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BENGALI , with See also:ORIYA and See also:AssAMESE, three of the four forms of speech which compose the Eastern See also:Group of the Indo-See also:Aryan. See also:Languages (q.v.). This group includes all the Aryan languages spoken in See also:India See also:east of the See also:longitude of See also:Benares, and its members are the followings, Bengali . Number of speakers in See also:British India, 1901. . 44,624,048 Oriya . 9,687,429 Assamese 1,350,846 See also:Bihari . 34,579,844 See also:Total .- 90,242,167 Of these Bihari is treated separately. In the See also:present See also:article we shall devote ourselves to the examination of Bengali together with the two other closely connected languages. The reader is throughout assumed to be in See also:possession of the facts described under the heads Irmo-ARYAN LANGUAGES and See also:PRAKRIT. Bengali is spoken in the See also:province of See also:Bengal proper, i.e. in, and on both sides of; the See also:delta of the See also:Ganges, and also in the Eastern Bengal portion of the province of Eastern Bengal and See also:Language. See also:Assam. The name " Bengali " is an See also:English word, derived from the English word " Bengal." Natives See also:call the language Banga-Bhasd, or the language of Barlga, i.e. " Bengal." " Oriya " is the native name for the language of Odra or See also:Orissa. Assamese, again an English word, is spoken in the Assam Valley. Its native name is Asamiya, pronounced Ohamiyd. All these languages have alphabets derived from See also:early forms of the well-known Nagari See also:character of See also:northern India. That of Bengali See also:dates from about the rrth See also:century A.D. It is a cursive script which admits of considerable See also:speed in See also:writing. The Assamese See also:alphabet is the same as that of Bengali, but has one additional character to represent the See also:sound of w, which has to be expressed in the former language in a very awkward See also:fashion. In Orissa, till lately, writing was done on a talipot See also:palm-See also:leaf, on which the letters were scratched with an See also:iron stylus. In such circumstances straight lines would tend to split the leaf, and accordingly the alphabet received a See also:peculiar curved See also:appearance typical of it and of one or two other See also:South See also:Indian methods of writing. The three languages are all the immediate descendants of Magadhi Prakrit (see PRAKRIT), the headquarters of which were in south See also:Behar, near the See also:modern See also:city of See also:Patna. From here it spread in three lines—southwards, where it See also:developed into Oriya; south-eastwards into Bengal proper, where it became Bengali; and eastwards, through Northern Bengal, into Assam, where it became Assamese. It thus appears that the language of Northern Bengal, though usually and conveniently treated as a See also:dialect of Bengali, is not so in reality, but is a connecting See also:link between Assamese and Bihari, the language of Behar. It is noteworthy that Northern Bengali and Assamese often agree in their See also:grammar with Oriya, as against See also:standard Bengali. Omitting border forms of speech, Bengali, as a See also:vernacular, has two See also:main dialects, a western and an eastern, the former being the standard. The boundary-See also:line between the two may be roughly put at the 89th degree of east longitude. The eastern dialect has many marked peculiarities, amongst which we may mention a tendency to disaspiration, the See also:pronunciation of c as ts, of ch as s, and of j as z. In the northern See also:part of the See also:tract a medial r is often elided, and in the extreme east there is a broader pronunciation of the vowel a, like that in the English word " See also:ball," k is sounded like the ch in " See also:loch," and both c and ch are pronounced like s. The See also:letter p is often sounded like w, and s like h, which again, when initial, is dropped. The distinction between cerebral and dental letters is lost, so that the words kth and silt are both pronounced 'tit. In the south-east, near See also:Chittagong, corruption has gone even further, and the See also:local dialect, which is practically a new language, is unintelligible to a See also:man from Western Bengal. Throughout the eastern districts there is a strong tendency to epenthesis, e.g. See also:kali is pronounced kill. A more important See also:dialectic difference in Bengali is that between the See also:literary speech and the vernacular. The literary vocabulary is highly Sanskritized, so much so that it is not understood by any native of Bengal who has not received See also:special instruction in it. Its grammar preserves numerous archaic or pseudo-archaic forms, which are invariably contracted in the colloquial speech of even the most highly educated. For instance, " I do " is expressed in the literary dialect by karitechi, but in the vernacular by kdrcci or kOcci. Oriya and Assamese may be said to have no dialects. There are a few local See also:variations, but the standard See also:form of speech, as a whole, is used everywhere in the respective tracts where the languages are spoken. The three languages, being all See also:children of a See also:common See also:parent, present many similar features. Oriya on the whole preserves the usual accentuation of the Indo-Aryan Languages (q.v.), seldom having the stress syllable farther back than the ante-penultimate. Bengali, on the other See also:hand, throws the See also:accent as far back as possible, and this produces the contracted forms which we observe in the colloquial language, the first syllable of a word being strongly accented, and the See also:rest being hurried over. Literary Bengali preserves the full form of the word, and in See also:reading aloud this full form is adhered to. Assamese follows Bengali in its accentuation, but the language has never been the See also:toy of See also:euphuism. In its literature colloquial words are employed, and are written as they are pronounced colloquially. In the following See also:account of the three languages, Bengali, literary and colloquial, will be primarily dealt with, and then the points of difference between it and the other two will be described. Abbreviations used: A.=Assamese, Bg. =Bengali, O.=Oriya, Pr.=Prakrit, Mg. Pr. = Magadhi Prakrit, Skr. =See also:Sanskrit. Vocabulary.—As already said, Literary Bengali abounds in tatsamas, or words borrowed in modern times from Sanskrit (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), and these have also intruded themselves into the speech of the educated. So much has the false See also:taste for. these learned words obtained the mastery that, in the literary language, when a genuine Bengali or tadbhava word is used in literature it is frequently not put into writing, but the corresponding learned tatsama is written in its See also:place, although the tadbhava is read. It is as though a See also:French writer wrote sicca when he wished the word seche to be pronounced. Similarly, the Bengali word for the goddess of See also:Fortune is Lakkhi, but in books this is always written in the Skr. form Lakimi, although no Bengali would See also:dream of saying anything but Lakkhi, even when reciting a See also:purple passage ore rotundo. In fact, the vocal See also:organs of most Bengalis are incapable of uttering the sound connoted by the letters Laksmi. The result is that the spelling of a Bengali word rarely represents its pronunciation. Oriya also borrows freely from Sanskrit, but there is no confusion between tatsamas and tadbhavas, as in Bengali. Assamese, on the other hand, is remarkably See also:free from these parasites, its vocabulary being mainly tadbhava. In Eastern Bengal, where Mussulmans predominate, there is a free use of words borrowed from Arabic and See also:Persian. Owing to See also:geographical and See also:historical circumstances, Oriya is to some extent infected by See also:Telugu and See also:Marathi idioms,while the Tibeto-Burman dialects and See also:Ahom have See also:left their marks upon Assamese. See also:Phonetics.—The three forms of speech agree in See also:sounding the vowel a like the o in " hot." When writing phonetically, this sound is represented in the present article by O. The pronunciation of this frequently recurring vowel gives a See also:tone to the See also:general sound of the languages which at once strikes a foreigner. In Bg. and A. a final vowel preceded by a single consonant is generally not pronounced. In Bg. this is only true for nouns, a final a being freeiy sounded in adjectives and verbs. In O., on the other hand, a final a is always pronounced. The sound of such a final a is in all three languages the same as that of the seccond o in " promote"; thus, the Bg. bara is pronounced See also:born. In Bg. a medial a sometimes has the sound of the first o in " promote," as, for instance, in the word See also:ban (bon), a See also:forest. In A. and Eastern Bg. a medial a is often sounded like the a in " ball," and is then transliterated a. A has preserved as a See also:rule its proper sound of a in "See also:father." The distinction between i and i and between a and u is everywhere lost in pronunciation, although in tatsama words the Sanskrit spelling is followed in literature. Thus, in Bg., the Skr. vyatita is pronounced Mild, with the accent on the first syllable. In A. the distinction between these See also:long and See also:short vowels is obliterated more than elsewhere, the See also:reason being, as in Bg., the changes of pronunciation due to the shifting back of the accent. In O., the Skr. vowel r is pronounced ru. Elsewhere it is ri. In O. the vowel e is always long, but in Bg. it may be long or short, and in A. it is always short. The syllable ya preceded by a consonant has in Bg. the sound of a short e, so that vyakti is pronounced bekti. Moreover, in the same language the letter e is often pronounced like the a in the See also:German See also:Mann, a sound here phonetic-ally represented by a; thus, dekha is sometimes pronounced dekho, and sometimes dakho or even dako. The syllable yd, when following a consonant, also has this a-sound, so that the English word " See also:bank " is written byank in Bengali characters. b in O. is always long. In Bg., when it has not got the accent it is shortened to the sound of the first o in " promote," a sound which, as we have seen, is also sometimes taken by a medial a. In A. o approaches the sound of u, and it actually becomes u when followed by i in the next syllable. The diphthongs at (in tatsamas, i.e. the Skr. di) and ai (in tadbhavas) are sounded like of in " oil " in Bg. and O., while in A. they have the sound of of in " going." Similarly, in Bg. and O. the diphthongs au and an are sounded like the an in the German Haus, but in A. like an in the French jaune, or the second o in " promote." In colloquial Bg. the two syllables di often have the sound of e, as in khaite (See also:kite/See also:ea), to eat. In Eastern Bengal k has often the sound of ch in " loch." In A. the consonants c and ch are both pronounced like s, and j and jh become zh (i.e. the s in " See also:pleasure ") or (when final) z. The same tendency is observable in Bg., though it is usually considered vulgar. In parts of Eastern Bengal c is pronounced like ts. O. as a rule has the proper sound of these letters, but towards the south c and ch become is and tsh when not followed by a palatal letter. The letters d and dh, when medial, are pronounced as a strongly burred r, and are then transliterated 7 :and rh respectively. In A. and Eastern Bg. there is a strong tendency to pronounce both dentals and cerebrals as semi-cerebrals, as is done by the neighbouring Tibeto-Burmans. In A. is and rh become r and rh respectively. In Bg. and A. n has universally become n, but is properly pronounced in O. Y is usually pronounced as j, unless it is a merely euphonic See also:bridge to avoid a See also:hiatus between two vowels, as in kariya for kari-a. In A. the resultant j has the usual z-sound. When y is the final See also:element of a conjunct consonant, in Bg. (except in the south-east) it is very faintly pronounced. In See also:compensation the preceding member of the conjunct is doubled and the preceding vowel is shortened if possible, thus vakya becomes bakkYa. In A., while the y is usually preserved, an i is inserted before the conjunct, so that we have baikyo. M and v when similarly situated are altogether elided in Bg., and this is also the See also:case with v in A., in which language m under these circumstances becomes w; thus, smarana becomes Bg. Eardn, A. swdrdn, and dvard becomes Bg. and A. ddara. R is generally pronounced correctly, except that when a member of a See also:compound it is often not pronounced in colloquial Bg.; thus See also:karma (kommo). In See also:North-eastern Bengali and in A. a medial r is commonly dropped; thus, Bg. karilam (kailam), A. kari (kal).r The vulgar commonly confound n and 1. O. has retained the old cerebral 7 of Pr., which has disappeared in Bg. and A. The semi-vowel v(w) becomes See also:bin Bg. and O., but retains its proper sound when medial in A. When Bg. wishes to represent a w, it has to write oya; thus, for chawa it writes chaaya. Similarly See also:bard, twelve, +yari, friendship, when compounded together to mean " a collection of twelve See also:friends," is pronounced barwari. Bg. pronounces all uncompounded sibilants as if they were s, like the English sh in " shin." This was already the case in Mg. Pr. (see PRARRIT). O., on the contrary, pronounces all three like the dental s in " See also:sin," while A. sounds them like a rough It, almost like the ch in " loch." In Eastern Bg. s becomes frankly h, and is then often 1 In Mg. Pr. every r becomes 1. For an explanation of the apparent non-observance of this rule in languages of the Eastern Group, see BIHARI.dropped. The compound ks is everywhere treated as if it were khy. In colloquial Bg. there is a tendency to disaspiration; thus dekha is pronounced dako and the Pr. hattha-, a hand, becomes See also:hat, not hash. In Eastern Bg. there is a See also:cockney tendency to drop h, so that we have 'at, a hand, and kailam for kahilam, I said. The above remarks show that O. has, on the whole, preserved the See also:original sounds of the various letters better than Bg. or A. Declension.—The distinction of gender has disappeared from all three languages. See also:Sex is distinguished either by the use of qualifying terms, such as " male" or " See also:female," or by the employment of different words, as in the case of our " See also:bull and " cow." The plural number is almost always denoted by the addition of some word meaning " many " or " collection " to the singular, although we sometimes find a true plural used in the case of nouns denoting human beings. Case was originally indicated by postpositions (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), but in many instances these have been joined to the noun, so that they form one word with it. The following is the full declension of the singular of the word ghord, a See also:horse, in the three languages: Oriya. Bengali. Assamese. Nom. . . ghora ghora ghora Acc.-Dat. . ghoraku ghataka gharak Instr. . ghorare ghorate ghorare Abl. ghoraru ghora-halite ghoraye Gen. ghorara ghorar ghorar Loc. ghorare ghorate or ghoray ghorat In Bg. and A. a noun often takes e (e) in the nominative singular, when it is the subject of a transitive verb; thus Bg. bade (from See also:bed) See also:bale, the Veda says. In Bg. the nominative plural may, in the case of human beings, be formed by adding a to the genitive singular; thus, santan, a son; gen. sing., santdner; nom. plur., santanera. The same is the case with the pronouns; thus dmdr, of me; Amara, we; tdhdr, his; tandrd, they. In Bihari (q.v.) the pronouns follow the same rule, and, as is explained under that See also:head, the nominative plural is really an oblique form of the genitive. With this exception, the plural in all our three languages is either the same as the singular, or (when the See also:idea of See also:plurality has to be emphasized) is formed by the addition of nouns of multitude, such as gan in Bg., mdna in O., or bilak in A. We shall see that pronominal suffixes are freely used in all three languages in the conjugation of verbs. In the See also:Outer languages of the north-See also:west of India (for the See also:list of these, see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) pronominal suffixes are also commonly added to nouns to signify possession. In most of the languages of the Eastern Group such pronominal suffixes added to nouns have fallen into disuse, but in A. they are still commonly employed with nouns of relationship; thus, bap, a father; bopai, my father; baper, your father; bapek, his father. Their retention in A. is no doubt due to the example of the neighbouring Tibeto-Burman languages, in which such pronominal prefixes are a common feature. In all three languages the See also:adjective does not See also:change for gender, for number or for case. The See also:personal pronouns have at the present See also:day lost their old nominatives, and have new nominatives formed from the oblique See also:base. In the first and second persons the singulars have fallen into disuse in polite conversation, and the plurals are used honorifically for the singular, as in the case of the English " you " for " See also:thou." For the plural, new plurals are formed from the new singular (old plural) bases. In A., however, the old singular of the first See also:person is retained, and the old plural plays its proper See also:function. The Bg: pronouns are, mui (old), I; ami (modern), I; tui (old), thou; tumi (modern), thou; se, tini, he; e, ini, this; o, uni, that; je, jini, who; See also:lea, who?; ki, what?; kon, what (adjective)?; keha, anyone; kichu, anything; kona, any. Most of the forms in the other languages closely follow these. The words in O. for " I " and " thou " are ambha and tumbhe respectively. All these pronouns have plurals and oblique forms to which the case suffixes are added. These must be learnt from the grammars. Conjugation.—It is in the conjugation of the verb that colloquial Bg. differs most from the literary dialect. There is no distinction in any of the three languages between singular and plural. Most of the old singular forms have survived in a non-honorific sense, but they are rarely employed in polite language except in the third person. The old plural forms are generally employed for the singular also. The usual base for the verb substantive, when employed as an See also:auxiliary, is etch, be, derived from the Skr. rcchati. O., however, forms its past from the base tha (Skr. sthita-), and in South-western Bengal the base tha, derived from the same original, is used for both present and past See also:time. Only two of the old Skr.-Pr. tenses have survived in the finite verb, the See also:simple present and the imperative. Thus, Bg. kari, I do; kar, do thou. The past is formed by adding pronominal suffixes to the old past participle in it (Skr. -illa-, a pleonastic suffix, see PRAKRIT), and the future by adding them to the old future participle in b (Skr. -tavya-, Pr. -avva-). Thus, Bg. karil-am, done +by-me, I did; karib-a, it-is-to-be-done +by-me, I shall do. In Bg. there are two modern participles, a present (kar-ite) and a past (kar-iya), and from these there are formed periphrastic or " The Waves of Sentiment," which deals with the early See also:life 1 of See also:Krishna. Every See also:verse in it begins with the letter k. It is not always decent, but is immensely popular. Upendra Bhanja, See also:Raja of Gumsur, a See also:petty See also: Some of them date back to the time of Sankar Deb. BENGALI tenses by suffixing auxiliary verbs. Thus, karite-chi (co loquial, korci or kOcci), I am doing; karite-childm (See also:coll., korcilum or koccilum), I was doing; kariya-chi (coll., korsi), I have done; kariya-chilam (coll., korsilum), I had clone. A past conditional is formed by adding See also:pro-nominal suffixes to the present participle; thus, karitam (coll., kortum or kottum), (if) I had done. Similar tenses are formed in O. and A., but the periphrastic tenses are formed with verbal nouns and not with participles. Thus, O. karu-achi; A. kari-cho", I am a-doing, I am doing. O. and A. have each a very See also:complete See also:series of gerunds or verbal nouns which are fully declined. In Bg. only one gerund, that of the genitive, is in common use. In See also:order to illustrate the conjugation of the verb, we here give that of the See also:root kar, do, in its present, past and future tenses. Oriya. Literary Colloquial Assam- Bengali. Bengali. ese. I do . karii kari _ See also:hero
Thou doest . See also:hare karo kOri kard
He (non-honor- kare kare karo kare
ific) does karanti See also:karen kare kare
He (honorific) karila karileim koren kdrilo
does . karila karile /See also:alum, korlum kdrild
I did karila karila kolle, kOrle karile
Thou didst karile karilen kollo, /Melt; karile
He (non-hon.) karibu kariba kollen, kOrlen See also:Heim
did . kariba karibe korbo kdriba
He (hon.) did . kariba karibe korbe kdriba
I shall do . . karibe kariben korbe kdriba
Thou wilt do kOrben
He (non-hon.)
will do
He (hon.) will do
All the three languages have negative forms of the verb substantive, and A. has a complete negative conjugation for all verbs, made by prefixing the negative syllable na under certain euphonic rules.
Bengali Literature.—The See also:oldest recognized writer in Bengali is the Vaishnava poet Caneli Das, who flourished about the Literature. end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th cen-
tury. His language does not differ much from the Bengali of to-day. He founded a school of poets who wrote See also:hymns in See also:honour of Krishna, many of whom, in later times, became connected with the religious revival instituted by Caitanya in the early part of the 16th century. In the 15th century Kasi See also:Ram translated the Mahabadrata and Kottibas Ojha the Ramdyana into the vernacular. The principal figure of the 17th century was Mukunda Ram who has left us two really admirable poems entitled Candi and Srimanta Saudagar. Parts of the former have been translated by See also:Professor See also:Cowell into English verse, and both well deserve putting into an English See also:dress. With Bharat Candra, whose much admired but artificial Bidya Sundar appeared in the 18th century, the list of old Bengali authors may be considered as closed. They wrote in genuine See also:nervous Bengali, and the conspicuous success of many of them shows how baseless is the contention of some native writers of the present day that modern literary Bengali needs the help of its huge imported Sanskrit vocabulary to See also:express anything but the simplest ideas. This modern literary Bengali arose early in the 19th century, as a See also:child of the revival of Sanskrit learning in See also:Calcutta, under the See also:influence of the See also:college founded by the English in Fort See also: It has had some excellent writers, notably the See also:late Bankim Candra, whose novels have received the honour of being translated into several languages, including English. Even he, however, sometimes laboured under the fetters imposed upon him by a See also:strange vocabulary, and all competent European scholars are agreed that no work of first-class originality has much See also:chance of arising in Bengal till some great See also:genius purges the language of its pseudo-classical element. Oriya Literature does not go back beyond the 16th century, though examples of the language are found in See also:inscriptions of the 13th century. Nearly all the works are connected with the history of Krishna, and the translation of the Bhagavata Purana into Oriya in the first See also:half of the 16th century still exercises great influence on the masses. Dina Kosna Das (17th century) was the author of another popular work entitled Rasa Kallola, AuTaoRITIEs.—There is no work dealing with the three languages as a group. Both the See also:Comparative Grammars of Beames and Hoernle (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) are silent about Assamese. The fullest details concerning them all will be found in vol. v. of the Linguistic Survey of India, parts i. and ii. (Calcutta, 1903). In this each dialect and subdialect is treated with great minuteness and with copious examples. The first Bengali grammar and See also:dictionary in a European language was the Vocabulario em Idioma Bengalla e Portuguez of Manoel da Assumpgam (See also:Lisbon, 1743)., N. B. See also:Halhed wrote the first Bengali grammar in the English language (Hooghly, 1778), but the real father of Bengali See also:philology was the great missionary, William See also:Carey (Grammar, Serampore, 18o1 ; Dictionary, ib., 1825). W. See also:Yates's Grammar, as edited and improved by T. Wenger (Calcutta, 1847) and others, is still on See also:sale. It is entirely confined to the literary Bengali of the pandits. Its great See also:rival has been Syama See also:Caran Sarkar's Grammar (Calcutta, 185o), of which there have been numerous reprints. In 1894 J. Beames published his Grammar (See also:Oxford), now the standard work on the subject. It is largely based on Syama Caran's work, but with much new material, especially that dealing with the colloquial See also:side of the language. G. F. Nicholl's Grammar (See also:London, 1885) is an independent study of the language, in which the vernacular works of the best native grammarians have been freely utilized. There is no See also:good Bengali dictionary. G. C. See also:Haughton's Dictionary (London, 1833) is perhaps still the best, but J. Mendies' (Calcutta, about 187o) is also well known, and is the parent of countless others which have issued from the Calcutta presses. A Small Dictionary of Colloquial Bengali Words, by J, M. C. and G. A. C. (Calcutta, 1904), may also be studied with See also:advantage. Cf. also Syama-caran Ganguli, Bengali Spoken and Written (Calcutta, 1906). For Bengali literature, see R. C. See also:Dutt, The Literature of Bengal (Calcutta and London, 1895), and Hara Prasad Sastri, The Vernacular Literature of Bengal before the Introduction of English Education (Calcutta, n.d.). The most complete work is Bangabhasa o Sahitya by Dines Candra Sen (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1901) in the Bengali language.
For Oriya there are E. See also:Hallam's (Calcutta, 1874), T. Maltby's (Calcutta, 1874) and J. See also: 317 if., and vol. lxvii. (189, part i. pp. 332 if.
The first Assamese Grammar was Nathan See also: For Assamese literature, see See also:Ananda Ram Dhekial Phukan's A Few Remarks on the Assamese 736 Language (Sibsagar, 1855), partly reprinted in the Indian See also:Antiquary, vol. See also:xxv. (1896), pp. 57 if. (G. A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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