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Bengali (!"#$")
Bengali is an eastern Indo-Aryan language with around 300
million speakers mainly in Bangladesh, and in the Indian
states of West Bengal, Tripura and South Assam. Bengali is
the national and official language of Bangladesh, and one of
the official languages in India. It is also spoken in the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Bengali at a glance
Native name: !"#$" (Bangla) [ˈbaŋla]
Linguistic affliation: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-
Aryan, Eastern Zone (Magadhan), Bengali–Assamese
Number of speakers: c. 300 million
Spoken in: Bangladesh and India
First written: 11th century
Writing system: Brahmi and Bengali alphabets
Status: official language in Bengali, and one of the official
languages of India

There are some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary

between the Bengali of Bangladesh and the Bengali spoken
in India.

Written Bengali
The Bengali alphabet (!"#$" %$%& - Bangla lipi) is derived
from the Brahmi alphabet. It is also closely related to the
Devanagari alphabet, from which it started to diverge in the
11th Century AD. The current printed form of Bengali
alphabet first appeared in 1778 when Charles Wilkins
developed printing in Bengali. A few archaic letters were
modernised during the 19th century.

Bengali has two literary styles: one is called Sadhubhaṣa

('"() *"+" - "elegant language") and the other Chôlitôbhasha
(,%$-*"+" "current language"). The former is the traditional
literary style based on Middle Bengali of the sixteenth
century, while the later is a 20th century creation and is
based on the speech of educated people in Calcutta. The
differences between the two styles are not huge and involve
mainly forms of pronouns and verb conjugations.

Some people prefer to call this alphabet the Eastern Nagari

script or Eastern Neo-Brahmic script

Notable features

The Bengali alphabet is a syllabic alphabet in which

consonants all have an inherent vowel which has two
different pronunciations, the choice of which is not
always easy to determine and which is sometimes not
pronounced at all.
Vowels can be written as independent letters, or by
using a variety of diacritical marks which are written
above, below, before or after the consonant they belong
to.
When consonants occur together in clusters, special
conjunct letters are used. The letters for the consonants
other than the final one in the group are reduced. The
inherent vowel only applies to the final consonant.

Bengali alphabet
Vowels (%&!')(

Hear another recording of the Bengali vowels by Abu Saleh

Mohammad Sultan

0:00 -0:11

More consonant-vowel combinations

How to write Bengali vowels:

How to write Bengali Alphabets | Prescho…

Consonants (!)*+!')(

Hear another recording of the Bengali consonants by Abu

Saleh Mohammad Sultan

0:00 -0:28

How to write Bengali consonants:

Bengali Alphabet Writing | Benjonbrono …

A selection of conjunct consonants

All conjunct consonants

Other symbols

Numerals

Hear another recording of the Bengali numerals by Abu

Saleh Mohammad Sultan

0:00 -0:11

Download a spreadsheet with these charts (Excel)

Sample text in Bengali

Transliteration
Sômôstô manush shadhinbhabe sôman môrjada ebông
ôdhikar niye jônmôgrôhôn kôre. Tãder bibek ebông buddhi
achhe; sutôrang sôkôleri êke ôpôrer prôti bhratrittôsulôbh
mônobhab niye achôrôn kôra uchit.

Transcription (IPA)
ʃɔmosto̪ manuʃ ʃadʱ̪ inbʱabe ʃɔman mɔɾdʒad ͡ a̪ eboŋ odʱ̪ ikaɾ
͡
nije dʒɔnmogɾohon kɔɾe. tãd̪ e ͡ ʃutoɾaŋ
̪ ɾ bibek eboŋ budː̪ ʱi atʃʰe, ̪
ʃɔkoleɾi ɛke ɔpoɾeɾ pɾoti̪ bʱɾatɾit
̪ ːoʃulɔbʱ
̪ ͡
monobʱab nije atʃɔɾon
͡ .̪
kɔɾa utʃit

Transliteration and IPA transcription by Abu Saleh

Mohammad Sultan

Hear a recording of this text

0:00 -0:12

Hear another recording of this text by Abu Saleh Mohammad

Sultan

0:00 -0:14

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and
rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and
should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Sample video in Bengali

WIKITONGUES: Ayesha speaking Bengali

Information about Bengali | Phrases | Numbers | Kinship

words | Telling the time | Tower of Babel | Learning materials

Learn Bengali with Glossika

Links
Information about Bengali
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language
http://www.betelco.com/bd/bangla/bangla.html
http://www.viswayan.com/

Online Bengali lessons

http://www.bangla-online.info
http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/bengali_index.html
http://mylanguages.org/learn_bengali.php
http://www.bangla-online.info
http://www.bangalinet.com/learn_bangla.htm

Numbers in Bengali
http://mylanguages.org/bengali_numbers.php
http://www.connect-bangladesh.org/bangla/Numbers.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iQtAKx8K40

Bengali phrases
http://www.17-minute-world-languages.com/en/bengali/
http://mylanguages.org/multimedia/bengali_audio_phrases.php
http://www.masteranylanguage.com/c/p/o/Bengali
http://www.bengali-dictionary.com
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Basic_Bengali_phrases
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bengali/Common_phrases
https://www.memrise.com/course/971816/bangla-100-basic-
banglabengali-phrasesnotyping/
http://wikitravel.org/en/Bengali_phrasebook

Online Bengali Dictionaries

http://www.bengali-dictionary.com
http://www.bdword.com/english-to-bengali-dictionary
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/biswas-bengali/
http://ovidhan.org
http://www.aldictionary.com/dictionary/english-to-bengali.html

Bengali fonts
http://scriptsource.org/scr/Beng
http://www.omicronlab.com/bangla-fonts.html
http://www.nongnu.org/freebangfont/
http://banglafont.com
http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Bengali.html

Online radio in Bengali

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bengali/
http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,615,00.html
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/bengali/top/
http://www.banglaradio.org.au

Online Bengali news

http://www.parabaas.com
http://www.kheyal.com
http://ajantrik.8m.net
http://www.abasar.net

Bengali and Sylheti Language Services

http://www.bengaliandsylheti.com

ALPHABETUM - a Unicode font specifically designed for

ancient scripts, including classical & medieval Latin, ancient
Greek, Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Faliscan, Messapic,
Picene, Iberian, Celtiberian, Gothic, Runic, Old & Middle
English, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Old Nordic, Ogham, Kharosthi,
Glagolitic, Old Cyrillic, Phoenician, Avestan, Ugaritic, Linear
B, Anatolian scripts, Coptic, Cypriot, Brahmi, Old Persian
cuneiform:
http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphabet.html

Indo-Aryan languages
Awadhi, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Chakma, Dhivehi,
Domari, Fiji Hindi, Garhwali, Gujarati, Hajong, Hindi,
Kashmiri, Konkani, Kotia, Kutchi, Magahi, Maithili, Marathi,
Marwari, Modi, Nepali, Odia, Palula, Punjabi, Rajasthani,
Rohingya, Romani, Saraiki, Sarnámi Hindustani, Sindhi,
Sinhala, Shina, Sourashtra, Sugali, Sylheti, Torwali, Urdu

Languages written with the Eastern Nagari (Bengali)

alphabet
Atong, Bengali, Garo, Hajong, Manipuri, Mundari, Sylheti

Also used to write: Bishnupriya, Bodo, Chakma, Chiru, Koda,

Nisi, Deori, Dimasa, Koch, Khasi, Kudmali, Tiwa, Sauria
Paharia, Miri, Chothe Naga, Thangal Naga, Moyon Naga,
Maring Naga, Rabha, Rangpuri, Santali, Sadri, Oraon Sadri,
Sulung, Panchpargania, Tippera, Kok Borok, Toto and Usui.

Syllabic alphabets / abugidas

Ahom, Badaga, Balinese, Batak, Baybayin (Tagalog), Bengali,
Bilang-bilang, Bima, Blackfoot, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese, Carrier,
Chakma, Cham, Cree, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Ditema, Dives
Akuru, Ethiopic, Evēla Akuru, Fraser, Gondi, Grantha, Gujarati,
Gupta, Gurmukhi, Hanifi, Hanuno'o, Inuktitut, Javanese, Jenticha,
Kaithi, Kannada, Kawi, Kerinci, Kharosthi, Khmer, Khojki, Kulitan,
Lampung, Lanna, Lao, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Lota
Ende, Malayalam, Manpuri, Meroïtic, Modi, Mon, Mongolian
Horizontal Square Script, Ojibwe, Odia, Pahawh Hmong, Pallava,
Phags-pa, Ranjana, Redjang, Sasak, Satera Jontal, Shan,
Sharda, Siddham, Sindhi, Sinhala, Sorang Sompeng, Sourashtra,
Soyombo, Sundanese, Syloti Nagri, Tagbanwa, Takri, Tamil,
Thaana, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tigalari (Tulu), Tikamuli, Tocharian,
Tolong Siki, Varang Kshiti

If you need to type in many different languages, the Q

International Keyboard can help. It enables you to type
almost any language that uses the Latin, Cyrillic or Greek
alphabets, and is free.

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