Talk:Bengali language

Problems with this article

'the script used to print Bengali is called Devanagari.'

This is nonsense. Bengali is written with a script quite similar to but distinctively different than Devanagari - it has no other name in English than the Bengali script. See [1] (http://www.unicode.org/charts/)

'Eastern Bengal ... was a colony of Pakistan'

This doesn't sound NPOV to me. Perhaps 'Eastern Bengal ... was part of Pakistan'?

'In languages such as French, words have gender. One must remember the gender associated with each word.'

So what? Was some info here lost?

-- Morwen 1840 utc 2nd august

History and Literature

We need to have a comprehensive account of the history of the language. It's very rich, and goes back to 11th century CE to Buddhist writing. I'm not familiar enough with it, and wouldn't want to write about it without studying first. I will do that, but can anyone start it up? :Also, it would be nice if a Bangladeshi, or someone versed in Bangladeshi literature (i.e. post-partition bengali lit. from East Bengal), could add some writers from there to the list of Bengali literature. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:59, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

I will give it a shot, but I would need to make sure I don't end up writing trivial ones and miss out the more important ones.

Could someone also check the spelling of name of the Portuguese missionary mentioned in the History section? "Assumpcam" doesn't sound like a Portuguese name to me -- but I am not sure, since that was a few hundred years ago. However, I'm quite sure it should be "Assumpção", or something like that ("Assumpçam" would sound the same, but I doubt it was ever spelled like that). But "Assumpcam" sounds very strange: in modern Portuguese, "c" in that position has the sound of "k", while "ç" always has the sound of "s" as in "sink", so the name as it is written sound really weird to me (I'm Brazilian).

Ranking

Bengali as the 4th most spoken language? And with 190 million native speakers? Portuguese has, at minimum, 199 million speakers, using the population of each country from CIA World Fact Book, almost with only true statistic data from each country, and it is known as the 6th most spoken. It think that Bengali is the 5th most spoken from data that I've seen. Pedro 17:03, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've changed it from 4 to 5. I don't feel like most language polls can be accurate, obviously, given the huge numbers one works with. I'm trying to locate one that's been done in the last year or so.--LordSuryaofShropshire 19:56, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. That's why I've searched for official numbers from each country. At least in Portuguese speakers, I'm sure that's ok.Pedro 23:28, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the "4th largest" ranking comes from the very reputable fieldwork done by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)'s Ethnologue survey, whose latest numbers cite 207 million native speakers. See their latest Ethnologue report (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=BNG). I agree, though, that these rankings are often murky. This neat page (http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm) shows the various rankings and speaker populations of the world's languages.--Rashad Ullah 09:51, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think the most important difference is the result of what exactly is counted. CIA factbook like many others include non-native speakers. Now, whether than's right or not is a personal choice. I, for example, prefer surveys that only include native speakers. Bangla is either 4th or 5th. It's impossible to say since surveys in different countries happen at different times. I don't think the native speakers of Bangla are 190 million. Bangladesh itself has a population of 140 million (at least). West Bengal, Singapore, UK and Malaysia combine to only 50million? That sounds iffy to me.

NPOV?

"Bengali is thus arguably the only language for which people have sacrificed their lives."

This appears to be a blatant falsehood. It may be true that the people who sacrificed their lives for Bengali are the only ones specifically recognized with a holiday.

-- Carlmarks 21:48, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with Carlmarks. Since language is so often the most apparent part of one's culture, it seems probably that many people have lost their lives for speaking a language. For one example, see Catalan. Under Franco, people in Catalonia were killed for speaking their language. Also banned were Basque and Galician. I'm going to remove the sentence from the otherwise fantastic article. Leland 07:49, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the POV is in you. In fact, there are more languages that people die for it. Galician (Portuguese dialect), Vasque, Catalan in Spain (I’ve heard moving commentaries about this by Spanish people, wounds that are open until today - I cant image how it is to be forbidden to speak its own language), and certainly others have died for other languages. But that sentence exists because of something and taking of or hiding useful information that could help one understands the value that the language has to a certain culture is not correct.

So the sentence should be: "Bengali is one of the various languages for which some people have sacrificed their lives." --Pedro 10:30, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, what would be the point of that? That's about the least interesting sentence I've ever read. I think it's obvious to any English speaker reading the article that people died for this language. Leland 16:28, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

we're talking about minorized languages or languages in substitution. That doesnt happen with popular languages. If they got a holiday dedicated to the language, then it is more reasenable that it shoulb be stated. Many things in an encyclopedia are obvious. But, in fact, there can be hundreds of languages that people have sacrificed their lives. And for the asian languages I really doubt that there was really a sacrifice like those in Spain. Because beganli is widely spoken, i really doubt that the language was so much forbitten, if it was... there should be lesser number of speakers, what happens in Spain, were the minority languages are very influenced by Spanish and in the basque country, for ex., those who speak their language is a minority due to that attacks against the language. -Pedro 17:22, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pedro, I don't mean to be rude here, but are you arguing with me or against me? How can you say there was no sacrifice for Bengali when the article states the opposite? Leland 07:52, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

- I'm not arguing, I'm just talking and put in "talk" my ideas (What I thing, my POV...) about the subject. :| -Pedro 09:29, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just note the sentence uses the word "arguably" and hence technically speaking it is right. (You are arguing on it, aren't you?) :-) It was safely written, but yes a better description could be

"Bengali is the only mass-spoken language for which people have sacrificed their lives." Any ideas on this? I know mass-spoken sounds vague but well it distinguishes Bengali from languages that are spoken by some 1000 people in some remote part of Siberia, for example.

clarify

I am having a lot of trouble discerning the meaning of this sentence:

"in Bengali the language is called Bangla, (বাঙলা) now more widely used in international arena and became english word as well as the origin and the people are called Bangali(বাঙালী)."

can someone help? Should it be something more like:

" in Bengali the language is called Bangla(বাঙলা), a name now more widely used in the international arena, where it has come into usage as an English word as well as a Bengali word. The people are then called Bangali(বাঙালী)."

thanks Lethe

Yes... you are on the ball there. I think it's good now --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:18, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this sentence means:

"Bangla makes use of a specific yet logical verb tense system."

How does Bangla tense differ from any other tense inflexion found in other widely-known languages. I.E., why not just merge this sentence with the previous and say:

"Verbs are inflected for person, tense, and honor -- but not for number."

thanks --jonsafari 21:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The second does sound better. "yet logical" is a little arguable. It sort of implies specific would usually result in illogical conjugation systems! On an entirely different note, since the Bangla-speaking region uses British English or RP, we should use honour instead of honor, I think, in accordance with Manual of Style. -- Urnonav 21:32, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That was me who placed it there. I was trying to convey that...actually, I have no clue what I was trying to convey so it's probably best that it was removed. Ttownfeen 00:04, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Usage of "honour" is fine by me. --jonsafari 00:39, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

spam?

What's with the blatent spamming of a website in the article:

If you wish to talk more on Calcutta (http://www.cafekolkata.com) or Kolkata (http://www.cafekolkata.com), please visit Cafe Kolkata (http://www.cafekolkata.com).

This really doesn't have anything to do with learning about the language. At the very least, it should be moved to thie links section.

Bongo?

I've never heard this term used to describe what is known in English as Bengal from the people I know (I'm Bangladeshi-American). We use the terms "Bengal" and "Poshcheem Bengal". Also, I rarely hear the term Purbo Bengal used to describe Bangladesh. Most Bangladeshis in America use the term "desh", but that's probaly analogous to older european immigrants refering to the "old country".

Also, this article to me tends to exude a sense that the Bangla spoken in Dhaka is a sort-of pidgin and lower-grade form of the "standard" Kolkata-style Bangla. I dunno, maybe I'm just being quick to take offense.

Clarification on terms

Bongo = Bengal

Bangladesh commonly also refered to Bengal until Bangladeshi independence, after which it was politically incorrent to use Bangladesh to mean Bengal. (You will see several post-Indian-independence West Bengali movies and novels which use Bangladesh to describe Bengal).

Bangladesh was also called:
1. Purbo Bongo/Purbo Bangla (the exact areas of Bangladesh and East Bengal are NOT same, but it is more or less accurate: greater Kustia district was part of Poshchim Bongo before the separation): the term is more of a regional rather than a political description and has been used throughout time, although less in recent days
2. Purbo Bangla/Purbo Bongo and then Purbo Pakistan: during Pakistan regime (1947-1971)
3. Bangladesh, and rarely, Purbo Bongo: after independence (1971 onwards)

Hope that clears up things.

My revisions

Hello to my fellow Bengalis and Bengalophiles! I'm new to Wiki, but as a linguistics graduate student who is of both West Bengali and East Bengali heritage, and who uses both dialects of Bengali (and researches on both), I thought I'd try my hand at fixing up this article. I started this morning with the "Variation" section, which--while not half-bad--was written by somebody with a noticeably West Bengali bias and which lacked terminological precision (especially when it came to describing the sound changes). So I changed that around. Clearly the next thing to do is to describe the script (§4) and sounds (§6) of Bengali in a systematic way--I'd like to utilize the Unicode characters, but don't know very well how to do this yet, so I appreciate help from one who knows more than me about this. Also, kudos to those who wrote and edited §1 through §3--I don't have much to add to those.

I'd like also to respond to two points made in the immediately preceding post here: yes "bongo" [bOngo] (vanga) is the standard Bangla word for "Bengal." I too grew up mostly in America but have routinely heard West and East Bengalis alike refer to "poshchim bOngo" and "purbo bOngo." (I'm using [O] to represent the open "aw" sound). The term is said to come from Sanskrit "vanga," although this is contested. On the other hand, on the observation that the Wiki article (before my revision) made the Bangla of Dhaka "sound like a pidgin"--well, yes and no. A pidgin is a technical term, and the previous author did not claim that Dhakaiya Bangla was a pidgin, but you correctly detected some bias (see the new version, it's been totally changed). For the record, Muslim Bengalis don't "substitute" Sanskrit words with Perso-Arabic---this was a very misleading way to phrase it. The real story, which I'm going to have to work on and put online, is that all kinds of native Indic (Sanskrit and Prakrit-derived) as well as Perso-Arabic words were used by Bengalis of both religions...but Calcutta Brahmanical elites of the late 18th and 19th ceunturies attempted to purge Bengali of its non-Sanskritic elements, and Muslim writers responded, especially in the 20th century, with turning more and more to Perso-Arabic words. What is striking is, despite the socially and politically motivated linguistic divergence in Bengali, the news broadcasts from Dhaka and Kolkata are essentially in the same language--even the same dialect and style--- while the broadcasts of "Urdu" from Islamabad and "Hindi" from New Delhi show linguistic divergence to the point of mutual non-comprehension.

But to return to the issue of bias: there's nothing biased in presenting one dialect as the "standard." The Calcutta version of "cholti bhasha" is the standard--this doesn't connote any kind of value judgment about the language, though many people assume the "standard" language is somehow "better." My point is simple: if you listen to news broadcasts or speeches or lectures given in Dhaka, they are in a standardized version of the language that is essentially identical to the standard used in Calcutta, and which originates from Calcutta speech in the late 19th century (Tagore popularized this "Cholti Bhasha"). Incidentally, I changed the references from Chalit Bhasha to Cholti Bhasha because that is the more frequent term (the article, pre-revision, flip-flopped between "Cholti" and "Chalit" haphazardly).

--Rashad Ullah 09:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Language differences in two parts of Bengal

The author of the section on differences in language seems to be a little biased about which one is the standard Bangla. I think the entire notion of standard Bangla is arguable.

Major arguable topics included:

Bish being a Bangladeshi term only: not true, both bish and kurhi are equally used in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
language of educated people: well, educated people on both sides of the border speak standard Bangla; so why is the reference made to West Bengal only?

What is "standard" Bangla, if there is one?

If somebody is bent on defining "standard Bangla", well in Bangladesh, Bangla Academy works on laying out standards. Historically, it's not Kolkata language that's considered standard, but it's the language of Krishnonogor. This is the common notion of people and has little scientific basis. However, this was not "standard"; it is more like the "best-sounding" version of Bangla.

What is now considered standard is not the language of any region in particular (not any I know of). I have been to Kolkata; commonly spoken Kolkata dialect today (espcially under non-Bangla influence) is as far from standard Bangla as is Dhaka dialect. However, local dialects of erstwhile Nodia district (also includes Kustia, Chuadanga, Jhinaidah and Meherpur districts in Bangladesh) are extremely close to the standard Bangla.

Grammatical differences

In recent days the most important difference in what is considered standard in West Bengal and Bangladesh is the way dates are said.

In West Bengal, 1st of Boishakh is Pohela Boishakh. In Bangladesh, 1st of Boishakh is Ek Boishakh. This change was implemented by Bangla Academy, fairly recently (in 2001 if I am not mistaken). Some debates persist as to the accuracy of this method. I am uncertain of the reasons, but this should be mentioned.

Pronunciation and vocabulary differences are associated more closely with the geographical division made by river Padma (Padda) and not with the political border. Sirajganj and Faridpur are the only districts West of the river that have dialects similar to the East.

Pronunciation

This could go on for ever. It's a regional issue. In general, the region between the border and the Padma river (Khulna and Rajshahi divisions) speak dialects more similar to West Bengal dialect than to Eastern Bangladesh dialect. What is commonly perceived as Bangladeshi dialect by the people from the West, is actually the dialects of Dhaka and Barisal divisions.

Dialects of Chittagong region is practically unintelligible to people from the rest of Bangladesh. Dialect of Sylhet, while less of a problem in terms of comprehension is still very different from any other dialect of Bangladesh. Sylhetis commonly refer to themselves as Sylhetis and not as Bengalis. Both of these regions have a huge number of words that are not present in standard Bangla (as defined by Bangla Academy).

Vocabulary differences

Jamay This word is the source of several misunderstandings between the East and the West, even inside Bangladesh. The word means "bride-groom". However, West of Padma river (including West Bengal), it means "son-in-law". On the East bank of Padma, it means "husband". The confusion is bound to happen.

A slight variation is Jamata which means "son-in-law" on both sides of the river.

Existence of Muslim influence?

As for Perso-Arabic words, well, these were promoted initially by the Muslim rulers and then by authors who tried experimenting with language. However, these have little links with people's religion. For example, both the West and East Bengal use the word "kolom" to mean pen. This word is of persian origin.

Greetings

Most Hindus in Bangladesh, comfortably use pani to mean water and some even go to the limits of using "salam-walaikum" as a greeting - something that not even all Muslims do! Muslims in Bangladesh have a tendency to say "Adab" when greeting Hindus. Although, in current day, this use is becoming less and less frequent. Newer generations indifferently use the salam for official reasons and skip a greeting for informal purposes. Older Hindu generations continue to stress on use of "nomoshkar".

Hope this gives some idea of Bangla as it is used in Bangladesh today. I have been born and brought up in the true East Bengal (Eastern part of Bangladesh) but my family strictly imposes use of standard Bangla at home. So, any questions regarding differences in Bangla can be directed to me. I will be happy to answer.

Polli Kobi

Actually Jibonanondo Das is not called Polli Kobi, at least in Bangladesh. The person called Polli kobi is undoubtedly Jasim Uddin --Ragib 20:57, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You are right. I feel ashamed about that. :">! Correcting it straight away. Urnonav

Total Speakers

In terms of Total Native speakers, Bangla is the 4th largest. Hindi has many speakers but in terms of native speakers it is NOT the 4th largest. Please see the links and references section for the source. --Ragib 16:07, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are a few issues which cause the whole controversy:

Number of native speakers versus number of speakers in total (which sometimes is based on guestimate)
Consideration of local dialect versus separate language
Counting Urdu speakers as Hindi speakers

In general, it surprises me that 322 million people speak Hindi, but if you consider the fact that some of these surveys consider languages that are mutually unintelligible with Hindi as dialects. Some surveys use Hindi to mean Hindustani, which is basically the street language formed by mixture of Hindi, Urdu and a few other languages in Western South Asia. There is also the issue that quite a few people understand Hindi but do not speak it fluently or at all. -- Urnonav 23:34, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration of words in the Bengali language

An attempt is being made to create a standard English transliteration scheme for words in the Bengali language. Anyone with knowledge of the language (and English of course) and of phonetics is requested to check out the project page for discussion on this issue. For a start, I found some reasonably good schemes already in use by other authorities, but each one lacks one thing or another. -- Urnonav 09:02, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

East Bengal vs. East Pakistan

I'm a little confused by the recent edits ... especially rewording of East Pakistan as East Bengal. "During the period 1947-1971, when eastern (Muslim) Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) was part of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan, the Bangla language became the focus and foundation of the national identity of the people of East Bengal, leading ultimately to the creation of the sovereign state of Bangladesh". The sentence here is ambiguous ... what was the REAL name of the area? So far as I know, the area that is now Bangladesh was called East Bengal after the partition of 1947, but was renamed East Pakistan in the mid 1950s. Therefore, the sentence I quoted needs to be reworded to remove the ambiguity.--Ragib 21:05, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about something along the lines of "During the period of 1947-71, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan (and first known as East Bengal and later East Pakistan) ... identity of the people, leading...Bangladesh"? Ttownfeen 20:39, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Page move

I suggest that this page be moved to Bengali—there's no need for disambiguation there. Any thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:11, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. There's nothing else on Bengali. However, I would think that we should create an article at Bengali that refers to the population and culture in general. I am in doubtful situation as to how much information we can put there, but I frequently come up with things to write that should be classified under Bengali as in Bengali people/culture/bla bla. -- Urnonav 11:28, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Very well. For the time being, though, I am going to change Bengali to redirect to Bengali language, as the current disambiguation is completely unnecessary. Feel free to replace it with an article at your convenience. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Asamese and Orhia

The discussions on Asamese and Oria, while important, should not be in the first paragraph. Could this be moved to a different section, possibly a section of its own discussing related languages? I changed the first paragraph's recent edits slightly although I am not satisfied with my changes either. "Almost mutually understandable" sounds very iffy. There ought to be a better way to write that. The notes on dialect should move to the section on related languages or to the section on dialects. The intro is always better limited to a single paragraph or, at most, two with few sentences. Any comments on these?

-- Urnonav 00:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Foreign language influences

I removed Hindi from the list of foreing language influences. The list already includes Persian and Arabic. So, I am a little unclear as to whether there are words that were specifically Hindi (not Persian, Arabic or English) that have been absorbed into Bengali/Bangla. I am guessing that if a word is not "native" Bengali then it's very unlikely it will be native "Hindi" since both languages have similar roots. Could somebody with more knowledge of etymology and linguistics please look into this matter since I'm not an expert on this issue? Thanks!-- Urnonav 23:39, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bangla is not evolved from Sanskrit

This is not true that Bangla or Bengali language is evolved from or its a somewhat derivative of Sanskrit. Bengali follows a totally different track of evolution where it owes its origin to New Indo European root. It descends from Indo European language through Magdhi Apabhrangsha or Magdhi Prakrito which is totally different than Sanskrit.

This has been wonderfully backed up by the discovery of 'Charjapad' in Nepal By Haraprasad Shastri.

For more info please see : http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/B_0137.HTM

(The above message was left by Anon at 68.83.109.22)

I think that's unlikely, although I am not an expert. I think we'd need some more concrete evidence to counter such the well-accepted belief that Bengali is descended from Sanskrit. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the term Sanskrit is somewhat ambiguous. According to my understanding Bangla/Bengali derived from Vedic Sanskrit. No spoken languages today derive from Classical (Paninian) Sanskrit, the one that most people have in mind when the term Sankrit is mentioned. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. --jonsafari 19:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vande Matram

Is it India's "Unofficial" national anthem? Isn't Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore the national anthem? What is the actual status of Vande Matram? --Ragib 03:46, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Vande Matram is India's Official Song

I'm curious, what is the difference between "official" and "national" song? Which one is recognized by the Government of India? Are both of them officially designated as such? Thanks--Ragib 00:29, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, upon some googling, I found the following statement by Dr. Rajendra Prasad in 1950 "The composition consisting of words and music known as Janaganamana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations as the Government may authorise as occasion arises, and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honored equally with Janaganamana and shall have equal status with it. (Applause) I hope this will satify members." (Constituent Assembly of India, Vil.XII, 24-1-1950)[2] (http://www.freeindia.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=198&page=8). Quite an interesting fact to know. --Ragib 00:44, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Cholitobhāshā/Cholitbhāshā/Chalitbhasha

Why are the references to "chalitbhasha" being removed? It is the most common pronunciation of the word. At least leave it in one instance. (Comment left by anon at 149.79.146.138 (talk • contribs))

"Chalitbhasha" is not the correct word. There is no hashanta after soft-taa. so the pronunciation is like Cholito or chalita bhasha, or to be fair to the West Bengali dialect, Cholti bhasha. So, there is no point adding any reference to Chalit bhasha. Thanks. --Ragib 06:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interesting that you would call "choltibhasa" a part of this so-called "West Bengal dialect". I think "cholitbhasha" is just a colloquial form of the word "cholitobhasha". There are some other words in which people assume "implicit hoshonto" when there shouldn't be one or reverse, although I can't think of one off the top of my head right now. The difference between cholti and cholito is not of regional dialect I believe. cholti is what choltibhasha calls itself, while cholito is the shadu form of the work cholti! I don't think cholit is wrong; so while it should be mentioned, the proper word to use is cholti, in my opinion. -- Urnonav 04:43, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php/Talk:Bengali_language"