district, Assam. Bangla speakers number about 230 million today, making Bangla the seventh language after Chinese, English, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, arabic and Portuguese. It is perhaps the only language on the basis of which an independent state was created.

History Bangla emerged as a new Indo-Aryan language by 900-1000 AD through Magadhi apabhrangsha and abahattha, two stages of Magadhi prakrit (600 BC - 600 AD), along with two other Indo-Aryan languages, Oriya and Assamese. Until the 14th century, there was little linguistic difference between Bangla and Assamese.

The evolution of Bangla may be divided into three historical phases: Old Bangla (900/1000-1350), Medieval Bangla (1350-1800) and Modern Bangla (1800- ). The earliest example of old Bangla is to be found in the poems of the charyapada, though the language of these poems is also related to eastern Magadhi languages. srikrishnakirtan or Srikrishnasandarbha of baru chandidas is an example of the early form of medieval Bangla. Other writings in medieval Bangla are the translations of the ramayana and the mahabharata, Vaishnava lyrics, poetical biographies of Sri chaitanya, various forms of the mangalkavya, narrative poetry written at the court of Arakan and Rosang, Shakta Poetry and purbabanga-gitika. An influx of Perso-Arabic words into the language took place at this point of evolution. Bangla also borrowed from sanskrit, the words known as tatsama and tadbhava, English and other languages in the modern Bangla phase.

The linguistic features of these three phases of the language can be classified as follows: Old Bangla- phonological: 1. geminate clusters born out of conjunct consonants were simplified into single consonants and the preceding vowel grew longer as a result of compensatory lengthening; 2. the word-final a (?) remained in place and the word-final ia (??) turned into long i (?). Morphological: 1. feminine gender continued to be used with genitive inflections and past verbal inflections ending in l (?); 2. inflections as used in modern Bangla started surfacing at this stage; but verbal inflexions ending in -ila (-??) and -iba (-??) began to be used with the subject of the intransitive passive voice; 3. the proto forms of modern Bangla pronouns like ahme, tuhme etc. surfaced at this stage of the Bangla language.

Medieval Bangla- Phonological: 1. In the early phase of medieval Bangla, the half-vowels i (??) and u (??) started weakening; 2. nasal aspirates lost aspiration; 3. nasalised vowel + consonant started replacing nasal sound + consonant. Morphological: 1. verbal inflections like -il (-???) and -ib (-???) started to be used with the subject of the active voice, instead of intransitive passive voice; 2. post-positions, rather than verbal inflections, started to be used for intransitive passive voice; 3. phrasal and compound verbs gained currency.

The last phase of medieval Bangla- Phonological: 1. the elision of the word-final a 2. the evolution and currency of epenthesis; 3. the evolution of the new vowel sound ae as in 'hat'. Morphological: 1. the evolution of new inflections like -r -gula -guli (-???), -dig(e)r etc. Lexical: huge loans of Sanskrit and Perso-Arabic words.

Modern Bangla- Phonological: 1. the widespread use of vowel harmony or vowel height assimilation influenced by i (?) and u (?); 2. the elision of epenthetic i and u ; 3. an increase in the number of words beginning with the sound ae pronounced as in 'hat', stemming from e ; 4. the separation of consonant clusters in spoken form with anaptyxis or prothesis; 5. the assimilation of tatsama conjunct consonants formed with b , m and y . Morphological: 1. the short forms of pronouns and verbal forms in standard colloquial Bangla (tahar > tar ; kariyachhila > karechhila) . Many features of medieval Bangla are still found in many Bangla dialects.

Mixture of languages Bangla has been greatly influenced by two non-Aryan languages: Dravidian and Kol. Their influence is evident not only in the vocabulary but also in the construction of sentences. A large number of onomatopoeic words, repetitive words and conjunctive verbs in Bangla reveal non-Aryan influence; for example, words such as ghoda-toda (horses etc), kapad-chopad (clothes etc), tuk-tuk, khatkhat, khankha, dhandha, basiya pada (sitting down), lagiya thaka (to persevere), etc. There are plenty of Dravidian and other non-Aryan words in Bangla, especially in place names, indicating that Bangla passed through many stages and was influenced by various other languages.

One of the main influences on Bangla was that of Sanskrit as this language was the vehicle of literature and culture for almost the whole of the subcontinent since the beginning of the Christian era. (The religious discourses of the Buddhists and the Jains were carried on in pali and Ardhamagadhi respectively.) In the days of old Bangla, many Bengalis used to write poetic works in Sanskrit. Even after the evolution of Bangla, many well-known Bengali poets, such as jaydev, umapatidhara and govardhan acharya, continued to compose their literary works in Sanskrit. The result was that many pure Sanskrit words entered Bangla from the very early stages.

Following the establishment of Muslim rule in Bengal in the 13th century, Bangla came under the influence of Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Persian was the language of the court during Muslim rule in the 14th and 15th centuries. Because of this special status as well as other cultural influences, Bangla picked up many Persian words at this time. In the 16th century, with the Portuguese inroads, several Portuguese words entered Bangla; for example, words such as anaras (pineapple), ata (custard-apple) and tamak (tobacco).

From the 17th century, the Dutch, French and English started arriving in Bengal. As a result, words from these languages started entering Bangla vocabulary; for example, from the French: cartouche, coupon, depot; Dutch: hartan, iskaban, iskurup; English: table, chair, lord/lat, general/jadrel, etc. During the 17th and 18th centuries effective use of Bangla prose began through the efforts of Christian missionaries. With the start of British rule in the 18th century and the spread of English education, Bangla started absorbing increasing numbers of English words. Following the establishment of the Bengali Department at fort william college in calcutta in 1801, the efforts of its head, william carey, and his associate Bengali scholars, made Bangla fit for fine prose. During the 19th century, the efforts of Bengali writers contributed to the further growth of the language. Among them were raja rammohun roy, bhabanicharan bandyopadhyay, iswar chandra vidyasagar, bankimchandra chattopadhyay, michael madhusudan dutt and mir mosharraf hossain. The 20th century witnessed the elevation of colloquial Bangla to a written literary medium through the work of many talented writers such as rabindranath tagore and pramatha chowdhury.

Dialects suniti kumar chatterji classified Bangla dialects into four broad groups: Radh, Banga, Kamarupa and Varendra; Sukumar Sen (1939) added one more and defined five groups of dialects: Radhi, Bangali, Kamrupi, Varendri and Jhadkhandi. Radhi is the basis of standard colloquial Bangla, spoken in wide areas of south-western Bengal. Bangali is chiefly spoken in the east and south-eastern areas of Bengal. Dialects in this group still retain many of the medieval Bangla features that are extinct in Radhi, such as epenthetic vowels (semi vowels), lack of vowel height assimilation, pronunciation of the consonant g (??) in conjunct -ng (-?), maintenance of nasal consonant + consonant as in chand (????), instead of chand (????). Bangali dialects lack d (??) and dh (??), and the affricates like ch (??), chh (??), j (??) and jh (??) are pronounced like sibilants. But the dialects of sylhet, noakhali and chittagong are so different from Bangali that it is best to consider these spoken forms as separate dialects. All the marginal dialects of the Bangla language naturally get mixed up with the neighbouring forms. Remote Bangali and Kamrupi bear close affinity with Assamese, Jhadkhandi with south-western Bihari, and the language spoken in the Kanthi area with Oriya.

Forms of language Written Bangla has two forms: sadhu or chaste and chalita or colloquial or spoken. The two differ basically in verbs and pronouns. The verbs and pronouns get shortened in the colloquial form. For example: ????? (kariya; to do) ??? (kare); ????? (tahar; his/hers) ??? (tar). The importance of the colloquial form arose at the beginning of the 20th century but the use of chaste Bangla did not disappear totally. Chaste language continued to be used in contemporary newspapers, works of documentation and in statements by the government and on matters of serious import. Colloquial Bangla was the language of the Calcutta gentry, a considerable number of whom used the colloquial form to write literary works.

The parallel currents of chaste and colloquial streams created a unique phenomenon of diglossia in Bangla. Although the main peculiarity of the colloquial stream is the shortened form of verbs and pronouns, their real difference is in temperament. The mix of sadhu and chalita, as used in poetry, has been on the wane since World War II, giving way to the chalita form only. Since March 1965, many Bangla newspapers have adopted the chalita form, discarding the sadhu one. The ittefaq, which had retained the sadhu form, has also started using the chalita form since 2001.

Hindus and Muslims differ in their ways of using the language, and even West Bengalis and Bangladeshis differ somewhat in their practices. The Muslim rule in Bengal prior to the British rule led to an extensive development of Bangla and a plentiful influx of Arabic, Persian and Turkish vocabulary. Towards the end of the 18th century, even high-caste Hindus used to cultivate the court language, Persian, allowing their Bangla to be influenced by it. Even today over 2,000 Arabic and Persian words relating to war, taxation, legal and cultural matters, and crafts are in use in Bangla. Such words and their impact increased substantially in the language of the Muslim rural masses of East Bengal prior to the partition of India in 1947. A major difference exists in the language used by Hindus and Muslims in respect of words that refer to relatives or food. Hindus use Sanskrit and Bangla words, while Muslims use Urdu and Arabic words, eg kaka/chacha (uncle), ma/amma (mother), baba/abba (father), didi/bubu (sister), dada/bhaiya (brother), jal/pani (water) mangsa/gosht. At the same time, it should be noted that Muslims in the Jessore area also use the so-called 'Hindu terms' of didi and dada. Although the written language of West Bengal and Bangladesh is more or less similar, spoken Bangla differs widely. There are also many regional Bangla dialects. Some dialects, such as those of Sylhet, Noakhali and Chittagong, differ so greatly from each other and standard Bangla, that people of one region can hardly communicate with people of the other.

Standard colloquial Bangla: structural description Standard colloquial Bangla is used by educated people for speaking and writing. It is the language of literature and the media.

Phonology There are seven standard phonemes in standard colloquial Bangla (SCB): i (?) as in pin, u (?) as in put, e (?) as in get, o (?) as in go (but monophthongal), ae (???) as in hat, a (??) as in father, a (?) as in not (but a bit higher). Each of these sounds has nasalised counterparts. There are 30 consonant phonemes: p (??) ph (??) b (??) bh (??) m (??), t (??) th (??) d (??) dh (??) n (??), t (??) th (??) d (??/??) dh (??/??), k (??) kh (??) g (??) gh (??) n (??), ch (??) chh (??) j (??) jh (??) Sh (??), r (??) l (??) s (??) h (??). S (??) is said to be a contextual variant of Sh (??)). There are four non-syllabic vowel sounds: i (??), u (??), e (??) and o (??). The phonological behaviour of standard colloquial Bangla is marked by the following characteristics: 1. vowel height assimilation, in which low vowel sounds gain height, such as, pyancha > penchi (ya > e) ?????? > ????? (??? > ?), nat -> nati (a > o) ?? > ??? (? > ?), lekhe > likhi (e > i) ???? > ???? (? > ?) and khoka > khuku (o > u) ????? > ???? (? > ?); 2. Sh (??) becoming s (??) in loan words; 3. doubling of consonant sounds conditioned by semantic control: bado > baddo (???? > ????), chhoto > chhotto (?????? > ??????). Consonant conjuncts are simplified in loan words in spoken language. Stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word and on the first word of a meaningful phrase. The primary stress of a question falls on the neuter gender interrogative pronouns ke, ki, keno (who, what, why). General statements end in low pitch, and questions, affirmative or negative, end in high pitch. The length of vowel sounds is sometimes prolonged, influenced by emotion or voice projection ki-i? ya-i! (??-?? ??-??). Stress is also employed to put emphasis on a word. In compound sentences, the connecting words have the least stress.

Morphology The morphology of Bangla is accidence-based, although its analytical nature has gradually evolved. It has more than 50 verb-inflections, and a fewer number of case endings. The case of the nominal word is expressed in three ways: by case endings (indirect object- dative, genitive and locative cases), by case endings and post-positions (instrumental case, gerundial) and by only post-positions (ablative case). The nominative case does not primarily take any case ending, but in case of 'collective' agents, the case takes the case ending -e (-?), such as, manuse eman kaj kare na (?????? ??? ??? ??? ??). There is also no case ending for inanimate indirect objects. In standard colloquial Bangla, the case ending for indirect objects is -ke (-??), the genitive case-ending is -(e)r [-(?)?] and the locative case ending is -(e)te [-(?)??]. The word-final sound determines where the ending should be in -r or -er, and -te or -ete.

The accidence of verbs is fairly complex. Finite verbs are chiefly split into two groups based on the verb inflections: indicative and imperative. In addition to the second-person imperative, Bangla has another mood called the third-person imperative. The second-person imperative has three forms: honorific (karun, ????), ordinary (karo, ????) and familiar or contemptuous (kar, ???). The third-person imperative has two forms: ordinary and honorific (karuk, ????, karun, ????). The second-person imperative is used in both present and future tenses (karben-karun, ?????-????, koro-karo, ??????-????, kar-karis, ???-?????).

The indicative mood has three tenses: present, past and future. The present and the future tenses have three and four aspects respectively. The present tense includes simple (kari, ???), progressive (karchhi, ????) and perfect (karechhi, ?????), while the past tense includes simple (karlam, ?????), progressive (karchhilam, ???????), perfect (karechhilam, ????????) and habitual (kartam, ?????). There is only one aspect of the future tense: simple (karba, ???). The progressive future requires more than one verb to express the aspect. The verb usually takes five inflections depending on the person, such as first-person (ami, ????), second-person ordinary (tumi, ????), second-person familiar (tui, ???), second-third person honorific (apni, ?????), third-person ordinary (se, ??), and third-person honorific (tini ????). These sets of verb-inflections are different for different tenses. The inflections for aspect and tense do not change depending on the person; only the personal endings--that end the verb forms--change (present: -i (-?), -o (-?), -is (-???), -e (-?), -en (-??): kari (???), kar (??), karis (????), kare (???), karen (????). The causative verbs are formed with an -a (-??) appended to the verb root (kare > karrai, ??? > ????); an -a (-??) appended to root can also be classified as nominal verb root: ghumai, santrai (?????? ???????) etc. The order of endings in a verb root has the following order: (root) + causative ending + aspect ending + tense ending + personal ending (kar + ai > i + echh + il + am, ??? + ??? > ? + ??? + ??? + ???).

The Bangla roots are basically either monosyllabic or bisyllabic, such as, kar-, kara- (???-? ???-). The causative and the nominal verb roots are by nature bisyllabic. But there are also roots with more than two syllables: jhalmala-, chakmaka- etc. The conjunctive has four forms: verbal noun (kara, ???), completive (ka're, ?'??), conditional (karle, ????) and inchoative (karte, ????). Another set of verbs like dakadaki (????????), ghoraghuri (?????????) is formed in compliance with the rules of correlative compounds. Phrasal verbs are formed with finite forms of verbal roots like kar (???), ha (?) or mar (????) placed after nouns or adjectives, such as upakar kara (????? ???), bhalo haoya (????? ????), chokh mara (???? ????) etc. Compound verbs are formed with verbs like uth (???), pad (???), phel (????), thak (????) and the like placed after completive or inchoative conjunctives, as in ka're otha (?'?? ???), base pada (??? ???), bale phela (??? ????), etc.

The formation of the substantive with affixes is not an unlimited proposition in Bangla. There are not many original Bangla affixes. It borrows -ta (-??), -tv (-??), -ima (-???) very often from Sanskrit for substantive formation. Comparatives (-tara -??, -tama -??) and ordinals (pratham ????, dvitiya ????? etc) are dependent on Sanskrit affixes. Although there are not many primary and secondary affixes in Bangla, affixes for enclitic definitives (-ta -??, -ti -??, khana ????), suggesting largeness or ungainliness (jhola, ?????), suggesting smallness or prettiness (jhuli, ????), loveableness (ramu, ????) and unloveableness (rama, ????) are worth considering.

Sequence The order of words in Bangla is what is called left branching, ie, adjectives are placed on the left of nouns; and adverbs precede the verbs. The sequence of words in a sentence is as follows: subject + temporal phrase + locative phrase + indirect object + direct object + adverbial phrase + verb: ami kal steshane runake kathata kane kane balechhi (???? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ?????, I uttered the words into Runa's ear yesterday at the station). The place of the locative phrase can change, affecting the meaning of the sentence. Sentences without the copula, as in Russian, Tamil or Japanese, are in use in Bangla-amar nam ruhul kuddus (????? ??? ???? ??????, My name [is] Ruhul Quddus). Intransitive passive voice as in English is rare in Bangla, but the passive voice formed with a verb used as a noun is a common feature of the language: tomar khaoya hayechhe? e pathe faridpur jaoya chale? (?????? ????? ?????? ? ??? ??????? ????? ???? Has your eating been done? Can going to Faridpur be done through this road?). Interrogative sentences in Bangla are formed with question words. The connective words in complex and conditional sentences are worth noting: yakhan o asbe takhan ar ami thakba na (??? ? ????? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??, I will not be here when he comes).

Lexicon The main inherited elements of the Bangla language are: tadbhava (produced from that, ie Sanskrit; the Sanskrit word that has changed at least twice in the process of becoming Bangla), tatsama (same as that, i.e. Sanskrit; the Sanskrit word loaned into Bangla, with changed pronunciation but retaining the original spelling) and ardha-tatsama (half tatsama in nature; the Sanskrit words changed in the spoken form in Bangla, such as pratyasha > pityesh, ??????? > ??????). In addition, Bangla has a large number of words of unknown etymology, also known as deshi or local words, which might have their origin in old loans from Dravidian, Austric or Sino-Tibetan languages. The new loans are from Persian, Arabic, English, Portuguese and other languages. Sunitikumar Chatterji, taking jnanedra mohan das's Bangala Bhashar Abhidhan into account, showed that Bangla has 51.45 per cent tadbhava words, 44.00 per cent tatsama words, 3.30 per cent Perso-Arabic words and 1.25 per cent from English, Portuguese and other languages. But these figures are not quite accurate. Although Jnanendra Mohan Das's lexicon has around 150,000 words, the total number of Bangla words, including dialect words, is much more.

The Bangla alphabet The Bangla alphabet evolved from Kutila lipi, which in turn evolved from ancient Indian Brahmi. The first printed book to use Bangla type was nathaniel brassey halhed's A Grammar of Bengal Language, which refined and standardised Bangla letters. Thanks to efforts by Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, the increasing use of Bangla type in the printing presses helped to stabilise the shape of the letters. Iswar Chandra also introduced new letters and rearranged the order of the alphabet. He dispensed with ?? and ?? and placed anusvara (?) and visarga (?) at the end of the consonant section of the alphabet and introduced ?, ? and ?. Nevertheless, the Bangla alphabet continues to be based on the scheme of the Sanskrit alphabet, consisting of 12 vowels and 30 consonants. These symbols do not, however, always represent the spoken sound of the language. The long vowels and letters such as ??? ??? ??? ?? etc do not have specific sounds associated with them. At some points in history, Bangla was written in Perso-Arabic script and sylheti nagri. Apart from the dadi (|), or full stop, the other punctuation marks are European.

Generally, the peculiarities and distinctions between consonants that pertain in Sanskrit exist in Bangla as well, such as alpapran (non-aspirated)/mahapran (aspirated), aghosa (voiceless)/ghosa (voiced), dantya (dental)/pratibestita (alveolar-retroflex). As in Sanskrit, every independent consonant syllable has the inherent vowel ? (a), unless another vowel is specified. For instance, ?? (k) is actually ?+ ? (k + a), ? is ??+ ? (t + a). However, there are significant variations in pronunciation. Thus, unlike Sanskrit, the pronunciation of ? is not always regular and stable. At times it is pronounced almost as o (?). Such instability creates problems of spelling in Bangla. However, as in the case of many languages of the Indo-Aryan family, ? (a) at the end of syllables in Bangla often disappears. Some vowels are nasalised, changing the meaning and import of the word; for instance, the pronunciation of the honorific pronoun for third person is the nasalised ???? (tanr), clearly distinguishing the pronoun from the third person general ??? (tar). If the basic ? (d) of Sanskrit falls within or at the end of a Bangla word, the sound is pronounced ? (d). In this way the letters ? (d) and ? (dh) were added to Bangla in the 19th century. Sanskrit distinguishes between a consonant ? (b) and a semi-vowel ? (v). However, in Bangla both letters are pronounced ? (b). Compound consonants are often pronounced as double consonants; for instance, ???? > ????? / ??? > ????? (bishva > bishsha, laksmi > lakkhi). The Sanskrit letter ? (y) is pronounced ? (j) in Bangla. Thus the following Bangla words from Sanskrit are spelled ?? (yam) and ???? (yatra) but are pronounced as if spelled ?? (jam) and ???? (jatra). There are three s letters in Bangla, ?? ?? ? (sh, s, s). In most cases, however, all three letters are sounded ? (sh). However, if ? (s) is compounded, its pronunciation remains intact. For example, ????? (aste) is pronounced as if it had been spelled ?????? (ashte), but ?????- is pronounced aste. Similarly, ?????- is pronounced rasta.

Language situation Bangla is the country's state language and is used extensively except in some isolated tribal habitations. Most official work within the country is done in Bangla, but English is used in diplomatic communications, trade contacts and in higher education and research. People speak in dialect at home, but will generally use spoken Bangla outside and standard colloquial Bangla for academic and literary purposes. Usually, standard Bangla is used in literary and artistic work, plays and mass communication, but recently the use of dialects in these activities has increased. [Mohammad Daniul Huq and Pabitra Sarkar]

Bibliography SK Chatterji, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, Calcutta University, Calcutta, 1926; Muhammad Shahidullah, Bangla Bhasar Itibrtta, Dhaka, 1965; PS Ray and Abdul Hai, Bengali Language Handbook, Washington DC, 1966; Sukumar Sen, Bhasar Itibrtta (The History of Language, 13th edn), Eastern Publishers, Calcutta, 1979; MH Klaiman, Volitionality and Subject in Bengali: A Study of Semantic Parameters in Grammatical Process, Bloomington, 1981; Humayun Azad ed, Banla Bhasa, Bangla Academy, Dhaka, 1984-85; CP Masica, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991; AKM Morshed and William Radice, 'Bengali Language' in RE Asher ed, The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. l, Oxford, 1994.
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