Timeline of the Bengali language | ||||||
200 — – 300 — – 400 — – 500 — – 600 — – 700 — – 800 — – 900 — – 1000 — – 1100 — – 1200 — – 1300 — – 1400 — – 1500 — – 1600 — – 1700 — – 1800 — – 1900 — – 2000 — – | Early Middle Bengali Later Middle Bengali Modern Bengali ↓Middle Indo-Aryan languages ↑Future |
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Bengali is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language that originated from the Middle Indo-Aryan language by the natives of present-day West Bengal and Bangladesh in the 4th to 7th century. [1]
After the conquest of Nadia in 1204 AD, Islamic rule began in Bengal, which influenced the Bengali language. [2] [3] The middle or late 14th century is marked as the end of Old Bengal and the beginning of Middle Bengal.
Modern Bengali dates back to 1800 AD. It marked the renaissance of Bengali, as well as incorporating borrowings from European languages. Significant changes in verbs and pronouns occurred during this period, which marked the contraction of most verbs and pronouns.
Although the Bengali language is an Indo-Aryan language, it also has pre-Aryan roots. In the past, Bengal was far from Vedic or Aryan culture. Bengal, except for some parts in the south-east, was part of the Magadha Empire.
The languages spoken primarily by the native people of Bengal were part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Aryan language family. These included dialects of the Magadhi (or Gaudī) group, which were primarily spoken in the region between Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam.
The development of the Bengali language from Curésenter was influenced mainly by Sanskris. This influence, in a contact situation has an impact primarily in the vocabulary of Bengali language and as a result not only tatsama words are accumulated in the Bengali vocabulary but also this lexical diffusion resulted in diachronic change by developing ardhatatsama and tadbhava words.
The people of ancient Bengal initially spoke a Prakrit language, which was known as Magadhi, or on the contrary, Gaudi. [4] Later, it evolved into Old Bengali. Most Bengali-speaking people today consider Old Bengali to be intelligible to a certain extent, although most of the words most commonly used in modern Bengali have their roots in Old Bengali.
Kamarupi Prakrit is the postulated Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) Prakrit language used in ancient Kamarupa. This language has been derived from Gauda-Kamarupi Prakrit and the historical ancestor of the Kamatapuri lects and the modern Assamese language; and can be dated prior to 1250 CE, when the proto-Kamta language, the parent of the Kamatapuri lects, began to develop. Though not substantially proven, the existence of the language that predated the Kamatapuri lects and modern Assamese is widely believed to be descended from it.
The Charyapada are a collection of mystical poems, songs of realization in the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism from the tantric tradition in Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
Bishnupriya Manipuri, also known as Bishnupriya Meitei or simply as Bishnupriya, is an Indo-Aryan lect belonging to the Bengali–Assamese linguistic sub-branch. It is a creole of Bengali language and Meitei language and it still retains its pre-Bengali features. It is spoken in parts of the Indian states of Assam, Tripura and Manipur as well as in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh. It uses the Bengali-Assamese script as its writing system. Bishnupriya Manipuri, being a member of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, was evolved from Magadhi Prakrit. So, its origin is associated with Magadha realm. The Government of Tripura categorised Bishnnupriya Manipuri under the "Tribal Language Cell" of the State Council of Educational Research and Training. Its speakers are also given the "Other Backward Classes" status by the Assam Government and notably, there is no legal status of the Bishnupriyas in Manipur. In the 2020s, the Bishnupriya speaking people started demanding that the Assam Government should give them the status of "indigenous people" of Assam and treat the same like other indigenous communities of the state.
Sukumar Sen was an Indian linguist and historian of the Bengali literature, who was also well versed in Pāli, Prakrit and Sanskrit.
Bengali is one of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, which evolved from Magadhi Prakrit, native to the eastern Indian subcontinent. The core of Bengali vocabulary is thus etymologically of Magadhi Prakrit origin, with significant ancient borrowings from the older substrate language(s) of the region. However, in medieval times, more borrowings have occurred, from Sanskrit, Arabic, Classical Persian, Turkish and other languages has led to the adoption of a wide range of words with foreign origins; thus making the origins of borrowed words in the Bengali vocabulary numerous and diverse, due to centuries of contact with various languages.
Chittagonian or Chittagonian Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Chittagong Division in Bangladesh. Chittagonian and Standard Bengali are not inherently mutually intelligible, although it is considered by some as a nonstandard Bengali dialect. Chittagonian is also considered to be a separate language by some linguists. Though its speakers identify with Bengali culture and the Bengali language. It is mutually intelligible with the Rohingya language, Chakma language and with a lesser extent to Noakhailla. It is estimated (2006) that Chittagonian has 13 million speakers, principally in Bangladesh.
Goalpariya is a group of Indo-Aryan dialects spoken in the Goalpara region of Assam, India. Along with Kamrupi, they form the western group of Assamese dialects. The North Bengali dialect is situated to its west, amidst a number of Tibeto-Burman speech communities. The basic characteristic of the Goalpariya is that it is a composite one into which words of different concerns and regions have been amalgamated. Deshi people speak this language and there are around 20 lakhs people.
Magadhi Prakrit (Māgadhī) is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit.
Suniti Kumar Chatterji was an Indian linguist, educationist and litterateur. He was a recipient of the second-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan.
The Bengali dialects or Bengali varieties are the varieties of the Bengali language, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-European language family, widely spoken in the Bengal region of South Asia. The spoken dialects of Bengali are mutually intelligible with neighbouring dialects.
Byomkes Chakrabarti (1923–1981) was a Bengali research worker on ethnic languages. He was also a educationist and a poet. His major contribution to linguistics was in finding out some basic relationship between Santali and the Bengali language. He showed how the Bengali language has unique characteristics, absent in other Indian languages, under the influence of Santali. His contribution was fundamental to research on the origin and development of the Bengali language and provided scopes of research in newer horizons in linguistics.
Tatsama are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indo-Aryan languages like Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Hindi, Gujarati, and Sinhala and in Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. They generally belong to a higher and more erudite register than common words, many of which are directly inherited from Old Indo-Aryan (tadbhava). The tatsama register can be compared to the use of loan words of Greek or Latin origin in English.
Tadbhava is the Sanskrit word for one of three etymological classes defined by native grammarians of Middle Indo-Aryan languages, alongside tatsama and deśi words. A "tadbhava" is a word with an Indo-Aryan origin but which has evolved through language change in the Middle Indo-Aryan stage and eventually inherited into a modern Indo-Aryan language. In this sense, tadbhavas can be considered the native (inherited) vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language.
Kamrupi dialects are a group of regional dialects of Assamese, spoken in the Kamrup region. It formerly enjoyed prestige status. It is one of two western dialect groups of the Assamese language, the other being Goalpariya. Kamrupi is heterogeneous with three subdialects— Barpetia dialect, Nalbariya dialect and Palasbaria dialect.
Eastern Bengali, Baṅgālī or Vaṅga is a nonstandard dialect cluster of Bengali spoken in most of Bangladesh and Tripura, thus covering majority of the land of Bengal and surrounding areas.
North Central Bengali or Varendrī Bengali is a dialect of the Bengali language, spoken in the Varendra region. Varendri dialect was classified by many renowned Indian linguists like Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Sukumar Sen and others. It is also spoken in adjoining villages in neighbouring Bihar and Jharkhand. Varendri dialect has some influences of neighbouring dialects of Maithili and other Bihari languages.
Noakhali or Noakhalian, endonym Noakhailla (নোয়াখাইল্লা), is a Bengali–Assamese language spoken by an estimated 7 million people, primarily in the Greater Noakhali region of Bangladesh, as well as in southern parts of Tripura in India. Outside of these regions, there are substantial numbers of Noakhali speakers in other parts of Bangladesh and a diaspora population in the Middle East, Italy, Europe and the United States.
Old Bengali was the earliest recorded form of the Bengali language, spoken in the Bengal region of eastern Indian subcontinent during the Middle Ages. It developed from a Apabhraṃśa of Magadhi Prakrit around 650 AD, and the first Bengali literary works date from the 8th century. Between 1200 and 1350 AD, no written form or literary work of Bengali language is found; during this period the Islamic invasion took place in Bengal. It is marked as the barren age, and also marks the end of the Old Bengali era, as the Middle Bengali language developed later.
Gaudi Prakrit is the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit language used in Gauda or ancient Bengal. The language originates from the Old Eastern Indo-Aryan and is the historical ancestor of Bengali. It was originally considered as Prakrit till 400 AD, later its Apabhraṃśa appeared which is known as Gaudi Apabhransha. Although not sufficiently proven, the existence of the language that predated the Vanga-Kamarupi and Bengali is believed to be descended from it.
It is very possible that these features have a pre-Aryan root. The evidence of the existence of Bengali people, their culture, their involvement in maritime trade also a mark of evidence of the existence of Bengali language. The origin of Bengali language, we may conclude, must be pre-Aryan but in its course of development, from Curésenter it is influenced mainly by Sanskris. This influence, in a contact situation has an impact primarily in the vocabulary of Bengali language and as a result not only tatsama words are accumulated in the Bengali vocabulary but also this lexical diffusion resulted in diachronic change by developing ardhatatsama and tadbhava words. In the similar way, phonological nativization has taken place in case of borrowing of Arabic, Persian, English and other foreign words in the direction of phonological and syllabic pattern of the native language. So, the influence of other languages including OIA is external and the Bengali language retains its own core grammatical structure. Historically, the Bangla language is divided into three periods as evident from various sources: (i) First, Old Bangla Period (roughly CE4th/7th Century to CE 1200/1350). ... (ii)The Middle Bengali Period from 1200 to 1800 AD.... (iii) Finally, after 1800 AD we find the Modern or New Bengali....