Bengali thread

[rotting bones]

Discuss Bengali (Bangla, বাংলা), the 7th most spoken language and the 6th most spoken native language in the world, though you wouldn't know this from its global representation. This is higher than Portuguese, Russian or Indonesian in terms of total speakers. Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han and the Arabs. (Hindi speakers are not one ethnic group, unlike Bengalis.)

Bengali is my native language. I feel like I ought it discuss it before I forget any more of it.

Bengali is spoken in a historical region in eastern India called বঙ্গ (Bongo) or বাংলাদেশ (Bangladesh). Bangladesh is now divided into West Bengal, the country of Bangladesh and parts of Assam like the city of Silchar. Bengali is also the majority language in the state of Tripura.

Bengali is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language that is related to, but mutually unintelligible with Hindi. Nowadays, almost all Bengali speakers understand at least a little Hindi, though they might speak it poorly when they stray from the forms of Bollywood dialogue. I was taught Hindi for 3 years in school as a third language. Bengali has also been influenced by Austroasiatic languages like Santali. Santali is still a large minority language in the region. I don't know any Santali even though it was spoken by forest tribes in my mother's village.

Bengali has two registers: Sadhu bhasha, the literary language, and Chalti bhasha, the spoken language. Nowadays, most literature is also written in the spoken language.

Bengali is SOV like Hindi. Unlike Hindi, it is nominative-accusative. It is a zero copula language. You can stereotypically tell a Hindi speaker from the fact that they often can't help inserting a copula at the end of the sentence. This can be a Hindi है, or translated into a Bengali word like আছে.

The short [a] in Hindi and Sanskrit words becomes [ɔ] or [o] depending on vowel harmony, or so I have heard, but I don't know much about vowel harmony in Bengali. (In class, we weren't formally taught the rules of Bengali phonology.) Bengali spelling in Roman characters can be inconsistent, depending on whether it follows Sanskrit spelling or Bengali pronunciation. For example, Tagore's university is commonly spelled Visva-Bharati. This follows Sanskrit spelling conventions. The Bengali pronunciation would be more like Bishsho-Bharoti.

Hindi speakers say Bengali is a very hard language, even though Bengali is one of the few Indo-European languages without grammatical gender. Meanwhile, Hindi does have two genders. I think Hindi speakers feel that Bengali is hard because Hindi is a very informal language, with its grammar and vocabulary varying by region. Bengali, on the the other hand, has a more rigid sense of good style and is somewhat nitpicky about enforcing it. There's also the potential vowel harmony to consider.

Bengali verbs have three levels of respect. The respectful level is used with teachers and bosses. The normal level is used with family members, acquaintances and strangers. The informal level is used with children, friends and perhaps surprisingly, deities like Kali, whom devotees feel very close to.

A lot of Bengalis feel like Bengali is lame, old and nitpicky. Others feel like it's the sweetest language ever. (Yes, really. Google it.) The second view has even found some non-Bengali converts.

Wittgenstein loved Tagore's spiritual songs and poems. These were originally written in Bengali. (Wittgenstein read them in translation.)

In my opinion, the songs and poems don't sound that good when translated into any other language. I feel like most translators, including Tagore, despite having won the Nobel Prize in Literature, did a bad job of translating Bengali into English.

Bengali vocabulary is 40% tatsama. These are Sanskrit loanwords. The rest are tadbhava, native Bengali words. Tatsama words are spelled as Sanskrit words, but pronounced as Bengali words.

It's clear to me that tatsama words should be translated using Greco-Roman loanwords in English wherever suitable, and we should use Germanic roots for the rest. This will recreate the elevated style that gets lost in translations from Bengali.

This is not the common practice. Almost everything is translated using the simplest words the translators can think of, which ruins the style.

(Tagore didn't have any formal education despite having been born in a landlord's family. He said he couldn't concentrate when sitting inside a room. This is why he created his own Visva-Bharati University, where some classes were apparently taught sitting under a tree like in medieval India. At least that's what my mother told me.)

Ask me if you have questions about Bengali. I will try to answer them. If I don't know, I will try to find out. (If I have time. Sorry.)

[Travis B.]

I always wondered what the "correct" way to pronounce Bengali names in English was, because in English they would often be written like they were borrowed from Sanskrit even when the native language of the people in question was Bengali (particularly with regard to the realization of vowels and what is often written as <v>).

[rotting bones]

I always wondered what the "correct" way to pronounce Bengali names in English was, because in English they would often be written like they were borrowed from Sanskrit even when the native language of the people in question was Bengali (particularly with regard to the realization of vowels and what is often written as <v>).

Some rules from Sanskrit/Hindi off the top of my head:

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<v> and <w> always become [b].
I believe the name of Bengal, Bongo, is Vanga in Sanskrit.

<f> is always [pʰ].

<s> is probably but not always [ʃ], at least in the Kolkata dialect.
The exceptions I can think of are loanwords like bus.
If I heard someone use too much [s], I would start to think they're from Bangladesh.

The most distinctive characteristic of Bengali's sound are the changes in short <a>.
The name Bongo is [bɔṅgo].
Tatsama is [tɔtʃɔmo] and tadbhava is [tɔtbʱɔbo].
A rule of thumb is that medial short <a> is [ɔ] and the final is [o].

ETA:

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<z> is always [dʒ].

[zompist]

Wittgenstein loved Tagore's spiritual songs and poems. These were originally written in Bengali. (Wittgenstein read them in translation.)

In my opinion, the songs and poems don't sound that good when translated into any other language. I feel like most translators, including Tagore, despite having won the Nobel Prize in Literature, did a bad job of translating Bengali into English.

IIRC the prize was awarded almost entirely on the basis of Gitanjali, which seems to have been a craze in the West in 1913. I find him hard going, but I feel the same about most English poetry.

Bengali vocabulary is 40% tatsama. These are Sanskrit loanwords. The rest are tatbhava, native Bengali words. Tatsama words are spelled as Sanskrit words, but pronounced as Bengali words.

Could you give some examples? Are there doublets?

So Sanskrit /v/ has become /b/? E.g. বন is pronounced with English b, or something else?

(I studied Sanskrit and some Hindi for my book. Hindi /v/ is really [ʋ] which sounded to the Brits like a /w/, though the IAST uses <v>. I'm told Sanskrit was the same, but I always wonder if Sanskritologists just took the Hindi pronunciations for everything.

While we're at is, what happens to Sanskrit ṛ, as in Kṛṣṇa?

[Travis B.]

Code: Select all

<z> is always [dʒ].

That reminds me of how, when the company I work at (at the time I was a contractor rather than an employee so I couldn't come) was having a company outing to the Milwaukee County Zoo, and I was wondering why one of my coworkers was repeatedly mentioning something about a "Jew".

[Travis B.]

(I studied Sanskrit and some Hindi for my book. Hindi /v/ is really [ʋ] which sounded to the Brits like a /w/, though the IAST uses <v>. I'm told Sanskrit was the same, but I always wonder if Sanskritologists just took the Hindi pronunciations for everything.

I would personally assume that it probably was [ʋ] without good evidence to the contrary, given that the general trend in IE languages is from [w] towards [v] rather than in the opposite direction.

[malloc]

Weirdly enough, Bengali partly contributed to my interest in conlanging. One day while reading an encyclopedia, I saw an example of Bengali writing and found it remarkably beautiful. This led me to search the internet for further details on how it worked which eventually led me to websites dedicated to conlanging.

[bradrn]

Weirdly enough, Bengali partly contributed to my interest in conlanging. One day while reading an encyclopedia, I saw an example of Bengali writing and found it remarkably beautiful. This led me to search the internet for further details on how it worked which eventually led me to websites dedicated to conlanging.

I also find the Bengali script to be particularly beautiful.

[rotting bones]

IIRC the prize was awarded almost entirely on the basis of Gitanjali, which seems to have been a craze in the West in 1913. I find him hard going, but I feel the same about most English poetry.

I don't know why they singled it out. He has many other books in the same style that are much better. In Bengali, he sounds like a peculiarly educated child. The childishness of the personality that was unable to concentrate unless he was sitting under a tree really shines through the Sanskritized vocabulary. He also wrote a lot. His complete works are like 2 feet wide. Not many people have been able to imitate him, certainly not in this quantity.

He's a very big deal in Bengal. Bengalis generally consider him to be the best writer they've read. However, arguably the most famous Bengali novel, পথের পাঁচালী, is not written by him. (True to form, this novel is about leaving family and customs behind to study.)

Fun fact: Tagore's family was neither Hindu or Muslim. It was Brahmo, a minority of Upanishadic deists who wanted a monotheistic religion that avoided supernaturalism while staying true to Hindu traditions. They were heavily persecuted back then for not following the customs of any religion or caste.

Could you give some examples? Are there doublets?

I think so. There are are pairs of words from both same roots and different roots:

Duck:
Tatsama: হংস
Tadbhava: হাঁস

Love:
Tatsama: প্রীতি (can also mean joy)
Tadbhava: ভালবাসা

I'll probably find better examples if I find a Bengali grammar pdf. I'll go look.

So Sanskrit /v/ has become /b/? E.g. বন is pronounced with English b, or something else?

Yes, like bon, where the o is like in hot.

(I studied Sanskrit and some Hindi for my book. Hindi /v/ is really [ʋ] which sounded to the Brits like a /w/, though the IAST uses <v>. I'm told Sanskrit was the same, but I always wonder if Sanskritologists just took the Hindi pronunciations for everything.

My understanding is that Hindus went to train under the priests in the holy city of Varanasi.

While we're at is, what happens to Sanskrit ṛ, as in Kṛṣṇa?

There's an /i/ after it. Krishno, where the o is /o/.

[rotting bones]

Weirdly enough, Bengali partly contributed to my interest in conlanging. One day while reading an encyclopedia, I saw an example of Bengali writing and found it remarkably beautiful. This led me to search the internet for further details on how it worked which eventually led me to websites dedicated to conlanging.

The Bengali script and Hindi's Devanagari come from two different lineages descended from the Siddham script, which still used in Japanese esotericism.

[rotting bones]

I consulted: https://bangodarshan.com/bhasha/BHASHA_ ... akaran.pdf for ideas. I filled in some of the equivalents on the other side myself. I'm sure the meanings are correct.

Dawn:

Tatsama: ঊষা
Tadbhava: ভোর

Hair:

Tatsama: কেশ
Tadbhava: চুল

Book:

Tatsama: পুস্তক
Tadbhava: বই

Fish:

Tatsama: মৎস
Tadbhava: মাছ

[rotting bones]

Wait, that pdf contains full tables later that I didn't see. The first is Sanskrit. The second is Bengali.

Krishna: কৃষ্ণ, কানাই

Today: অদ্য, আজ

Ear: কর্ণ, কান

Moon: চন্দ্র, চাঁদ

Evening: সন্ধ্যা, সাঁঝ

Wife: বধূ, বউ

Hand: হস্ত, হাত

Both words are used in Bengali.

[rotting bones]

A summary of vowel harmony in Bengali from: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/ ... 6/full.pdf See chapter 5, subsection 4.2 onwards.

1. Vowels

Spoken Bengali has seven vowels: /i u e o ɛ ɔ a/.

High: /i u/
Mid: /e o ɛ ɔ/
Low: /a/

Advanced tongue root:

Tense: /i u e o/
Lax: /ɛ ɔ/

/i u e o a/ can appear anywhere in a word. /ɛ ɔ/ appear only in stressed syllables and never in suffixes.

/e o/ contrast with /ɛ ɔ/. The difference between /e/ and /ɛ/ or between /o/ and /ɔ/ can distinguish one word from another.

2. Vowel harmony in nouns:

The high vowels /i u/ change in vowels that come before them:

/ɛ/ changes to <e>
/ɔ/ changes to <o>

When a suffix containing /i/ or /u/ is added to a word, any /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ immediately before that suffix tenses to become /e/ or /o/:

pɔt̪ro 'letter, document' + -ika: pot̪rika 'magazine, horoscope'
pɔt̪on 'downfall' (noun) + -it̪o: pot̪it̪o 'fallen, downfallen' (adj)
kʰɛla 'game' + -i: kʰeli 'to play'
ʤɔj 'gladness, victory' + -i: ʤoji 'victorious, glad' (Note: The usual form is biʤoji.)
pɔt̪ʰ 'way, path' + -ik: pot̪ʰik 'traveller'

Limitation:

Bengali vowel harmony affects only the vowel immediately next to the trigger. Derivations where it does not matter:

kɔt̪ʰa 'spoken words'
kot̪ʰit̪o 'uttered'

kɔlpo 'resembling'
kolpit̪o 'invented'

Derivations where the initial /ɔ/ stays unchanged:

kɔt̪ʰa 'spoken words'
kɔt̪ʰoniyo 'speakable'

kɔlpo 'resembling'
kɔlponiyo 'imaginable'

Here, the suffix -oniyo shields the word from the high vowel /i/ using the closer vowel /o/.

Consider pɔd̪ + -ɔbi: pɔd̪obi:

pɔd̪ 'position'
pɔd̪obi 'title, position holder'

The suffix -ɔbi contains /ɔ/ followed by /i/. The /ɔ/ in the suffix changes to /o/ because of the following /i/. But the /ɔ/ in the root /pɔd̪/ does not change, even though there is now an /o/ next to it. This is because harmony in Bengali requires the trigger to be a high vowel /i/ or /u/. The resulting /o/ is a mid vowel. This is the vowel closest to the word, so it cannot trigger further change.

Apparently, the equivalent in Assamese would be /podobi/. Assamese has unlimited vowel harmony. (Assamese is a closely related language spoken in the mountainous state of Assam that's influenced by the Tai-Kadai language Ahom, which is now extinct.)

In Bengali, the change always stops after one step:

ɔʃɔt̪ 'dishonest'
ɔʃot̪i 'dishonest (feminine)' (Note: -i is a common feminine suffix, but I have never heard anyone use this particular derivation. Using feminine suffixes is optional in Bengali. However, using them where appropriate can elevate your style.)

Only vowels that are produced with an advanced tongue root and high in the mouth (/i/ or /u/) triggers the change. When /ɛ/ changes to /e/ or /ɔ/ changes to /o/, the result is a mid vowel. This stops the process.

3. Vowel harmony in verbs:

When high vowels /i/ or /u/ follow a verb root, the root vowel undergoes raising in tongue root position and in height. This creates the changes:

/ɔ/ changes to <o>
/o/ changes to <u>
/ɛ/ changes to <e>
/e/ changes to <i>

Nominal forms:

ʃekʰa 'to learn'
kʰola 'to open'
dɛkʰa 'to see'
kɔra 'to do'

First person present verbs derived from these nouns:

ʃikʰi 'learn'
kʰuli 'open'
dekʰi 'see'
kori 'do'

Second person respectful form:

ʃikʰun 'learns'
kʰulun 'opens'
dekʰun 'sees'
korun 'does'

When followed by /i/ or /u/, the root vowel rises.

The low vowel /a/ usually does not participate in harmony.

[rotting bones]

If anyone is interested in Bengali, when do people prefer I use IPA vs. the Bengali script?

I installed the Bengali keyboard on my phone yesterday after struggling with the first few posts.

PS. I'm going to fix a bunch of typos.

[rotting bones]

I see this recent grammar says the phenomenon called "vowel harmony" in Bengali should probably be called vowel raising or height assimilation instead: https://files.osf.io/v1/resources/3h9vp ... &version=1

I hadn't heard this argument before.

[WeepingElf]

If anyone is interested in Bengali, when do people prefer I use IPA vs. the Bengali script?

I at least can read IPA but not Bengali script. This probably is something most people here can say about themselves Best give all examples in both!

[Travis B.]

If anyone is interested in Bengali, when do people prefer I use IPA vs. the Bengali script?

I at least can read IPA but not Bengali script. This probably is something most people here can say about themselves Best give all examples in both!

Same here -- I definitely can read IPA but can read no Indic scripts, but at the same I'd appreciate text in Bengali script as well.

[rotting bones]

Thanks. Any ideas about what you would prefer to discuss next?

---

Things Hindi speakers have complained about in Bengali include the fact that the spelling doesn't always reflect the pronunciation. This takes many forms:

1. All this vowel raising business is not indicated in the script. No matter how it's pronounced, the script uses a short <a>. The short <a> is the default, unwritten vowel.

2. Sometimes words have final vowels and sometimes they don't. Even though the script has a way of indicating this, it is almost never used. Most words are written as though they have a final vowel. A potential rule of thumb is that Sanskrit words have final vowels and Bengali words don't unless indicated. This rule of thumb is not that great at its job, even if learners knew which words are Sanskrit. Hindi speakers don't always know this either.

3. There are too many ways of writing sounds that are pronounced the same way. The letters can write all the sounds in Sanskrit, many of which have converged in Bengali. Sounds that are in Bengali and not in Sanskrit are not indicated, hence the absence of vowel raising. Words have to be spelled in the "correct" way, meaning like in Sanskrit. (Edit: That is to say, using the sounds they had in Sanskrit. It's not the case that Bengali words are written in their pure Sanskrit forms.)

There have been some spelling reforms to regularize usage, but the core issues haven't been addressed. Educated Bengalis feel that purely phonetic writing would be childish, barbaric and hide the common word roots. IIRC the last reform I paid attention to simplified the written forms of the conjunct consonants, making them easier to learn.

[rotting bones]

Is this first paragraph comprehensible?

গোরা
Gora

one of the hardest novels in Literary Bengali by

রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর
Rabindranath Thakur

PDF: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dl ... 9/mode/2up
Unicode: https://www.ebanglalibrary.com/lessons/ ... %e0%a7%a7/

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1

শ্রাবণ মাসের সকালবেলায়

srabon

Srabon

maʃ-er

month.gen

ʃɔkalbæla-j

morning.loc

"It's morning in the month of Srabon,"

মেঘ কাটিয়া গিয়া

megh

cloud

katija

cut.part

gija

go

"the clouds having parted,"

নির্মল রৌদ্রে

nirmɔl

clear

roud̪r-e

sunlight.loc

"in clear sunlight"

কলিকাতার আকাশ ভরিয়া গিয়াছে।

Kolikata-r

Kolkata.gen

akaʃ

sky

bʱorija

filled

gijatʃʰe.

go.past

"Kolkata's sky was filled."

Note: Kolkata is Kolikata in archaic language.

রাস্তায় গাড়িঘোড়ার বিরাম নাই,

rasta-i

road.loc

gaɽi-ɡʱoɽa-r

car-horse.gen

biram

rest

nai

is.none

"On the road, the cars and horses have no rest"

ফেরিওয়ালা অবিশ্রাম হাঁকিয়া চলিয়াছে,

pʰeriwala

hawker

ɔbisram

no-rest

hãkija

call.part

tʃolijatʃʰe

walk.3.perf.cont

"the street hawkers keep walking, calling without rest,"

যাহারা আপিসে কালেজে আদালতে যাইবে

dʒahara

those

ɔpiʃ-e

office.loc

kɔledʒ-e

college.loc

ad̪alɔt-e

court.loc

dʒaib-e

go.3.fut

"those who will go to offices, colleges, law courts,"

তাহাদের জন্য বাসায় বাসায় মাছ-তরকারির চুপড়ি আসিয়াছে

t̪ahade-r

3pl.gen

dʒon:o

for

baʃa-i

house.loc

baʃa-i

house.loc

matʃʰ-tɔrkari-r

fish-curry.gen

tʃupɽi

basket

aʃiatʃʰe

come.3.perf

"for them, baskets of fish and curry have come house to house"

ও রান্নাঘরে উনান জ্বালাইবার ধোঁওয়া উঠিয়াছে–

o

and

ranna-r

cook.gen

unan

oven

dʒalaiba-r

burn.gen

d̪ʱõwa

smoke

uʈʰiatʃʰe

rise.3.perf

"and smoke has risen from burning cooking ovens"

কিন্তু তবু এত বড়ো এই-যে কাজের শহর কঠিন হৃদয় কলিকাতা,

kint̪u

but

t̪obu

still

æto

this.much

bɔɽo

big

ei-dʒe

this.one

kadʒ-er

work.gen

ʃɔhɔr

city

koʈʰin

hard

hrid̪ɔj

heart

Kolikata

Kolkata

"but still, this big city of work, hard-hearted Kolkata,"

ইহার শত শত রাস্তা এবং গলির ভিতরে

ihar

its

ʃɔto

hundred

ʃɔto

hundred

rasta

road

aboŋ

and

goli-r

alley.gen

bʱitor-e

inside.loc

"inside its hundreds and hundreds of roads and alleys"

সোনার আলোকের ধারা

ʃona-r

gold.gen

alok-er

light.gen

d̪ʱara

stream

"streams of golden light"

আজ যেন একটা অপূর্ব   যৌবনের প্রবা

adʒ

today

dʒæno

as.if

ækta

one

ɔpurbo

wonderful

dʒoubon-er

youth.gen

proba

radiance

"today as if a wonderful youth's radiance"

বহিয়া লইয়া চলিয়াছে।

bohija

carry

loija

bring

tʃolijatʃʰe

walk.3.perf.cont

"is carrying along."

[Travis B.]

I have a stupid Indic question -- is the raising of IAST <a> really a feature of Sanskrit, or is it one of those "it is pronounced that way in Hindi so we are going to assume it was also this way in Classical Sanskrit" kind of things?