Iftakhar Ahmed

39
th
Batch
Class Roll-25
A presentation on the topic of A Comparative Study of the Standard Bangla
and Mymensingh Dialect: Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation

Bangla is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language which belongs to the Indo-European
Language family. Bangla has several dialects and sister languages. In this study, I
will try to make a comparison between standard Bangla and Mymensingh dialect
on the aspects of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Data will be collected
through participant observation, side by side, electronic recorder will be used to
record the speech of target subjects/participants. Furthermore, the words and
sentences delivered by news presenter will be considered as standard Bangla
pronunciation. Then I will be able to make a comparison between standard Bangla
and Mymensingh dialect in terms of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. In
Mymynsingh region, people normally use many words which are totally different
from standard Bangla but they have same meaning. For example, people say
madan instead of bikal. It has much more dissimilarities with standard Bangla
regarding grammatical features . For example , the use of determiner, gender,
number, parts of speech is quite different from standard Bangla. The consonant
and vowel variation is also significant here. For example, d

h


is turned into the dental, plosive, unaspirated, voiceless . Such
as, [ mat
h
a] [ mata]. Bilabial, plosive, voiceless, unaspirated b
h
is turned
in this dialect. Such as [ b
h
at][ bat].
Dental-plosive, voiced, aspirated d
h
is turned into
d in this dialect, such as,[ d
h
an][ dan]. Velar, plosive, voiceless,
aspirated g
h
of standard colloquial Bengali language is turned into the velar,
g in this dialect, such as [ G
H
uri][ guri]. There are
seven vowels in standard Bangla. These are: [ ] . In Mymensingh
dialect, one vowel is turned e in [ neta] is turned into
a in the word [ nata] O is turned into u , such as, [ chor] [ chur] O is
also turn into a , such as, [ b
h
alo][ bala]. To show the vowel variation, we will
use pratt application. The frequency of target words measured by Pratt
1

application can show the clear difference.
References
Hai, M.A.(2010). Dhavani Vijnan O Bangla Dhavani-Tattwa. Dhaka: Mullick
Brothers.
Islam, Rafiqul (1998). Bhashatattik Prabandhabali. Dhaka: Bangla Academy
Press.
Hudson,R.A. (1996). Sociolinguistics.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maniruzzaman,M. (2013). Introduction to linguistics. Dhaka: Friends Book
Corner.
Corder, S.P. (1973). Introducing Applied Linguistics. Harmondsworth:Penguin.
Halliday,M.A.K.1973. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London:Edward
Arnold.
Chatterjee,S.k.(1943). Languages and the Linguistic Problems. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.



1
Praat is a software which is used to measure formant frequency of words.