In South Asia, Bengali literature became emblematic of Indian literature as a whole through the success of its poets and novelists. Therefore learning Bengali is an invitation to learn more about Asia, specifically about South Asia’s encounter with the world. It is at the crossroads of eastern, South, and Southeastern Asia, and Bengali culture was immensely enriched by those cosmopolitan encounters. The history of Bengali is marked by the diversity of the cultures that took part in its formation. It is linguistically related to Sanskrit and has had a rich history as a literary language since the close of the first millennium. This means that the first form of Bengali is between 1000-1500 years old.Bengali (aka Bangla) is spoken in northeastern India and Bangladesh by over 200 million speakers, and thus ranks 6th in number of native speakers in the world. Before this period, linguists consider the spoken languages in the region forms of Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakit. The language spoken in the region of Bengal is generally referred to as a form of Bengali from the 5th to the 11th centuries. Conclusion: How Old Is The Bengali Language?
This has meant that Modern Bengali has two somewhat different variants – a spoken, vernacular form called Chôlitôbhasha, (চলিতভাষা ) and a written form, closer to the classic texts, called Sadhubhasha (সাধুভাষা).īecause of the relatively static and unchanged “classical” form of Bengali, one could argue that the written language of today has remained unchanged for about 200 years.Ĭompared to other languages, this wouldn’t be the right way of correctly dating the Bengali language, however. Modern Bengali And Diglossiaĭuring the last two centuries, Bengali has continued evolving, but due to conservative linguistic movements and perhaps, in part, because of the rich, literary tradition, written Bengali has stayed relatively unchanged in this period. The period of the Sultanate of Bengal also saw a great movement in the development of Bengali literature and a great many literary works were produced in this time period. The fact that Bengali was the chosen “local” language of the occupiers also meant that the Bengali language became more and more widespread all throughout the region of Bengal from the 15th century and onward. This was partly due to Bengali being made a language of the court of the Bengali Sultanate, which was the Muslim rulers in the region at the time. In the period from the 1400s to the 1800s, the Bengali language adopted a lot of Persian, Arabic, and even Turkic loan words. This is mainly due to the fact that Bengali underwent a lot of changes in the following centuries.
It is, however, unlikely that a modern-day Bengali speaker would understand the Bengali language spoken over 1000 years ago. This means that the first manifestation of the Bengali language came into being between the years 5, making it between 10 years old. Some people argue, that Bengali, along with other languages of the Eastern branch actually formed 500 years prior, but many of the medieval sources that could testify this are gone today. Gradually, Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakit evolved in the region, and 2000 years later, around the year 1000, the two languages had formed the Eastern branch of the Indo-Aryan languages of which Bengali was part. The development of the language was, after all, gradual, and the Bengali language spoken today has been changing constantly for thousands of years.ģ000 years ago, Sanskrit was the main language spoken in Bengal by the Hindus, whereas Buddhists spoke a related language called Magadhi Prakit. To say for sure, we need to decide when the language spoken in Begal could actually be defined as “Bengali”. The Break From Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakit 4 Conclusion: How Old Is The Bengali Language?.2 Arabic And Persian Influences On Bengali.1 The Break From Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakit.