102-613: 23°53′29″N 90°23′49″E / 23.8914722°N 90.3968637°E / 23.8914722; 90.3968637 The Bishwa Ijtema ( Bengali : বিশ্ব ইজতেমা , lit. 'Global congregation') is an annual gathering of Muslims in Tongi , by the banks of the River Turag , in the outskirts of Dhaka , Bangladesh . The Ijtema is considered a demonstration of Muslim unity, solidarity, mutual love and respect and an opportunity to reiterate their commitment to Islamic values. It
204-500: 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
306-472: A by-election held in 1994. Turnout was estimated at around 5%, though the government at the time claimed it to be much higher. On 12 June 1996 polls, BNP lost to Hasina's Awami League but emerged as the largest opposition party in the country's parliamentary history with 116 seats. Aiming to return to power, the BNP formed a four-party alliance on 6 January 1999 with its former political opinion Jatiya Party , and
408-596: 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
510-480: 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
612-611: A landslide defeat. Khaleda led four-party alliance won only 32 seats and emerged as the smallest opposition party in the country's parliamentary history. They won only 32% of the total vote where their main rival Awami League won more than 50% of the total vote. In the Tenth Jatiyo Sangsad election of 2014, the BNP along with its 18 party alliance boycotted and violently protested the election to no avail. The scheduled 22 January 2007 elections were marred by controversy. The Awami League and its allies protested, saying that
714-639: A large number of Muslims. Together it translates "world conference" or "global congregation". The event is organized generally in January, occasionally in February, by the Bangladeshi branch of the Tablighi Jamaat , a Deobandi movement. The congregation takes place in an area which spans over five square kilometers in Tongi , an outer suburb north of Dhaka. An extensive tent is created in
816-692: 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
918-682: 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,
1020-413: A new head of state, President Abdur Rahman Biswas. Khaleda Zia served as Prime Minister of Bangladesh twice from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006. Once in power, Khaleda Zia's government made substantial changes in education policy, introducing free education for girls up to the 10th grade, a stipend for female students, and food for education programme funds. It also made highest budgetary allocation in
1122-661: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Prime Minister of Bangladesh The Prime Minister of Bangladesh ( Bengali : বাংলাদেশের প্রধানমন্ত্রী , romanised : Bānlādēśēra pradhānamantrī), officially Prime minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh ( Bengali : গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশের প্রধানমন্ত্রী , romanised : Gaṇaprajātantrī bānlādēśēra pradhānamantrī),
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#17327733861361224-617: A province of the British India that included present-day West Bengal . Between 1937 and 1947, it was intermittently governed by a popularly elected ministry , whose head was often designated the Premier of Bengal . In 1947, Bengal province was partitioned into the Indian state of West Bengal and East Pakistan . All three erstwhile Bengal premiers— A. K. Fazlul Huq , Khawaja Nazimuddin and H. S. Suhrawardy —became Pakistani citizens;
1326-523: 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
1428-408: 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
1530-581: 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,
1632-463: 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
1734-500: 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
1836-547: 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 . Bengali
1938-468: 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
2040-670: Is a modern event where Muslim participation is voluntary. The Ijtema is a prayer meeting spread over three days, during which attending devotees perform daily prayers while listening to scholars reciting and explaining verses from the Quran , the central religious text. Speakers include Islamic scholars from various countries. It culminates in the Akheri Munajat (concluding supplication or final prayer), in which millions of devotees raise their hands and pray to Allah for world peace . Al-Quds Al-Arabi compared Ijtema with Kaaba to
2142-514: Is a separate secured area for foreign visitors, where volunteers ensure strict security, no armed forces are allowed to enter. Usually a phrase of Ijtema last for at least three days, usually from Friday to Sunday. It starts with Ambayan (opening sermon) after the Jumua prayers and ends with Akheri Munajat (closing prayer). Many ordinary Muslims do not spend the three days in Ijtema, but only attend
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#17327733861362244-400: 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
2346-625: Is appointed and sworn in by the President: Bangla আমি, (নাম), সশ্রদ্ধচিত্তে শপথ (বা দৃঢ়ভাবে ঘোষণা) করিতেছি যে, আমি আইন-অনুযায়ী সরকারের প্রধানমন্ত্রী (কিংবা ক্ষেত্রমত মন্ত্রী, প্রতি-মন্ত্রী, বা উপমন্ত্রী)-পদের কর্তব্য বিশ্বস্ততার সহিত পালন করিব: আমি বাংলাদেশের প্রতি অকৃত্রিম বিশ্বাস ও আনুগত্য পোষণ করিব; আমি সংবিধানের রক্ষণ, সমর্থন ও নিরাপত্তাবিধান করিব; এবং আমি ভীতি বা অনুগ্রহ, অনুরাগ বা বিরাগের বশবর্তী না হইয়া সকলের প্রতি আইন-অনুযায়ী যথাবিহীত আচরণ করিব। English I, (name) do swear with honor (or solemnly affirm) that I, according to
2448-707: 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 ,
2550-494: Is chaired by Yunus, has donated between $ 25,000 and $ 50,000, according to the Clinton Foundation website. Sheikh Hasina lost to Khaleda Zia in 1991 parliamentary election after managing to win 88 seats and her party sat in opposition benches. She boycotted the 1996 February 15 elections giving Khaleda Zia a default victory. Awami League won 146 seats in the 1996 June 12 parliamentary elections. The support of
2652-721: 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
2754-595: Is generally delivered in Urdu , but since 2018, was given in Bengali, Bangladesh‘s official language, for the first time since 1980. In 1946, the first annual conference of Tablighi Jamaat or Ijtema in the region what today called Bangladesh was held at Kakrail Mosque near Ramna Park in Dhaka. In 1954, after the Bengali Tabhlighi Jamaat movement officially started their activities in Dhaka, East Bengal ,
2856-404: 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
2958-506: Is located at Tejgaon in Dhaka city. It is considered a government ministry and, among other duties, provides clerical, security, and other support to the prime minister, governs intelligence affairs and NGOs, and arranges protocol and ceremonies. Some specific ministries/departments are not allocated to anyone in the cabinet but the prime minister. The prime minister is usually always in charge/head of: Bangladesh's origins lie in Bengal ,
3060-490: 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
3162-526: Is the chief executive of the government of Bangladesh . The prime minister and the cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Parliament , to their political party and ultimately to the electorate. The prime minister is ceremonially appointed by the president of Bangladesh . The position was taken over by the military during the years of 1975–78, 1982–86 and 1990–91 due to imposed martial law . In each of these periods,
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3264-555: Is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It 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
3366-672: Is the biggest festival by population in Bengali culture , one of the largest peaceful gatherings in the world , and the second-largest Muslim gathering, with 5 million adherents, after the Arba'een Pilgrimage 's 15–20 million attendees in Iraq, both surpassing the 2–3 million worshipers who participate in the Hajj , considered to be one of the five pillars of Islam , in Saudi Arabia. Bishwa Ijtema
3468-508: 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 is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America,
3570-509: 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
3672-675: 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
3774-474: 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
3876-500: The Jatiya Party and a few independent candidates were enough for the 150 or more seats needed for the required majority. Hasina took the oath as the prime minister of Bangladesh . She vowed to create a Government of National Unity . Though some smaller parties and a few individuals from BNP did join the government, the distance between the main two political parties as well as their leaders remained as large as ever. Awami League
3978-579: 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
4080-524: 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
4182-823: The President . At least 90% of the ministers must be MPs. The other 10% may be non-MP experts or "technocrats" who are not otherwise disqualified from being elected MPs. According to the constitution, the president can dissolve Parliament upon the written request of the prime minister. The appointments of the Prime Minister and other Ministers of state and deputy Ministers shall be made by the President: At least nine-tenths of their number shall be appointed from among members of parliament, and not more than one-tenth of their number may be chosen from persons qualified for election as members of parliament. The Prime Minister
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4284-607: 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"
4386-499: 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
4488-557: 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
4590-623: 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
4692-598: 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
4794-593: 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
4896-456: 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,
4998-426: 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,
5100-613: The Chief Minister of East Pakistan. The modern office of the Prime Minister was established following the declaration of independence of East Pakistan with the Provisional Government of Bangladesh on 17 April 1971, of which Tajuddin Ahmad became the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Since the adoption of the current Constitution of Bangladesh in 1972 the formal title of the office is The Prime Minister of
5202-613: The Final Prayer, huge crowds stretch from the Ijtema ground in Tongi into the Dhaka metropolitan area. Schools and offices are declared closed on the occasion. The whole gathering place is an open field, which is prepared for the gathering with canopies fixed on bamboo poles. Tin canopies and tin fences are provided for foreign guests only. The gathering place is divided first by khitta and then by pole number. Participants identify their location with khitta number and pole number. There
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#17327733861365304-606: The Friday prayer or the last prayer; However, most people participate in the last prayer. The Prime Minister , President , Leader of Opposition and other leaders of Bangladesh participate in Akheri Munajat separately. The worshipers participated in the last prayer with intense devotion and pray to Allah for forgiveness. During Akhiri Munajat , the banks of the Turag River turn into a tide of worshippers. Akheri Munajat
5406-558: The Ijtema was further divided into four segments from 2015. The first phase is for devotees from 16 designated Bangladeshi districts. The second phase allows devotees from another 16 designated Bangladeshi districts. Devotees from the remaining 32 districts of the country were to join the following year. In 2008, the event had to be cut short to only one day due to rain and cold weather which left three attendees dead. Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ),
5508-489: The Ijtema, free meals and accommodation are provided by volunteers. The phrase Bishwa Ijtema is made up from the words of two different languages, Bishwa from Bengali and Ijtema from Arabic . Bishwa means "world" or "global" in Bengali. Ijtema (Arabic: اجتماع) means "public gathering" or "conference" in Arabic. Ijtema is a type of voluntary Islamic congregation organised by Islamic organisations in association with
5610-556: The Islamic party of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and the Islami Oikya Jot and launched several agitation programmes against the ruling Awami League . In the 2001 general elections BNP won the election with a two-thirds majority of seats in parliament and 46% of the vote (compared to the principal opposition party's 40%) and Khaleda Zia was once again sworn in as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. In 2008 election, they faced
5712-520: 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 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,
5814-509: The Middle East, North Africa and the United States, were estimated to attend in 2007. Due to increasing overcrowding, the Ijtema was divided into two segments with an interval of seven days from 2010. Attendants from 32 designated Bangladeshi districts are permitted in the first phase. The second phase allows devotees from the remaining districts of the country. Foreign devotees are allowed in both phases. Due to increasing overcrowding,
5916-632: The Office of Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina Wazed announced that then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called her office in March 2011 to demand that Dr. Muhammed Yunus , a 2006 Nobel Peace prize winner, be restored to his role as chairman of microcredit bank, Grameen Bank . The bank's nonprofit Grameen America, which Yunus chairs, has given between $ 100,000 and $ 250,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative . Grameen Research, which
6018-419: The People's Republic of Bangladesh. From 1975 to 1991, the Prime Minister was appointed by the President while the President had executive power. In September 1991, the electorate approved changes to the constitution, formally creating a parliamentary system and returning governing power to the office of the prime minister, as in Bangladesh's original constitution. In October 1991, members of parliament elected
6120-400: The River Turag. Since then, the event became known as the "Bishwa Ijtema", attendees from different countries of the world took part. Before this, the it was simply called "Ijtema". From 1972 onwards, the Bishwa Ijtema is being held in the large open field of 160 acre, along the north-eastern bank of the River Turag (Qahar Darya) , allotted by the Government of Bangladesh . Since 2012, due to
6222-399: The accommodation demands, the Tablighi Jamaat authorities has bifurcated the Ijtema into two phases in order to better manage the growing number of participants. The Bishwa Ijtema in 2024 was held in two phases to accommodate the vast number of attendees. The first phase took place from February 2nd to 4th, and the second phase from February 9th to 11th. The opening sermon for the first phase
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#17327733861366324-407: The area with the help of the Government of Bangladesh . Transport is provided by state-run companies, including Biman Bangladesh Airlines , the Bangladesh Railway and the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC). The Bangladesh Armed Forces assists by arranging infrastructure. Law enforcement agencies such as Bangladesh Police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) are responsible for ensuring
6426-475: The banks of the Turag River in Tongi, Gazipur. It was reported that during the first phase of the Ijtema, 14 elderly devotees died at the venue. In 2001, the number of attendees was 2 million. In 2010, the number was 5 million. However, number declined to 2 million in 2018, but increased to 4 million in 2023. Between 20,000 and 50,000 foreign devotees from various regions, including the South Asian subcontinent , Russia and Central Asia, Europe, Southeast Asia,
6528-536: 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
6630-469: 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
6732-455: 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
6834-430: 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
6936-410: 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
7038-443: 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
7140-455: The education sector. She became Prime Minister for the second consecutive term after the BNP had a landslide victory on 15 February 1996 general election to the sixth Jatiya Sangsad which is widely believed to be rigged voting after bribeing the election commissioner. The election was, however, boycotted by all other major parties who were demanding that the elections be held under a neutral caretaker government, following allegations of rigging in
7242-458: The elections would not be fair because of alleged bias by the caretaker government in favour of Khaleda Zia and the BNP. Hasina demanded that the head of the caretaker government, President Iajuddin Ahmed , step down from that position, and on 3 January 2007, she announced that the Awami League and its allies would boycott the elections. Later in the month, the military led by Army Chief General Moinuddin Ahmed intervened and President Iajuddin Ahmed
7344-466: 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,
7446-468: The first Ijtemas were organized by them at Haji Camp in Chittagong (1954) and in Siddhirganj , Narayanganj (1958), followed by Ijtemas at the old venue of Ramna Race Course in Dhaka in 1960, 1962 and 1965. In 1967, Due to the increasing numbers of participants, the government of East Pakistan allowed organizers to schedule the event annually in the current venue at Pagar village field in Tongi by
7548-726: 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
7650-499: 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,
7752-412: 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 –
7854-494: 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,
7956-523: 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 the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal
8058-547: 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
8160-440: The latter two went on to become Prime Ministers of Pakistan in the 1950s. East Pakistan's history from 1947 to 1971 was marked by political instability and economic difficulties. The nascent democratic institutions foundered in the face of military intervention in 1958, and the government imposed martial law between 1958 and 1962 and again between 1969 and 1971. Between 1947 and 1971, it was intermittently governed by Governors and
8262-417: The laws, shall faithfully discharge the functions of the office of the Prime Minister (or Minister or State Minister or Sub-minister, as the circumstances allow). I shall possess pure faith and obedience to Bangladesh. I shall preserve, support, and secure the constitution and deal with all with equity as suggested by laws, without being affected by fear or mercy, love or hatred. The office of the Prime Minister
8364-428: 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
8466-487: The longest serving Prime Minister of Bangladesh since independence . After nationwide protests against the Awami League government , on 5 August 2024, Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee from Bangladesh to India. According to The Prime Minister's (Remuneration and Privilege) (Amendment) Bill, 2016, the salary of the prime minister of Bangladesh is one lakh 15 thousand Taka per month. Besides, they get
8568-518: The national government leadership was controlled by the military with the executive authority of the president and the prime minister. During the period between 1996 and 2008, the chief adviser of the caretaker government exercised authority as per the constitution as chief executive for 90 days during the transition from one elected government to another. The chief adviser headed an Advisory Committee comprising ten Advisers. With powers roughly equivalent to an elected prime minister, his executive power
8670-605: 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
8772-517: 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
8874-437: The parliament. She made an alliance with JP and left fronts and her grand alliance won 252 seats in the parliament. Sheikh Hasina took oath as Prime Minister on 6 January 2009. She was the prime minister of Bangladesh after winning a walkover 5 January 2014 election when Khaleda Zia's BNP boycotted the general election. Sheikh Hasina secured a fourth term as prime minister after winning the 2018 general election . Hasina became
8976-461: The poor people of the region. The Ijtema is non-political, and draws people of all persuasions. It is attended by devotees from 150 countries. The majority of its devotees come from across Bangladesh, the world's third-largest Muslim majority country. Despite being larger than Hajj, the obligatory Muslim pilgrimage, the voluntary Bishwa Ijtema remains largely unknown and underreported in the West. During
9078-607: The prime minister is appointed by the President based upon the result of the electorate's choice in a parliamentary general election held by the Election Commission. The Prime Minister will be the leader of the majority party (or coalition) in the Jatiya Sangsad and must have the confidence of the Jatiya Sangsad to govern. The cabinet is composed of ministers selected by the prime minister and appointed by
9180-615: The results, claiming that the election was rigged with the help of the President and the Caretaker government . However, the international community was largely satisfied with the elections and the Four-Party Alliance went on to form the government. In the December 2008 election , the Sheikh Hasina–led Awami League got a landslide victory, winning 230 seats, which gave them the two-thirds majority in
9282-413: The safety and security at the Ijtema ground and the surrounding vicinity. Despite the large number of devotees living within a confined space, generally there are very few problems of sanitation, cooking, and internal movements. It is believed to be possible because of the minimalist approach adopted by the devotees. Devotees reduce their own requirements and develop a respect for others' requirements. During
9384-427: 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
9486-536: 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
9588-484: 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
9690-435: 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
9792-534: The world's most corrupt, the most dramatic aspect of Fakhruddin Ahmed's rule is his antigraft campaign against the establishment. So far, more than 160 senior politicians, top civil servants and security officials have been arrested on suspicion of graft and other economic crimes. The roundup has netted former ministers from the two main political parties, including former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina and former adviser Fazlul Haque . On May 11, 2017,
9894-568: 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
9996-637: Was asked to resign as the chief advisor. He was also made to declare a state of emergency. A new military-controlled Caretaker government was formed with Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed as the Chief Adviser. The scheduled parliamentary election was postponed. On 12 January 2007, President Iajuddin Ahmed swore in Fakhruddin Ahmed as the Chief Adviser to the Interim Caretaker Government. For a country widely perceived as one of
10098-402: Was constrained by certain constitutional limitations. The system was scrapped in 2011 by the 15th amendment of the constitution to allow any political government to conduct a General Election in the future. Sheikh Hasina was the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history until her forced resignation on 5 August 2024, which left the position empty. According to the Constitution ,
10200-750: Was defeated in the 2001 Parliament election. It won only 62 seats in the Parliament, while the Four-Party Alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won more than 200 seats, giving them a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. Hasina herself was defeated from a constituency in Rangpur , which happened to contain her husband's hometown, but won from three other seats. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League rejected
10302-679: Was delivered by Maulana Ahmad Buttullah of Pakistan. The event featured sermons and educational discourses by prominent Islamic scholars such as Maulana Ziaul Haq from Pakistan and Maulana Kari Jobayer. Maulana Saad Kandhalvi's eldest son, Yusuf bin Saad Kandhalvi, delivered the Jummah sermon during the second phase. The second phase of the Bishwa Ijtema saw hundreds of thousands of Muslims from home and abroad, including attendees from around 56 countries, gathering for Jummah prayers along
10404-616: 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 the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of
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