3 The Literature of Bengali

Known by many as the Shakespeare of India, possibly the greatest and most prolific writer in Bengali is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Influenced primarily by universalist Hindu philosophy in the Upanishads, Tagore dominated both the Bengali and Indian philosophical and literary scene for decades. His 2,000 Rabindrasangeets play a pivotal part in defining Bengali culture, both in West Bengal and Bangladesh. He is the author of the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, both originally composed in Bengali. Other notable Bengali works of his are Gitanjali, a book of poems for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and many of his short stories and a few novels.

In a similar category is Kazi Nazrul Islam, a Muslim who was invited to post-partition Bangladesh as the National Poet and whose work, like Tagore's, transcends sectarian boundaries. Adored by Bengalis both in Bangladesh and West Bengal, his work includes 3,000 songs, known as nazrul geeti.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt, converted to Christianity but made famous by his work based on the Hindu epic Ramayana, created a masterpiece known as "The Slaying of Meghnadh," (in Bengali "Meghnadh Bodh Kabbo" (মেঘনাদ বধ কাব্য)) which essentially follows in the epic poetic tradition of Milton's Paradise Lost. It is considered by those who have read it a world-class epic poem of the modern era. Michael Madhusudan Dutta is also credited to introduce sonnets in Bengali literature.

Till very late, Bengali didn't have a formally defined grammar. Bengali existed as a collection of about thousands of dialects. The credit for introducing a grammar to Bangla goes to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was a supremely well-respected author and complex Bengali stylist and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay is most famous for writing India's unofficial national song, "Bande Mataram" (pronounced in Hindi " Vande Mataram"). Jibanananda Das was a superb poet who along with Buddhadev Basu, mark the starting of the move to transcend the Tagore legacy.

Seminal Hindu religious works in Bengali include the many songs of Ramprasad Sen . His works (still sung today in West Bengal) from the 17th century cover an astonishing range of emotional responses to Ma Kali, detailing complex philosophical statements based on Vedanta teachings and more visceral prouncements of his love of Devi. Using inventive allegory, Ramprasad had 'dialogues' with the Mother Goddess through his poetry, at times chiding her, adoring her, celebrating her as the Divine Mother, reckless consort of Shiva and capricious Shakti of the cosmos. There are also the laudatory accounts of the lives and teachings of the Vaishnava saint Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (the Chaitanya Charitamrit) and Devi Advaitist Shri Ramakrishna (the Ramakrishna Charitamrit, translated roughly as Gospel of Ramakrishna).

The mystic Bauls of the Bengal countryside who preached the boundless spiritual truth of Sahaj Path (the Simple, Natural Path) and Maner Manush (The Man of The Heart) drew on Vedantic philosophy to propound transcendental truths in song format, traveling from village to village proclaiming that there was no such thing as Hindu, Muslim or Christian, only maner manush.

4 Script

Bengali is usually written in the Bengali script. This is a Brahmic script, very similar to the Devanagari used for Hindi and Sanskrit. Each base symbol represents a syllable, and other symbols can be added to change (or suppress) the vowel of that syllable. Consonant clusters are often indicated by ligating two symbols.

The spelling system is based on an older version on the language without some vowel merges that have taken place in the spoken language, thus it cannot be described as a completely phonemic orthography.

The sylheti language, for a long time, followed a script different from Bangla script, based on the Devanagari script. The script was called the Sylheti Nagori script.

5 Variation in Dialects

In Bangla, there exists what is known as sadhu bhaasha (literally Language of Sages) and Cholti Bhaashaa (or Chalit Bhasha in standard Bengali) (literally Running or Going Language; essentially Colloquial Speech). The primary difference is clearly more strict adherence to grammatical norms and a much more heavily Sanskritized vocabulary. Songs like the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" (by Rabindranath Tagore) and the national song of India (by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (Chatterjee)) "Vande Mataram" were actually composed in highly refined 'sadhu bhaashaa' Bengali. It is not really spoken by Bengalis and is more confined to literary and formal forums.

Chalit Bhasha is itself full of regional variations. The standardized form of chalit Bhasha, which has become the received pronunciation in Bengali, and is also adapted to most Bengali writing today, is modeled on "Calcutta Bengali". Cholti bhaashaa is the less rigid and more diluted language that borrows from several sources for vocabulary (while overwhelmingly derived from Sanskrit, there are also plenty of words taken from English, Hindi, Arabic and Persian sources). Also, the pronunciation of certain words and a greater laxity in grammatical expression is a clearly distinctive factor between cholti bhaashaa and sadhu bhaasha.

There is a divide between the way in which West Bengalis and Bangladeshis speak. Less than standard pronunciation of Bengali, especially prevalent in villages and East Bengal (Bangladesh), tend to render clear 'ch' and 'sh' sounds, and the 'ph' (an aspirated p as in pillow) sound to, respectively, more sussurous ('s'-filled) and 'fh' sounds. This mode of pronunciation is closely related to the East Bengali 'Sylheti' dialect of Bengali (common in the United Kingdom) which carries a greater Arab-Persian influence and a distinct departure from standard Bengali grammar. In Kolkata, West Bengal, the chalit bhasha adheres to more standard and 'proper' forms of Bengali, retaining the traditional sound structures and cleaving a bit more closely to the sadhu bhaashaa strand.

The largest differences, therefore, between West Bengal and Bangladesh spoken Bangla (the literary written Bangla remaining largely the same) is heard in the sound, therefore, of certain characters and regional grammatical variations as well as certain differences that many would attribute to the separation between the predominantly Muslim Bangladeshi populace and largely Hindu West Bengali populace. Due to the desire to reinforce certain cultural affiliations, Muslims may choose to utilize some Arabo-Persian words instead of the standard and literary Sanskrit-derived Bengali. For instance, many Sanskrit-derived words that are standard Sadhu and Cholti Bhaashaa, in other words, standard Bengali, have been dropped in the Bangladeshi (sometimes called Dhaka) Bengali.

Some examples of departure from standard Bangla (spoken in Kolkata) in Bangladeshi Bangla are as follow:

• *water: jal (S) substituted by paani (S)
• meat: mangsha (S) substituted by gosht (A/P)
• invitation: nimontonno (S) substituted by dawaat (A/P)
• bath/shower: snaan/chaan (S) substituted by gosol (A/P)
• twenty: kuri (S) substituted by bis (A/P)

S=Sanskrit; A/P=Arab/Persian, mostly absorbed via Urdu and Hindustani

• Though both jal and paani are Sanskrit derivatives, paani became more associated with the Hindustani language that imbibed so much of Mughal culture and so became the word of choice for Muslim speakers of Bengali.

6 Sounds

Bangla phonetics has 45 essential and five non-essential phonemes.

---

Bengali is an Indo-European language.

7 See also

• Bengal
• Rabindranath Tagore
• West Bengal
• Kolkata
• Bangladesh
• Dhaka
• Siliguri

8 External links

• Links on Sylheti dialect of Bangladesh: http://www.sylhet.org.uk and http://www.sylheti.com.

Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Bangladesh Languages of India

<Hide>