Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

( ''Bangla'') is one of the Eastern Indo-Aryan (Magadhan) languages, evolved from

Magadhi Prakrit Magadhi Prakrit (''Māgadhī'') is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali and Sanskrit. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit. Hist ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

languages native to the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. The core of Bengali vocabulary is thus

etymologically Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words an ...

of Magadhi Prakrit and Pali languages. However, centuries of major borrowing and

reborrowing Reborrowing is the process where a word travels from one language to another and then back to the originating language in a different form or with a different meaning. This path is indicated by A → B → A, where A is the originating language, an ...

from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

and other languages has led to the adoption of a wide range of words with foreign origins; thus making the origins of borrowed and re-borrowed words in the Bengali vocabulary numerous and diverse, due to centuries of contact with various languages.

Classifications of origin types

The typical Bengali dictionary lists 75,000 separate words, of which 50,000 (67%) are considered to be তদ্ভব ''tôdbhôbô'' (native Bengali vocabulary with Sanskrit cognates), 21,100 (28%) are তৎসম ''tôtsômô'' (words directly re-borrowed from

), and the rest being borrowings from দেশী ''deshi'' " indigenous (Austroasiatic)" and বিদেশী ''bideshi'' "foreign" sources. There are more than five lac Bengali vocabulary in this language overall including other languages which is used as Bengali. However, these figures do not take into account the fact that a huge chunk of these words are archaic or highly technical, minimising their actual usage. The productive vocabulary used in modern literary works, in fact, is made up mostly 67% of native ''tôdbhôbô'' words, while ''tôtsômô'' re-borrowings only make up 25% of the total. ''Deshi'' and ''bideshi'' borrowings together make up the remaining 8% of the vocabulary used in modern Bengali literature.

Differences in vocabulary

This table below compares the differences of spoken and used Bengali vocabularies in Dhaka (Bangladesh) & Shantipur (West Bengal, India).

Examples of borrowed words

Due to centuries of contact with

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...

Persians The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...

Europeans Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...

, and

East Asians East Asian people (East Asians) are the people from East Asia, which consists of China, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea. The total population of all countries within this region is estimated to be 1.677 billion and 21% of the ...

, the

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second m ...

has absorbed countless words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary. The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. After centuries of contact from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and the Middle East, followed by the invasions of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

, numerous

, and

words were absorbed and fully integrated into the lexicon. Later, East Asian travellers and European

colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...

brought words from

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, French,

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

, and most significantly English. Some very common borrowings are shown below.

Sanskrit (সংস্কৃত ''Sôṁskr̥tô'')

Austroasiatic (Munda) languages (দেশী ''Deśi'' “Native”)

Foreign (বিদেশি ''Bideśī'')

Persian (ফারসি ''Pharsi'')

Arabic (আরবি ''Arbi'')

Turkish (তুর্কি ''Turki'')

Portuguese (পর্তুগিজ ''Pôrtugij'')

Dutch (ওলন্দাজ ''Olôndaj'')

English (ইংরেজি ''Iṁreji'')

French (ফরাসি ''Phôrasi'')

Greek (গ্রীক ''Grīk'')

Chinese (চীনা ''Cīna'')

Japanese (জাপানি ''Japani''/নিহোঙ্গো ''Nihoṅgo'')

Burmese (বর্মী ''Bôrmī'')

Spanish (স্পেনীয় ''Spenīẏô'')

German (জার্মান ''Jarman'')

Italian (ইতালীয় ''Italīẏô'')

Australian (অস্ট্রেলিয় ''Ôsṭrelīẏô'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bengali Vocabulary Bengali language Languages of India Languages of Bangladesh