General
Bengali or Bangla (孟加拉语，IPA: ['baŋla] (help·info)) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit languages.
Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. With nearly 230 million native speakers, Bengali is one of the most popularly spoken languages in the world (it is ranked fourth in the world[3]). Bengali is the main language spoken in Bangladesh; in India, it is ranked as the second[4][5] most spoken language. Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-Iranian languages.
Geographical distribution
The native geographic extent of BengaliBengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Around 98% of the total population of Bangladesh speak Bengali as a native language.[15] There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in immigrant populations in the Middle East, West and Malaysia.
Official status
Bengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 national languages recognised by the Republic of India.[4] It is the official language of the state of West Bengal and the co-official language of the state of Tripura, Cachar District of southern Assam and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bengali speakers make the majority in Neil Island and Havelock Island. It was made an official language of Sierra Leone in order to honour the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force from the United Nations stationed there.[16] It is also the co-official language of Assam, which has three predominantly Sylheti-speaking districts of southern Assam: Silchar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi.[17] The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore.
External Links:
- Ethnologue report for Bengali
- Bengali Language: A Brief Introduction
- Samsad Bengali-English dictionary. 3rd ed. online. Requires unicode enabled browser.
- Free Bangla Unicode Solutions.
- The South Asian Literary Recordings Project, The Library of Congress. Bengali Authors.
All information above is from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language
