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87-584: Brick Lane ( Bengali : ব্রিক লেন , romanized :  Brik Len ) is a famous street in the East End of London , in the borough of Tower Hamlets . It runs from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, crosses the Bethnal Green Road before reaching the busiest, most commercially active part which runs through Spitalfields , or along its eastern edge. Brick Lane's southern end

174-484: A Muslim place of worship in Central London and is in the East End of London . The building at 59 Brick Lane , on the corner of Fournier Street , has been home to a succession of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities since its construction in the mid-eighteenth century, reflecting the waves of immigration in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields . The former Great Synagogue is a Grade II* listed building ;

261-500: 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

348-596: 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

435-480: 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

522-511: A history of successive communities of immigrants in East End), and The Rag Factory on Heneage Street (once home to Turner Prize nominees Tracey Emin and Gary Hume , now a thriving arts space). The nearest London Underground stations are Aldgate East and Liverpool Street . A campaign was launched in 2006 to change the name of Aldgate East station to "Brick Lane", but received no official support. The nearest London Overground station

609-692: 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

696-682: 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,

783-586: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Brick Lane Mosque Brick Lane Mosque or Brick Lane Jamme Masjid ( Arabic : جامع مسجد بريك لين "Brick Lane Congregational Mosque"), formerly known as the London Jamme Masjid ( جامع مسجد لندن "London Congregational Mosque"), is

870-531: A rally to be held on 30 July 2006, but the demonstration passed without incident. Other notable books on the area are Salaam Brick Lane by Tarquin Hall , On Brick Lane (2007) by Rachel Lichtenstein and An Acre of Barren Ground by Jeremy Gavron. A large collection of photographs of the characters and salespeople who worked on the markets in Brick Lane were taken by Fran May between 1976 and 1978, whilst she

957-668: A regular display of graffiti, which features artists such as Banksy , Stik , ROA , D*Face , Ben Eine and Omar Hassan . The street has been used in many music videos, including " Glory Days " by Just Jack , " All These Things That I've Done " by The Killers , and " Überlin " by R.E.M. In 2023, some Chinese students painted the political slogan of the Chinese Communist Party , " Core Socialist Values ", in Chinese, sparking significant controversy. Large swathes of Brick Lane and its surrounding areas were once owned by

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1044-576: 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

1131-408: 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

1218-581: 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,

1305-463: 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

1392-569: Is Shoreditch High Street station . This line runs on part of the former East London Line which has now been converted to London Overground. At the junction with Pedley Street existed the former Shoreditch Underground station terminus, which closed in 2006 due to the construction of the East London Line extension , and replaced by the aforementioned Shoreditch High Street. Remnants of the station can be seen from overground trains entering and leaving Liverpool Street station . The street

1479-500: 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

1566-468: 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

1653-572: 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

1740-400: 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

1827-707: 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 ,

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1914-438: Is connected to Whitechapel High Street by a short extension called Osborn Street . Today, it is the heart of the country's Bangladeshi community with the vicinity known to some as Banglatown . It is famous for its many curry restaurants. The area surrounding Brick Lane and Spitalfields was branded as Banglatown in 1997, and the electoral ward of Spitalfields was changed to Banglatown & Spitalfields in 2002. The street

2001-721: 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

2088-404: 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

2175-490: 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

2262-406: Is the location for Monica Ali 's book Brick Lane , published in 2003, and the film of the same name of 2007 starring Tannishtha Chatterjee . The novel provoked a controversy with some of the local South Asian community because of a perceived negative portrayal of them. Parts of the Bengali community were particularly opposed to plans by Ruby Films to film parts of the movie based on the novel in

2349-743: 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

2436-624: The jummah prayers on Friday. All sermons are delivered in English , Arabic and Bengali . The mosque follows the traditions of Sunni Islam . The mosque has close links with the Bangladesh Welfare Association , which addresses social and community needs. Arabic and mother tongue classes are available for children on the top floors. The Brick Lane Mosque was once known as the London Great Mosque, but much larger places of worship for Muslims in

2523-509: 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

2610-615: 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

2697-549: 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

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2784-474: 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

2871-579: 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

2958-723: 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

3045-524: 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

3132-606: The Osborne (later Osborn after 1720) family, Baronets, of Chicksands in the County of Bedford . The family's holdings survived until at least the 1970s. The family's history continues to be reflected by the naming of streets in the area around Brick Lane, including: Nearby buildings of interest include Christ Church, Spitalfields , the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque on the corner of Fournier Street (the building represents

3219-772: The Pale of Settlement . Of the East European Jewish emigrants, 140 000 settled in Britain. From 1916, the synagogue's leader was the notable Abraham Isaac Kook , later the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandatory Palestine . Nearby was the purpose-built Great Synagogue of London and another church building that had become a Jewish place of worship , the Sandys Row Synagogue . The population of Jews decreased over

3306-691: The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, to escape persecution by the Catholics. Many Huguenots settled in Spitalfields, bringing with them their silk-weaving and textile skills. As they were Protestant Dissenters , not members of the Church of England , they built their own chapels. Christ Church, Spitalfields on Fournier Street , designed by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor , was built during

3393-607: 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"

3480-499: 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

3567-557: 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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3654-623: 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

3741-652: 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

3828-593: 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

3915-528: The Barres (now Whitechapel High Street ) as a result of expanding population. Brewing came to Brick Lane before 1680, with water drawn from deep wells. One brewer was Joseph Truman, first recorded in 1683. His family, particularly Benjamin Truman , went on to establish the sizeable Black Eagle Brewery on Brick Lane. The Brick Lane Market first developed in the 17th century for fruit and vegetables sold outside

4002-456: 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,

4089-426: 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,

4176-509: The Brick Lane area and formed the "Campaign Against Monica Ali's Film Brick Lane". Consequently, the producers of the film used different locations for certain scenes, such as that depicting Brick Lane Market. Despite this, the director of the film, Sarah Gavron , attests on the DVD commentary of the film that genuine footage of Brick Lane does appear in the finished movie. Activists told The Guardian they intended to burn copies of Ali's book during

4263-628: The City. Successive waves of immigrants settled in the area. In the 17th century, French Huguenots expanded into the area for housing; the master weavers were based in Spitalfields . Starting with the Huguenots, the area became a centre for weaving, tailoring and the developing clothing industry. It continued to attract immigrants, who provided semi-skilled and unskilled labour. In the 19th century, Irish people and Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to

4350-469: The adjacent former school buildings (now used as an ancillary building to the mosque) is listed Grade II. The majority of worshippers of the mosque are of Bangladeshi descent ; the mosque serves the largest concentration of Bangladeshi Muslims in the country (see History of Bangladeshis in the United Kingdom ). The mosque can hold up to 3,200 (including 200 women) and is most crowded during

4437-736: The area, with Jews moving out and Bangladeshis moving in, in 1976 it was adapted again as the London Jamme Masjid (Great London Mosque) to serve the expanding Bangladeshi community . The building is Grade II* listed . In the 20th century the Brick Lane area was important in the second wave of development of Anglo-Indian cuisine , as families from countries such as Bangladesh (mainly the Greater Sylhet region) migrated to London to look for work. Some curry houses of Brick Lane do not sell alcoholic beverages, for most are owned by Muslims . According to EasyJet Traveller magazine ,

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4524-509: The area. Jewish immigration continued into the early 20th century. The Sunday market, like those on Petticoat Lane and nearby Columbia Road , dates from a dispensation given by the government to the Jewish community in the 19th century. At the time, owing to the Christian observance of Sunday rest, no Sunday markets were open. Located at the junction of Cheshire Street and Sclater Street,

4611-536: 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

4698-799: The building became a Methodist chapel. In 1891, the building was adopted by yet another community: it became the Machzike Hadath , the Spitalfields Great Synagogue. During this time (see History of the Jews in England ), the area was home to many Jewish refugees from Russia and Central Europe . From the 1880s through the early part of the 20th century, massive pogroms and the May Laws in Russia caused many Jews to flee

4785-417: The capital opened in Regent's Park (the London Central Mosque , 1978) and then nearby Whitechapel Road (the East London Mosque , 1985). The building has served the religions of a succession of other communities in the area. It was first established in 1743 as a Protestant chapel ("La Neuve Eglise", i.e. "the New Church") by London's Huguenot community. These were refugees who had left France after

4872-469: 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

4959-455: 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

5046-430: 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

5133-410: 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

5220-443: 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

5307-451: 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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5394-444: The entrance to Brick Lane and to 'Banglatown'. Like Brick Lane's lamp posts, the arch displays the red and green colours of the Bangladesh flag. Having contributed so significantly to the area, the Bengali community campaigned to get the arch installed to celebrate Bengali culture in Brick Lane. More recently the area has also broadened to being a vibrant art and fashion student area, with considerable exhibition space. Each year most of

5481-466: 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,

5568-432: The fine art and fashion courses exhibit their work near Brick Lane. Since the late 1990s, Brick Lane has been the site of several of the city's best known night clubs , notably 93 Feet East and The Vibe Bar , both built on the site of The Old Truman Brewery , once the industrial centre of the area, and now an office and entertainment complex. In 1999, it was the scene of a bombing that injured 13 people . Brick Lane has

5655-606: 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

5742-499: 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,

5829-412: 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 –

5916-428: The junction with Hanbury Street are two indoor markets; Upmarket and Backyard Market. The Brick Lane Farmers' Market opened in 2010, intended to be held every Sunday in nearby Bacon Street; it has now closed. In the later 20th century, Bengali Muslims (specifically the Sylhetis ) comprised the major group of immigrants and gradually dominated the demography in the area. Many Bengali immigrants to Brick Lane were from

6003-413: 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,

6090-429: 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

6177-428: 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

6264-510: The market sells bric-a-brac as well as fruit, vegetables and many other items. In 2015 it was identified by police as the focal point of a trade in stolen bicycles and bicycle parts, many taken from people employed in the City of London who had used "cycle to work" schemes. Alongside seven arrests, the police also warned purchasers that buying bicycles or parts in deals "too good to be true" could make them guilty of handling stolen goods . Near

6351-605: 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

6438-456: The north-eastern region of Sylhet , of which became part of Bangladesh . These settlers helped shape Bangladeshi migration to Britain; many families from Beanibazar , Jagannathpur and Bishwanath tend to live in the Brick Lane area though they spread around the London city. In 1742, La Neuve Eglise , a Huguenot chapel, was built on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street . By 1809, it

6525-517: 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

6612-494: The reign of Queen Anne to demonstrate the power of the established church . 59 Brick Lane survived as a Huguenot chapel for more than six decades. In 1809 it became a Wesleyan chapel, known as The Jews' Chapel, rented by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, an organisation now known as the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People , but this phase of its history lasted only 10 years. From 1819,

6699-427: 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

6786-536: 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

6873-654: 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

6960-620: The top three curry houses on Brick Lane in 2021 are Aladin, Sheba and City Spice. Bengalis in the United Kingdom settled in big cities with industrial employment. In London, many settled in the East End. For centuries the East End has been the first port of call for many immigrants working in the docks and shipping from Chittagong port in Bengal (the British Empire in India was founded and based in Bengal). Their regular stopover paved

7047-484: 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

7134-435: 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

7221-447: The way for food outlets to be opened; these catered at first for an all-male workforce, for family migration and settlement took place some decades later. Humble beginnings such as this gave rise to Brick Lane as the famous curry capital of the UK (alongside Birmingham 's Balti Triangle ). Designed by Meena Thakor, the ornamental Brick Lane Arch was erected in 1997 near Osborn Street to mark

7308-535: The years, with many moving to other parts of East London , to North London and elsewhere. The synagogue eventually moved to new premises in Golders Green . During the 1970s, the area of Spitalfields and Brick Lane was populated mainly by Bangladeshis who had come to Britain from the Sylhet region looking for better work. Many found work in factories and the textile trade. That growing community required

7395-579: Was a student of photography at the Royal College of Art . The street was used for several filming locations for the third season of the BBC television series Luther (2013). Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ), is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to

7482-408: Was formerly known as Whitechapel Lane, and wound through fields. It derives its current name from brick and tile manufacture started in the 15th century, which used the local brick earth deposits. The street featured in the 16th-century Woodcut map of London as a partially developed crossroad leading north from the city's most easterly edge, and by the 17th century was being developed northwards from

7569-546: Was used by Wesleyan missionaries as The Jews' Chapel, where they promoted Christianity to the expanding Jewish population. It was adapted as a Methodist chapel in 1819 for Protestant residents. ( John Wesley had preached his first "covenant sermon" at the nearby Black Eagle Street Chapel ). Reflecting the changing demographics of the area, in 1898, the building was consecrated as the Machzikei HaDath , or Spitalfields Great Synagogue . After decades of change in

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