Home > Bengali script

The script was originally not associated with any particular language, but was prevalent as the script of choice in east India. Among the various different regional variations within this script, only the Assamese and Bengali variations exist today in the formalized system. The script was used to write Sanskrit for centuries, especially when dealing with Hindu scripture such as the Mahabharata or Ramayana. It is still occasionally used for Sanskrit today. Srimanta Sankardeva used it in the 15th and 16th centuries to compose his oeuvre in an Assamese version of Brajavali , an artificial language used by Bhakti poets. It was also used by the later AhomThe Tai Ahoms ruled parts of present day Assam for nearly 600 years: from 1228 to 1826. In 1228, Sukaphaa a Shan Mong Mao prince originally befriended the Moran''s and Borahi''s in the Brahmaputra valley, defeated the Chutia''s and established a small kin kings to write the Buranji s, the Ahom chronicles, in the Assamese language. Needless to say, it has a rich legacy of Indian literature written in it.

Clusters of consonants are represented by different and sometimes quite irregular characters, so learning to read it is complicated by the size of the alphabet, which numbers about 500 or so characters. While effort at standardizing script continue in such notable centers as the Bangla Academies (unaffiliated) at DhakaCapitals in Asia Dhaka or Dacca , population 9,000,022 ( 2001), is the capital of Bangladesh. The city is situated on Buriganga, a channel of the Dhaleswari River, in the heart of the world's largest jute-growing region. It is the industrial, commercial, ( BangladeshThe People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia that forms the eastern part of the ancient region of Bengal. Bangladesh literally means "The Country of Bengal". Lying north of the Bay of Bengal, on land it borders India almost exclusively,) and Kolkata ( West BengalCapital Kolkata Governor Viren J. Shah Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Area 88,752 km² Population Total Density Ranked 4th in India 80,221,171 ( 2001) 904/km² Literacy rate: Total Male Female 69. 22% Urbanization: 28. 03% West Bengal is a state in t, IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy.), it is still not quite uniform as yet, since different people continue to use a few older forms of letters, thus making for concurrent forms for the same sounds.

It seems likely that the standardisation of the language will be greatly influenced by the need to typeset it on computers. The large alphabet could be represented, with a great deal of ingenuity, within the Ascii character set, but certain irregular conjuncts were omitted. Work has been underway since around 2001 to develop Unicode fonts, and it seems likely that it will split into two variants, traditional and modern.