My Beautiful Bengali Language
As the world's 300 million people speak Bengali, it is the 6th most spoken language in the world (after Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi-Urdu & Arabic) currently spoken in UK, USA, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Myanmar, Canada along with India and Bangladesh.
With a long and rich literary tradition, Bengali binds together a culturally diverse region and is an important contributor to Bengali nationalism. In Bangladesh, the strong linguistic consciousness led to the Bengali Language Movement, during which on 21 February 1952, several people were killed during protests to maintain the writing of Bengali in the Bengali script and to gain its recognition as a state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan. The day has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh, and was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999.
History
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. Along with other languages of this kind, Bengali evolved circa 1000-1200 AD from the Magadhi Prakrit, a declined, vernacular form of the ancient Sanskrit language.
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Haraprasad Sastri, discovered 'Charyapada' |
- Old Bengali (900/1000–1400)—texts include Charyapada, devotional songs; emergence of pronouns Ami, tumi, etc.; verb inflections -ila, -iba, etc. Assamese branch out in this period and Oriya just before this period (8th century-1300).
- Middle Bengali (1400–1800)—major texts of the period include Chandidas's Srikrishnakirtan; elision of word-final ô sound; spread of compound verbs; Persian influence. Some scholars further divide this period into early and late middle periods.
- New Bengali (since 1800)—shortening of verbs and pronouns, among other changes (e.g. tahar → tar "his"/"her"; koriyachhilô → korechhilo he/she had done).
During Bengal Renaissance Period
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Raja Rammohan Roy |
During this period, the Choltibhasha form, using simplified inflections and other changes, was emerging from Shadhubhasha (older form) as the form of choice for written Bengali.
Modern Era
Bengali was the focus, in 1951–52, of the Bengali Language Movement (Bhasha Andolon) in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Although the Bengali language was spoken by the majority of Bangladesh's population, Urdu was legislated as the sole national language. On February 21, 1952, protesting students and activists were fired upon by military and police in Dhaka University and three young students and several other people were killed.
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Bhasa Andolan 1952 |