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91-732: Gopala ( Bengali : গোপাল ) (ruled c.  750s –770s CE) was the founder of the Pala dynasty , which was based in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent . The last morpheme of his name Pala means "protector" and was used as an ending for the names of all the Pala monarchs. Pala does not suggest or indicate any ethnic or caste considerations of the Pala dynasty. He came to power in later half of eighth century AD in Gaur / Gaud after being elected by

182-409: A Buddhist, but it is not known if this is true. Taranatha (1575–1634) claimed that Gopala was a staunch Buddhist and a major patron of Buddhism. He also claimed that Gopala had built the famous Buddhist monastery at Odantapuri . Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ), is a classical Indo-Aryan language from

273-500: A bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from

364-404: A college [مدرسه] Bihar. This passage refers to an attack on a Buddhist monastery (the "Bihar" or Vihara ) and its monks (the shaved Brahmans). The exact date of this event is not known, with scholarly estimates ranging from 1197 to 1206. While many historians believe that this monastery which was mistaken for a fort was Odantapura, some are of the opinion that it was Nalanda instead; even though

455-596: A different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west. Bengali exhibits diglossia , though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax : Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises

546-480: A diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following: In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic ; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô -hô- jo -gi- ta "cooperation", where

637-504: A few decades later. Khalji was assigned two villages on the border of Bihar which had become a political no-man's land. Sensing an opportunity, he began a series of plundering raids into Bihar and was recognised and rewarded for his efforts by his superiors. Emboldened, Khalji decided to attack a fort in Bihar and was able to successfully capture it, looting it with a great booty. The fort was destroyed with all of its inhabitants slaughtered and

728-582: A great number of books there; and, when all these books came under the observation of the Musalmans, they summoned a number of Hindus that they might give them information respecting the import of those books; but the whole of the Hindus had been killed. On becoming acquainted [with the contents of those books], it was found that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindui tongue, they call

819-466: A group of feudal chieftains. Such elections were quite common in contemporary tribal societies of the region. The stanza in the Khalimpur copper plate is a eulogy, and uses the word prakriti figuratively. Based on the different interpretations of the various epigraphs and historical records, the different historians estimate Gopala's reign as follows: According to Manjusrimulakalpa , Gopala died at

910-673: A group of regional chieftains. There are no inscriptions or monuments which may be definitely ascribed to the period of Gopala's ascendency to throne. He is known through the later literary references and genealogies in inscriptions. According to the Manjusrimulakalpa , after the end of the Gupta rule in Bengal, people elected Bhadra. He destroyed the Brahmana feudal lords, but anarchy still prevailed. After this, Gopala became king. He

1001-692: A large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore , which borders Odisha , have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar , some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari , Kaithi and Tirhuta . In Sylhet and Bankura , modified versions of

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1092-682: A majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB. The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects. Even in SCB,

1183-625: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Odantapuri The vihara fell in decline in the 11th century, and was looted and destroyed by Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji , a Turkic Muslim invader in the late 1100s, when he launched multiple raids on Bihar and adjoining territories. Joseph David Beglar first identified

1274-452: A raven appeared and threw the lamp into a lake. Dharmapala was distressed, but that night the king of the Nagas came to him and said — "I am thy father, and I will cause this lake to dry up. Thou shalt build thy temple in the place of it. (In order to bring this about) thou must perform sacrifices for seven weeks." This was accordingly done. On the 21st day the lake was dried up, and in its place

1365-576: A rounded total of 280 million) worldwide. The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal , which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal . Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura , southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Bengali is also spoken in

1456-408: A special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্) , may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m] ). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô , may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in

1547-581: A state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan . On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka ; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan. 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000. In 2010,

1638-419: A strong, brave, and truthful companion versed in all crafts and branches of knowledge, to assist him in a ritual with a corpse ( shava sadhana ). He couldn't find anyone who met the criteria except a Buddhist upasaka . The upaska initially refused to be the assistant to a tirthika , but Narada convinced him by promising him wealth which could be used by the upasaka to spread his religion. They performed

1729-463: A vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি) . A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form. In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô , three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are

1820-500: Is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram , a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it

1911-468: Is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs , and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words . Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra . Since

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2002-572: Is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America, the Middle East and other regions. Bengali was accorded the status of a classical language by the government of India on 3 October 2024. It is the second most spoken and fourth fastest growing language in India , following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei ( Manipuri ), along with Gujarati , in

2093-400: Is an abugida , a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô ) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked. The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century). It

2184-707: Is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka ( Sri Lanka Matha ) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore , while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala . After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone ,

2275-429: Is believed that the modern town of Bihar Sharif is built on the ancient site of Odantapuri. About the location of Odantapuri, S.C.Das depending on the account by Sumpa Khan-po (18th century Tibetan polymath ) thought that it was “erected on a hill near the town of modern Behar.” However, dge-’dun-chos-’phel stated: “On the railway line from Patna to Rajgir , there is a station called Bihar-Sharif. If one looks to

2366-721: Is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata , a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District . There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use

2457-487: Is in form of a legend, and is considered historically unreliable. The legend mentions that after a period of anarchy, the people elected several kings in succession, all of whom were consumed by the Naga queen of an earlier king on the night following their election. Gopala, however managed to kill the queen and remained on the throne. The historical evidence indicates that Gopala was not elected directly by his subjects, but by

2548-404: Is known as Apabhraṃśa , by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time. Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating. The local Apabhraṃśa of

2639-490: Is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme). Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs , combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable . Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/ , are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of

2730-743: Is the second-most widely spoken language in India . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam . It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal , and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar , Arunachal Pradesh , Delhi , Chhattisgarh , Meghalaya , Mizoram , Nagaland , Odisha and Uttarakhand . Bengali

2821-509: The Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist . Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji , Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda , and Muhammad Enamul Haq . The Digital Revolution has also played

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2912-615: The Arabic , Persian , and Turkic languages . The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist -ruling Pala Empire , from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including

3003-474: The Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 , made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh. It is also the de facto national language of

3094-558: The Himalayas and gave it to the queen's maidservant. While crossing a bridge, the maidservant fell down and the drug was carried away by the stream to the ocean. It was seized and swallowed by the king of the Nagas , who was the sovereign of the ocean. By the power of the drug, he became subjected to power of the queen, and united with her. From their union, a son named Dharmapala was born. At an auspicious hour when religious ceremonies for

3185-605: 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 . Bengali is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It

3276-579: The Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra . Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c.  1869 . Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in

3367-723: The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire , and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit. Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam , and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi . Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what

3458-524: The Nadia region . Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia , with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian , Arabic , Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact. In

3549-607: The University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh ) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature. The national anthems of both Bangladesh ( Amar Sonar Bangla ) and India ( Jana Gana Mana ) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore . Notuner Gaan known as " Chol Chol Chol"

3640-499: The boldface represents primary and secondary stress. Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters ; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school". The Bengali-Assamese script

3731-557: The phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti , Chittagonian and Chakma , have contrastive tone ; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong

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3822-623: The 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of

3913-413: The 1960s, the ruins of the fort had almost totally disappeared as the area was occupied by a portion of the town itself. The original campus of Sardar Patel Memorial College was also built in that area, and both the college and the neighbourhood are still called 'Udantpuri' after the name of the ancient university. However, the location of Odantapuri has not yet been conclusively established. Gopala,

4004-652: The 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali: In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement . This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh ), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as

4095-593: The 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty . During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa . Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by

4186-456: The Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra . The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example,

4277-426: The Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments , but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel , either [ɔ] as in মত [m ɔ t] "opinion" or [o] , as in মন [m o n] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ] . To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it,

4368-414: The Pala period, Vikramshila was the leading monastery; and the state funding to Vikramshila and Odantapuri far exceeded what was granted to Nalanda. As a result, while Nalanda was struggling for survival around the 11th century CE, Odantapuri had a rival institution thriving under the royal patronage of Palas. Taranatha mentions a king called Mahāpāla, who he claims was Mahipala 's son, who mainly honoured

4459-474: The Srāvakas of Odantapuri, maintaining five hundred monks and fifty teachers. As an annexe to Odantapuri, he built a vihara called Uruvasa, to provide livelihood and accommodation to five hundred "Srāvaka Sendhapas" (Srāvaka Saindhavas or Singhala Srāvakas, who were Sthaviravadins ). While he allowed Vikramashila to retain its position, he made Uruvasa a centre of great veneration. According to Taranatha, during

4550-475: The Tabaqat-i-Nasiri mentions "Adwand Bihar" among the conquests of Khalji, which is obviously a corruption of the name "Uddandapura vihara". However, considering that the two Mahaviharas were only a few kilometres apart, both very likely befell a similar fate. Taranatha writes that the emperor of Magadha had fortified the monastery and stationed some soldiers with whom the monks joined in repulsing

4641-452: The age of 80, after a reign of 27 years. Not much is known about his life or military career, but at the time of his death, Gopala had bequeathed a large kingdom to his son Dharmapala (770-810 CE). No records are available about the exact boundaries of Gopala's kingdom, but it might have included almost all of the Bengal region (Gaur, Varendra and Banga) and parts of Magadha . A few sources written much after Gopala's death mention him as

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4732-536: The basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh ( Barisal , Chittagong , Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives . Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [ tɕɔ ] , ছ [ tɕʰɔ ] , জ [ dʑɔ ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ] , ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ] , জ [dzɔ~zɔ] . The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on

4823-454: The child were being performed, the head of a serpent haughtily rose up, which caused the king to get enraged. He resolved to cut it off, but a ring was shown to him, on which he beheld the characters of the Nagas. He then continued to worship, and devoted himself to the child's education. When Dharmapala grew up, he was possessed with a desire to build a temple more magnificent than others and enquired soothsayers on this matter. They said that it

4914-500: The city of Bihar (Bihar Sharif) with Odantapuri; as the city used to be called Bihar Dandi or Dand Bihar , which is a contraction of Dandpur Bihar (derived from "Dandpura Vihara"). A small brass image of Buddha's birth mother Mahamaya , bearing a votive inscription on the back that mentioned the name Uddandapura , was also discovered in Bihar Sharif. Based on inscriptions along with local tradition and literary evidence, it

5005-469: The consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in

5096-455: The country. In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam . Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. In Pakistan , Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan . The Department of Bengali in

5187-604: The development of Dobhashi . Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah . Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali, allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate. Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian , which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on

5278-585: The earth praying that it might benefit all living beings in future. Then he handed over the Odantapuri vihara to king Devapala. Sumpa Khan-po mentioned that Otanta in Otantapuri (Odantapuri) meant "soaring on high". This might be derived from the Sanskrit uddayana , uddyanta meaning "going up or flying". According to the legend, the temple was called so because Unna had flown over Sumeru and seen

5369-700: The east to Meherpur in the west. The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam , composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet . After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan ; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement. In

5460-553: The eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages , the Bihari languages , and the Odia language . The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around

5551-505: The emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the language movement. Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit . These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit ", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji , as

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5642-466: The final ন in মন [m o n] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla] ). A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures . These allographs, called কার kar , are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example,

5733-472: The founder of the Pala dynasty, who ascended the throne of Bengal in 750 CE, founded the monastic university at Odantapuri. According to Bu-ston , however, the Odantapuri monastery was built by Gopala's son and successor, Dharmapala ; while according to Taranatha , it was founded by either Gopala or Devapala . Odantapuri was part of a network of five Mahaviharas in eastern India. The others were Nalanda , Vikramashila , Somapura , and Jagaddala . During

5824-558: The four dvipas and their upa-dvipas . When he returned he gave the sword to Narada, who let him have the gold but warned him not to spend it for immoral purposes. Narada then flew to heaven, and the upasaka who came to be known as Unna Upasaka built the colossal temple of Odantapuri using the gold. The craftsmen and artists who worked on the building were paid with that gold, and it was also used for maintenance of 500 bhikshus and 500 upasakas . The gold couldn't be used by anyone after Unna's death, so before he died he buried it under

5915-726: The government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002. In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations . Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum . Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi , Vangiya , Kamrupi and Varendri ; but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects ( Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form

6006-499: The graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i] , where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar ) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma] , মী [mi] , মু [mu] , মূ [mu] , মৃ [mri] , মে [me~mɛ] , মৈ [moj] , মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures,

6097-412: The graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden. Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi –

6188-688: The kings descended from the Samudrakula or oceanic community. After the death of the Gauda king Shashanka , a century of anarchy and confusion ensued in Bengal . This situation is described by the Sanskrit phrase matsya nyaya ("fish justice" i.e. a situation in which the big fish prey on the smaller ones). It was during these times that Gopala came to power around 750 CE. Matsyanyayam apakitum prakritibhir Lakshmiya karam grahitah Sri Gopala iti kshitisa-sirsam chudamani-tatsubha To put an end to

6279-494: The language as: While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However,

6370-547: The language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in

6461-428: The letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra , as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e , also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô . The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between

6552-445: The library burnt. He later came to know that the fort was a vihara . Minhaj-i-Siraj wrote of this attack: Muhammad-i-Bakht-yar, by the force of his intrepidity, threw himself into the postern of the gateway of the place, and they captured the fortress and acquired great booty. The greater number of the inhabitants of that place were Brahmans, and the whole of those Brahmans had their heads shaven, and they were all slain. There were

6643-534: The mountain along with its four dvipas , and hence built Odantapuri in its model. In History of Buddhism in India and Tibet , Bu-ston recounts the story of Dharmapala's birth and how he built the monastery at Odantapuri. Gopala's queen Dedda Devi, who was the daughter of a king of the Bhadra dynasty , had no power over Gopala; and hence asked a Brahmin for some magical power so that she could bring him under her influence. The Brahmin brought an enchanted drug from

6734-605: The neighbouring states of Odisha , Bihar , and Jharkhand , and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi , Mumbai , Thane , Varanasi , and Vrindavan . There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East , the United States , Singapore , Malaysia , Australia , Canada , the United Kingdom , and Italy . The 3rd article of

6825-499: The orders of one of the generals of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, when Khalji's army sacked the monastery around the end of the 12th century CE. The monks who survived the massacre fled to Nepal and Tibet . Various legends are associated with the establishment of Odantapuri: According to Taranatha and Sumpa, Odantapuri was built using the gold that was miraculously obtained in a mystical process. A tirthika yogi ( tantrika ) called Narada, who had miraculous powers, sought

6916-517: The parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language. As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India. In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language . Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming

7007-403: The reign of Ramapala , along with fifty teachers in Odantapuri "permanently lived a thousand monks belonging to both Hinayana and Mahayana . Occasionally even twelve thousand monks congregated there." The temple library of the Odantapuri vihara was loftier than those at Vajrasana ( Bodh Gaya ) and Nalanda and contained a vast collection of Brahmanical and Buddhist works. It was burnt under

7098-509: The remains of an ancient fort surrounded by a wide moat, which was visible till the time Buchanan Hamilton visited it in 1812. According to Hamilton, it was built by a Maga Raja (king of Magadha), and was destroyed by Muhammedans in the 12th century. The fort is believed to have been part of the Odantapuri university. Over the years many civil and municipal buildings like the Civil Court and Nalanda College were built over it. By

7189-411: The ritual and as it was reaching fulfilment, Narada said that when the corpse sticks its tongue out, the upasaka must catch it. He told him that if he catches it in the first try, he will attain supreme success ( maha-siddhi ), if he does it in the second try, he will gain intermediate success, and if he catches it in the third try, he will get small success. However, if he failed to catch it even after

7280-413: The same direction. The name of his father was Vapyata, and his grandfather Dayitavishnu. A eulogy on the Khalimpur copper plate of his son Gopala describes his father Vapyata as a Khanditarati or "killer of enemies", and his grandfather Dayitavishnu as Sarva-vidyavadata ("all-knowing" in the sense "highly educated"). The later texts of the Pala period, such as Ramacharita , mention the Pala rulers as

7371-427: The so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ] . The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent

7462-436: The state of affairs similar to what happens among fishes, the prakriti made the glorious Gopala, the crest jewel of the heads of kings, take the hand of Lakshmi , the goddess of fortune. The Sanskrit word prakriti is suggestive of "people" in general. The Tibetan Buddhist lama Taranatha (1575–1634), writing nearly 800 years later, also writes that he was democratically elected by the people of Bengal. However, his account

7553-536: The superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ) , denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow"). The Bengali consonant clusters ( যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn ) are usually realised as ligatures, where

7644-589: The temple of Odantapuri was built. Tibetan sources indicate that the 8th century Samye monastery, which was the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet, was modelled upon Odantapuri (which in turn was modelled after Sumeru and the four dvipas ). In around 1193 CE, Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Turkic chieftain out to make a name for himself, was in the service of a commander in Awadh . The Persian historian, Minhaj-i-Siraj in his Tabaqat-i Nasiri , recorded his deeds

7735-654: The third place, according to the 2011 census of India . Bengali has developed over more than 1,400 years. Bengali literature , with its millennium-old literary history, was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to

7826-412: The third time, the vetala (corpse) will devour them both and then empty the whole world. After failing to catch the tongue twice, the upasaka sat with his own mouth near the corpse's, and caught its tongue with his teeth. Then the tongue became a sword, and the corpse turned into gold. When the upasaka held the sword he began to fly in the sky. He flew to the top of Sumeru and circled it along with

7917-484: The visible matra and an invisible baseline). There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem. Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on

8008-435: The vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit ( tadbhava ), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit). For example: The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels . The inventory

8099-409: The west after reaching the station, one will see a low mound." This is said to contain the ruins of Odantapuri Vihara. This is likely a reference to the locality of Gadh Par in Bihar Sharif which is a huge mound itself. A number of sculptures of the Pala period and some partial brick structures have occasionally been reported from this mound. The area around Gadh Par (or Garhpar ) used to have

8190-408: Was necessary to make a wick out of cotton belonging to ascetics and Brahmins, get oil from houses of kings and merchants, obtain an oil-burner from a place of penance, and burn a lamp using those and place it before the tutelary deity. If the king addressed an entreaty, the serpent of Dharmapala would throw the lamp away, and the temple must be built where the lamp falls. The lamp was lit, but suddenly

8281-592: Was of menial caste (dasajivinah). Manjusrimulakalpa was quite near in time to the establishment of the rule of the Palas and should be considered more authentic than other references which are of very late period. In Ballal charita and in Dharmamangala of Ghanarama (both sixteenth century works), the Palas are described as low Kshatriyas. Pala's supposed relationship with the Kaivartas or Mahishyas also points to

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