Bengali language

With the advent of the Indo-Aryans in the 3rd century BCE, Bengal was gradually being Sanskritized.^[23] The varieties of Prakrit spoken in Bengal region were generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji,^[24] as the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. Muhammad Shahidullah attempted to trace the origin of Bengali to Old Indo-Aryan through the Gaudi Prakrit; his findings were later supported by A. B. Keith and others.^[25]

The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire, and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests and Buddhist Acharyas, the vernacular of Bengal gained much influence from Sanskrit.^[26][23] Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam, and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi.^[27][28] Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what is known as Apabhraṃśa, by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time.^[29]

A Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary compiled by the Chinese poet Li-Yen in 782 AD shows the presence of Bengali. A research document Classical Bangla published in 2024 by the Kolkata-based institute "Institute of Language Studies and Research" (ILSR), mentions the presence of 51 Bengali words in the dictionary. The lexicon strongly supports the existence of Old Bengali in the 8th century or earlier.^[30][31]

Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating.^[32] The local Apabhraṃśa of the eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages, the Bihari languages, and the Odia language.

The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time.^{[33][better source needed]} The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty.^[34][35]

During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa. Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by the Arabic, Persian, and Turkic languages.^{[citation needed]} The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist-ruling Pala Empire, from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region.^{[citation needed]}

In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population.^[36][37] Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including the development of Dobhashi.^[36]

Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah.^[38] Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali,^[39] allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate.^[40] Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian, which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on the language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century.^[41]

The standard literary form of Modern Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in Shantipur region of the Nadia district. Modern Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia, with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language.^[42] Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian, Arabic, Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali:

• চলিতভাষা Chôlitôbhasha, a colloquial form of Bengali using simplified inflections.
• সাধুভাষা Sadhubhasha, a formal and genteel form of Bengali.^[43][44]

In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement.^[45] This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as a state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan. On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan.^[45] 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000.

In 2010, the parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language.^[46] As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India.^[47]

In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language.^[17][18]

The Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Language Martyr's Memorial at Silchar Railway Station in Assam, India.

Mother Language Day Monument in Kolkata, West Bengal

The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal, which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.

Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura, southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bengali is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand, and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi, Mumbai, Thane, Varanasi, and Vrindavan. There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East,^[48][49][50] the United States,^[51] Singapore,^[52] Malaysia, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

The 3rd article of the Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh.^[11] The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987, made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh.^[9] It is also the de facto national language of the country.

In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages.^[53] It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam.^[54][55] Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011.

In Pakistan, Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi^[56][57][58] mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan. The Department of Bengali in the University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature.^[59]

The national anthems of both Bangladesh (Amar Sonar Bangla) and India (Jana Gana Mana) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.^[60] Notuner Gaan known as "Chol Chol Chol" is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram, a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Matha) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore,^{[61][62][63][64]} while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala.^{[65][66][67][68]}

In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations.^[69]

Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum. Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi, Vangiya, Kamrupi and Varendri;^[70][71] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed.^[72] The West-Central dialects (Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form the basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives. Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [tʃɔ], ছ [tʃʰɔ], জ [dʑɔ] correspond to eastern চ [sɔ], ছ [sɔ], জ [dzɔ~zɔ].

The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti,^[73] Chittagonian and Chakma, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects.^[74]

During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata, a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District.^[75] There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use a different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west.^[76]

Bengali exhibits diglossia, though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language.^[42] Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax:^[75][77]

1. Sadhu bhasha (সাধু ভাষা "upright language") was the written language, with longer verb inflections and more of a Pali and Sanskrit-derived Tatsama vocabulary. Songs such as India's national anthem Jana Gana Mana (by Rabindranath Tagore) were composed in this style. Its use in modern writing however is uncommon, restricted to some official signs and documents as well as for achieving particular literary effects.
2. Chôlito bhasha (চলিত ভাষা "running language"), known by linguists as Standard Colloquial Bengali, is a written Bengali style exhibiting a preponderance of colloquial idiom and shortened verb forms and is the standard for written Bengali now. This form came into vogue towards the turn of the 19th century, promoted by the writings of Peary Chand Mitra (Alaler Gharer Dulal, 1857),^[78] Pramatha Chaudhuri (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. It is modelled on the dialect spoken in the Shantipur and Shilaidaha region in Nadia and Kushtia Districts respectively. This form of Bengali is often referred to as the "Kushtia standard"(Bangladesh), "Nadia standard" (West Bengal), "West-Central dialect", "Shantipuri Bangla" or "Shilaidahi Bangla".^[72]

Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises the language as:

• Madhya Rarhi dialect
• Kanthi (Contai) dialect
• Kolkata dialect
• Shantipuriya (Nadia) dialect
• Shershahabadia (Maldahiya/ Jangipuri) dialect
• Barendri dialect
• Rangapuriya dialect
• Sylheti dialect
• Dhakiya (Bikrampuri) dialect
• Jashore/Jessoriya dialect
• Barisal (Chandradwip) dialect
• Chattal (Chittagong) dialect

While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However, a majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB.^[79] The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis.^[79] The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects.^[43]

Even in SCB, the vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit (tadbhava), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit).^[80] For example:^[76]

The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels. The inventory is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme).

Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs, combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.^[82] Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/, are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of a diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following:^[83]

In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô-hô-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress.

Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters;^[84] the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school".

The Bengali-Assamese script is an abugida, a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked.^[85] The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century).^[86] It is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers.^[86] There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words. Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra.^[87]

Since the Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments, but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel, either [ɔ] as in মত [mɔt] "opinion" or [o], as in মন [mon] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ]. To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it, a special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্), may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m]). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô, may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in the final ন in মন [mon] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla]).

A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures. These allographs, called কার kar, are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example, the graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i], where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma], মী [mi], মু [mu], মূ [mu], মৃ [mri], মে [me~mɛ], মৈ [moj], মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures, the so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ].

The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent a vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent formি). A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form.

In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô, three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are the superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ), denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow").

The Bengali consonant clusters (যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn) are usually realised as ligatures, where the consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. As in, ক্ষ (ক+ষ) or হ্ম (হ+ম) In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in a bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from the graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden.

Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi – the Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar.^[88]

Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra. The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example, the letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra, as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e, also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô. The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between the visible matra and an invisible baseline).

There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem.

Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on a large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore, which borders Odisha, have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar, some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari, Kaithi and Tirhuta.^[89]

In Sylhet and Bankura, modified versions of the Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra.^[90] Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c. 1869.^[10]

Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in the east to Meherpur in the west.^[91][92][93] The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam, composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet.^[94][95] After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement.^[96]

In the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of the Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist. Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda, and Muhammad Enamul Haq.^[97] The Digital Revolution has also played a part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali,^[98] with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali.^[99]

Bengali script like others does have Schwa deletion. It does not mark when the inherent vowel is not used (mainly at the end of words)

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The Bengali script in general has a comparatively shallow orthography when compared to the Latin script used for English and French, i.e., in many cases there is a one-to-one correspondence between the sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) of Bengali. But grapheme-phoneme inconsistencies do occur in many other cases. In fact, Bengali-Assamese script has the deepest orthography (deep orthography) among the Indian scripts. In general, the Bengali-Assamese script is fairly transparent for grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, i.e., it is easier to predict the pronunciation from spelling of the words. But the script is fairly opaque for phoneme-to-grapheme conversion, i.e., it is more difficult to predict the spelling from the pronunciation of the words.

One kind of inconsistency is due to the presence of several letters in the script for the same sound. In spite of some modifications in the 19th century, the Bengali spelling system continues to be based on the one used for Sanskrit,^[88] and thus does not take into account some sound mergers that have occurred in the spoken language. For example, there are three letters (শ, ষ, and স) for the voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ], although the letter স retains the voiceless alveolar sibilant [s] sound when used in certain consonant conjuncts as in স্খলন [skʰɔlon] "fall", স্পন্দন [spɔndon] "beat", etc. The letter ষ also, sometimes, retains the voiceless retroflex sibilant [ʂ] sound when used in certain consonant conjuncts as in কষ্ট [kɔʂʈo] "suffering", গোষ্ঠী [ɡoʂʈʰi] "clan", etc. Similarly, there are two letters (জ and য) for the voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ]. Moreover, what was once pronounced and written as a retroflex nasal ণ [ɳ] is now pronounced as an alveolar [n] when in conversation (the difference is heard when reading) (unless conjoined with another retroflex consonant such as ট, ঠ, ড and ঢ), although the spelling does not reflect this change. The near-open front unrounded vowel [æ] is orthographically realised by multiple means, as seen in the following examples: এত [æto] "so much", এ্যাকাডেমী [ækaɖemi] "academy", অ্যামিবা [æmiba] "amoeba", দেখা [dækʰa] "to see", ব্যস্ত [bæsto] "busy", ব্যাকরণ [bækorɔn] "grammar".

Another kind of inconsistency is concerned with the incomplete coverage of phonological information in the script. The inherent vowel attached to every consonant can be either [ɔ] or [o] depending on vowel harmony (স্বরসঙ্গতি) with the preceding or following vowel or on the context, but this phonological information is not captured by the script, creating ambiguity for the reader. Furthermore, the inherent vowel is often not pronounced at the end of a syllable, as in কম [kɔm] "less", but this omission is not generally reflected in the script, making it difficult for the new reader.

Many consonant clusters have different sounds than their constituent consonants. For example, the combination of the consonants ক্ [k] and ষ [ʂ] is graphically realised as ক্ষ and is pronounced [kkʰo] (as in রুক্ষ [rukkʰo] "coarse"), [kʰɔ] (as in ক্ষমতা [kʰɔmota] "capability") or even [kʰo] (as in ক্ষতি [kʰoti] "harm"), depending on the position of the cluster in a word. Another example is that there are around 7 or more graphemes to represent the sound [ʃ]. These are 'শ' as in শব্দ (śabda, pronounced as śôbdo "word"), 'ষ' as in ষড়যন্ত্র (ṣaṛayantra, pronounced as śoṛōjontrō "conspiracy"), 'স' as in সরকার (sarakāra, pronounced as śorkar "government"), 'শ্ব' as in শ্বশুর (written as śbaśura but pronounced with the ব b silent, i.e., as śōśur "father-in-law"), 'শ্ম' as in শ্মশান (written as śmaśāna but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as śośan "crematorium"), 'স্ব' as in স্বপ্ন (written as "sbapna" but pronounced with the ব 'b' silent, i.e., as śopnō "dream"), 'স্ম' as in স্মরণ (written as smaraṇa but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as śorōn "remembrance"), 'ষ্ম' as in গ্রীষ্ম (written as grīṣma but pronounced with the ম 'm' silent, i.e., as griśśō "summer") and so on. In most of the consonant clusters, only the first consonant is pronounced and rest of the consonants are silent. Examples are লক্ষ্মণ (written as lakṣmaṇa but pronounced as lokkhōn "Lakshman"), বিশ্বাস (written as biśbāsa but pronounced as biśśaś "belief"), বাধ্য (written as bādhya but pronounced as baddhō "obliged") and স্বাস্থ্য (written as sbāsthya but pronounced as śasthō "health"). Some consonant clusters have completely different pronunciation as compared to the constituent consonants. For example, 'হ্য' as in ঐতিহ্য (meaning "heritage") where hy is pronounced as jjh (written as aitihya but pronounced as ōitijjhō). The same হ্য is pronounced as 'hæ' as in হ্যাঁ (meaning "yes") (written as hyām̐ but pronounced as nasalised "hæ").

Another example of inconsistency in the script is that of words like, অন্য (written as anya but pronounced as ōnnō "other, different") and অন্ন (written as anna but pronounced as onnō "cooked rice, food"); in these words, the letter অ is combining with two different consonant clusters ন্য (nya) and ন্ন (nna), and while the same letter অ has two different pronunciations, ō and o, the two different consonant clusters have the same pronunciation. Thus, same letters and graphemes can often have different pronunciations depending on their position in a word and different graphemes and letters often have the same pronunciation.

The main reason for these numerous inconsistencies is that there have been lots of sound mergers in Bengali, but the script has failed to account for the sound shifts and consonant mergers in the language. Bengali has lots of tatsam words (words directly derived from Sanskrit) and in all these words, the original spelling has been preserved but the pronunciations have changed due to consonant mergers and sound shifts. In fact, most of the tatsam words have many grapheme-to-phoneme inconsistencies while most of the tadbhav words (native Bengali words) have fairly consistent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. The Bengali writing system is, therefore, not often a true guide to pronunciation.

The script used for Bengali, Assamese, and other languages is known as Bengali script. The script is known as the Bengali alphabet for Bengali and its dialects and the Assamese alphabet for Assamese language with some minor variations. Other related languages in the nearby region also make use of the Bengali script like the Meitei language in the Indian state of Manipur, where the Meitei language has been written in the Bengali script for centuries, though the Meitei script has been promoted in recent times.

Bengali digits are as follows:

Some 19th-century grammars note additional signs for fractions, quarters and sixteenths in particular.^[100][101]

There are various romanisation systems used for Bengali created in recent years which have failed to represent the true Bengali phonetic sound. The Bengali alphabet has often been included with the group of Brahmic scripts for romanisation where the true phonetic value of Bengali is never represented. Some of them are the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, or IAST system (based on diacritics);^[102] "Indian languages Transliteration", or ITRANS (uses upper case letters suited for ASCII keyboards);^[103] and the National Library at Kolkata romanisation.^[104]

In the context of Bengali romanisation, it is important to distinguish transliteration from transcription. Transliteration is orthographically accurate (i.e. the original spelling can be recovered), whereas transcription is phonetically accurate (the pronunciation can be reproduced). As the spelling often doesn't reflect the actual pronunciation, transliteration and transcription are often different.

Although it might be desirable to use a transliteration scheme where the original Bengali orthography is recoverable from the Latin text, Bengali words are currently romanised on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the true phonetic pronunciation of Bengali is represented with no reference to how it is written.

The most recent attempt has been by publishers Mitra and Ghosh with the launch of three popular children's books, Abol Tabol, Hasi Khusi and Sahoj Path, in Roman script at the Kolkata Book Fair 2018. Published under the imprint of Benglish Books, these are based on phonetic transliteration and closely follow spellings used in social media but for using an underline to describe soft consonants.

Bengali nouns are not assigned gender, which leads to minimal changing of adjectives (inflection). However, nouns and pronouns are moderately declined (altered depending on their function in a sentence) into four cases while verbs are heavily conjugated, and the verbs do not change form depending on the number of the noun.

As a head-final language, Bengali follows a subject–object–verb word order, although variations on this theme are common.^[105] Bengali makes use of postpositions, as opposed to the prepositions used in English and other European languages. Determiners follow the noun, while numerals, adjectives, and possessors precede the noun.^[106]

Yes–no questions do not require any change to the basic word order; instead, the low (L) tone of the final syllable in the utterance is replaced with a falling (HL) tone. Additionally, optional particles (e.g. কি -ki, না -na, etc.) are often encliticised onto the first or last word of a yes–no question.

Wh-questions are formed by fronting the wh-word to focus position, which is typically the first or second word in the utterance.

Nouns and pronouns are inflected for case, including nominative, objective, genitive (possessive), and locative.^[29] The case marking pattern for each noun being inflected depends on the noun's degree of animacy. When a definite article such as -টা -ṭa (singular) or -গুলো -gulo (plural) is added, as in the tables below, nouns are also inflected for number.

In most of Bengali grammar books, cases are divided into 6 categories and an additional possessive case (the possessive form is not recognised as a type of case by Bengali grammarians). But in terms of usage, cases are generally grouped into only 4 categories.

When counted, nouns take one of a small set of measure words. Nouns in Bengali cannot be counted by adding the numeral directly adjacent to the noun. An appropriate measure word (MW), a classifier, must be used between the numeral and the noun (most languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area are similar in this respect). Most nouns take the generic measure word -টা -ṭa, though other measure words indicate semantic classes (e.g. -জন -jôn for humans). There is also the classifier -khana, and its diminutive form -khani, which attaches only to nouns denoting something flat, long, square, or thin. These are the least common of the classifiers.^[107]

Measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. আট বিড়াল aṭ biṛal instead of আটটা বিড়াল aṭ-ṭa biṛal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, when the semantic class of the noun is understood from the measure word, the noun is often omitted and only the measure word is used, e.g. শুধু একজন থাকবে। Shudhu êk-jôn thakbe. (lit. 'Only one-'MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", given the semantic class implicit in -জন -jôn.

In this sense, all nouns in Bengali, unlike most other Indo-European languages, are similar to mass nouns.

There are two classes of verbs: finite and non-finite. Non-finite verbs have no inflection for tense or person, while finite verbs are fully inflected for person (first, second, third), tense (present, past, future), aspect (simple, perfect, progressive), and honour (intimate, familiar, and formal), but not for number. Conditional, imperative, and other special inflections for mood can replace the tense and aspect suffixes. The number of inflections on many verb roots can total more than 200.

Inflectional suffixes in the morphology of Bengali vary from region to region, along with minor differences in syntax.

Bengali differs from most Indo-Aryan Languages in the zero copula, where the copula or connective be is often missing in the present tense.^[88] Thus, "he is a teacher" is তিনি শিক্ষক se shikkhôk, (literally "he teacher").^[108] In this respect, Bengali is similar to Russian and Hungarian. Romani grammar is also the closest to Bengali grammar.^[109]

Bengali is typically thought to have around 100,000 separate words, of which 16,000 (16%) are considered to be তদ্ভব tôdbhôbô, or Tadbhava (inherited Indo-Aryan vocabulary), 40,000 (40%) are তৎসম tôtśômô or Tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit), and borrowings from দেশী deśi, or "indigenous" words, which are at around 16,000 (16%) of the Bengali vocabulary. The rest are বিদেশী bideśi or "foreign" sources, including Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and English among others, accounting for around 28,000 (28%) of all Bengali words, highlighting the significant influence that foreign languages and cultures have had on the Bengali language throughout Bengal's long history of contact with different peoples and the cultural exchanges that came with such interactions.^[110] Bengali is reportedly similar to Assamese and has a lexical similarity of 40 per cent with Nepali.^[111]

According to Suniti Kumar Chatterji, dictionaries from the early 20th century attributed a little more than 50% of the Bengali vocabulary to native words (i.e., naturally modified Sanskrit words, corrupted forms of Sanskrit words, and loanwords non-Indo-European languages). About 45% per cent of Bengali words are unmodified Sanskrit, and the remaining words are from foreign languages.^[112] However, more modern sources cite that this is not the case with Bengali vocabulary, as there are far more dominant foreign influences that accurately reflect the way modern Bengalis speak and utilise Bengali.^[113] Persian is also thought to have influenced many grammatical forms.^[114] More recent studies suggest that the use of foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style.^[112] Because of centuries of contact with Europeans, Turkic peoples, and Persians, Bengali has absorbed numerous words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary.

Persian influence was significant for the development of Bengali up to the modern day, and was the primary official language in the region for 600 years, until British rule, when it was changed to English in 1836. In fact, there was so much Persian influence that a register of highly Persianized Bengali, known as Dobhashi appeared in medieval Bengal.^[115]

The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three types of contact. After close contact with several indigenous Austroasiatic languages,^{[116][117][118][119]} and later the Delhi Sultanate, the Bengal Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire, whose court language was Persian, numerous Arabic, Persian, and Chaghatai words were absorbed into the lexicon.^[45]

Later, East Asian travellers and lately European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English during the colonial period.^{[citation needed]}

The following is a sample text in Bengali of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Bangla Academy (Bangladesh)
• Bangla Academy (West Bengal)
• Bengali numerals
• Bengali-language newspapers