bengali alphabet.htm

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Bengali alphabet OriginThe Bengali alphabet is derived from the Brahmi alphabet. It is also closely related to theDevanagari alphabet, from which it started to diverge in the 11th Century AD. The currentprinted form of Bengali alphabet first appeared in 1778 when Charles Wilkins developedprinting in Bengali. A few archaic letters were modernised during the 19th century.

Bengali has two literary styles: one is called Sadhubhasa (elegant language) and the otherChaltibhasa (current language). The former is the traditional literary style based on MiddleBengali of the sixteenth century, while the later is a 20th century creation and is based on thespeech of educated people in Calcutta. The differences between the two styles are not hugeand involve mainly forms of pronouns and verb conjugations.

Some people prefer to call this alphabet the Eastern Nagari script or Eastern Neo-Brahmicscript

Notable features

The Bengali alphabet is a syllabic alphabet in which consonants all have an inherentvowel which has two different pronunciations, the choice of which is not always easy todetermine and which is sometimes not pronounced at all.

Vowels can be written as independent letters, or by using a variety of diacritical markswhich are written above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to.

When consonants occur together in clusters, special conjunct letters are used. Theletters for the consonants other than the final one in the group are reduced. Theinherent vowel only applies to the final consonant.

Used to write:Bengali (বাংলা), an eastern Indo-Aryan language with around 211 million speakers inBangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal and also in Malawi, Nepal, Saudi Arabia,Singapore, Australia, the UAE, UK and USA.

Assamese , an eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 15 million people in the Indian

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states of Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, and also spoken in Bangladesh andBhutan.

Manipuri, one of the official languages of the Indian state of Manipur in north-east India andhas about 1.1 million speakers. It is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and alsohas its own alphabet

Garo, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about 800,000 people in the Indian states ofMeghalaya and Assam, and also in Bangladesh.

Mundari, a Munda language with about two million speakers in eastern India, mainly in theIndian state of Bihar, also in Bangladesh and Nepal. It has been written with the Devanagari,Bengali, Oriya and Latin alphabets.

Vowels and vowel diacritics

More consonant-vowel combinations

Consonants

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A selection of conjunct consonants

All conjunct consonants

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Modifier symbols

Numerals

Download a spreadsheet with these charts (Excel format, 80K)

Sample text in Bengali

Transliteration (by Arif Ahmed)Shomosto manush shadhinbhabe shoman morjada ebong odhikar niye jonmogrohon kore.Tader bibek ebong buddhi achhe; shutorang shokoleri ekey oporer proti bhratrittoshulobhmonobhab niye achoron kora uchit.

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Listen to a recording of this text

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

Information about Bengali | Bengali phrases | Bengali numbers | Tower of Babel in Bengali |Bengali learning materials

LinksInformation about Bengalihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_languagehttp://www.betelco.com/bd/bangla/bangla.html

Online Bengali lessonshttp://www.bangla-online.infohttp://www.virtualbangladesh.com/bengali_index.htmlhttp://www.jaspell.co.uk/learnbengali.htmhttp://mylanguages.org/learn_bengali.phphttp://www.bangla-online.infohttp://www.bangalinet.com/learn_bangla.htm

Numbers in Bengalihttp://mylanguages.org/bengali_numbers.phphttp://www.connect-bangladesh.org/bangla/Numbers.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iQtAKx8K40

Ekushey - an add-on for MS Word which enables you to type in Bengali or Assamesehttp://www.altruists.org/projects/ek/

Online Bengali Dictionarieshttp://www.virtualbangladesh.com/dictionary.htmlhttp://www.bangladict.orghttp://www.abhidhan.comhttp://www.bengali-dictionary.com

Free bengali fontshttp://www.ekushey.org/index.php/page/otf_bangla_fontshttp://scriptsource.org/scr/Benghttp://www.omicronlab.com/bangla-fonts.htmlhttp://www.nongnu.org/freebangfont/

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http://www.bangalinet.com/learn_bangla.htm

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http://scriptsource.org/scr/Beng

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http://banglafont.comhttp://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Bengali.html

Online radio in Bengalihttp://www.bbc.co.uk/bengali/http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,615,00.htmlhttp://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/bengali/top/http://www.banglaradio.org.auhttp://www1.voanews.com/bangla/news/

Online Bengali magazineshttp://www.parabaas.comhttp://www.kheyal.comhttp://ajantrik.8m.nethttp://www.abasar.nethttp://www.freewebs.com/guruchandali/http://www.sulekhapatrika.com

Viswayan - information about Bengali language, literature, drama, video, etc.http://www.viswayan.com/

Bengali jokeshttp://www.banglajokes.net/

Bengali and Sylheti Language Serviceshttp://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, Anatolianscripts, Coptic, Cypriot, Brahmi, Old Persian cuneiform:http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphabet.html

Indo-Aryan languagesAwadhi, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Chakma, Dhivehi, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Konkani,Kotia, Kutchi, Maithili, Marathi, Marwari, Modi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Romany,Saraiki, Sindhi, Sinhala, Sourashtra, Sugali, Sylheti, Urdu

Languages written with the Bengali alphabet

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Bengali, Garo, Manipuri, Mundari, Sylheti

Also used to write: Bishnupriya, Bodo, Chakma, Chiru, Koda, Nisi, Deori, Dimasa, Hajong, Koch,Khasi, Kudmali, Tiwa, Sauria Paharia, Miri, Chothe Naga, Thangal Naga, Moyon Naga, MaringNaga, Rabha, Rangpuri, Santali, Sadri, Oraon Sadri, Sulung, Panchpargania, Tippera, KokBorok, Toto and Usui.

Syllabic alphabets / abugidasAhom, Badaga, Balinese, Batak, Baybayin (Tagalog), Bengali, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese,Chakma, Cham, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Dhives Akuru, Ethiopic, Evēla Akuru, Fraser, Gondi,Grantha, Gujarati, Gupta, Gurmukhi, Hanuno'o, Javanese, Jenticha, Kaithi, Kannada,Kharosthi, Khmer, Khojki, Kulitan, Lanna, Lao, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Malayalam,Manpuri, Modi, Mongolian Horizontal Square Script, New Tai Lue, Oriya, Pahawh Hmong,Pallava, Phags-pa, Ranjana, Redjang, Shan, Sharda, Siddham, Sindhi, Sinhala, SorangSompeng, Sourashtra, Soyombo, Sundanese, Syloti Nagri, Tagbanwa, Takri, Tamil, Telugu,Thai, Tibetan, Tikamuli, Tocharian, Tolong Siki, Tulu, Varang Kshiti

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