Bangla language
Bangla or Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit languages.
Bangla is native to the people residing in eastern South Asia known as Bengal, that is broadly occupied by Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. With nearly 250 million total speakers, Bangla is one of the most spoken languages in the world.
Bangla is the primary language spoken in Bangladesh and is the second most spoken language in India.
The Bangla language, has a long and rich literary and cultural tradition and binds together a culturally and religiously diverse region. In 1952, when Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan and called East Pakistan, this strong sense of identity led to the Bengali Language Movement. During that movement, thousands of people fought and became martyrs on February 21. This day has now been declared as the International Mother Language Day [[#cite_note-titleUNESCO_-_International_Mother_Language_Day_|_Journ�e_internationale_de_la_langue_maternelle-1|[1]]] [2] [3].
Incidentally, the Bangla spoken by people in West Bengal (often referred to as ghotis) have some significant differences with that spoken by the Bangladeshis (Bangals). While the Easterners have no or less nasal intonation, the Westerners have preponderance of the nasal sound. The official written language is the one nearer to the language spoken originally in Kolkata rather than in Dhaka. In the domain of humor, the once abundant horse-cart drivers (Kuttis) of Dhaka are very famous.
It is noteworthy that the national anthems of both India (Jana Gana Mana) and Bangladesh (Amar Shonar Bangla) have been penned by the 1913 Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore.
| Bengali | |
|---|---|
| Bangla, Bongo-bhasha | |
| Spoken in | Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Singapore, Myanmar |
| Total speakers | more than 250 million[1] |
| Language family | Indo-Aryan |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | bn |
| ISO 639-2 | ben |
| ISO 639-3 | ben |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | |
References
- [[#cite_ref-titleUNESCO_-_International_Mother_Language_Day_|_Journ�e_internationale_de_la_langue_maternelle_1-0|↑]] UNESCO - International Mother Language Day. Retrieved on 2008-03-10.
- ↑ UNESCO. Retrieved on 2008-03-10.
- ↑ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved on 2008-03-10.