#Diaspora

“Moder Garab Moder Asha/Aamori Bangla Bhasha”.

Bengali language also known by its endonym Bangla Bhasha,is an Indo-Aryan language/Indic language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in South Asia,specially in the Eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Indo-Aryan language is a major language family native to northern India subcontinent, and presently found all across South Asia. Again, Indo-Aryan language and Indo-Iranian language is the branch of Indo-European language family.

Modern Indo – Aryan Languages :

Modern Indo-Aryan languages are descended from Sanskrit through Prakit. These Languages are Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) about 350 million people’s mother tongue, Bengali (350million), Punjabi (120million), Marathi (112million), Gujarati (60million),Bhojpuri(55million), Odia (35million),Maithuli (35million), Sindhi (30million) and other languages, with an estimate placing the total number of speakers , nearly 900million.

Dialects of Bengali Language

Bengali language has many dialects,viz :. 1. Kamrupi dialect – 15million speakers, 2. Bangali – 300 million speakers : a. Rarhi -35m b. Barendri – 25 m c. Sundarbani – 20 m d. Jharkhandi – 15 million.

Official Language :

Bengali is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled Languages of India and another 40 million as second language speakers. Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the World.

Bengali Diaspora :

Besides, Bangladesh, West Bengal, Tripura, Borak Valley of Assam, Andaman Nicobar Island, it’s spoken by the significant global Bengali diaspora (Bangladeshi Diaspora and Indian Bengalis) communities in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the middle East.

One Thousand Years Of Bengali Language & Literature:

Bengali language has been developed over the course of more than 1000 years. Charyapad and some other punthi (manuscript) of this time has been discovered by the researchers. It’s written in tenth to twelve century. Thirteenth century to fourteenth century was totally baren due to socio- political anarchism. So we don’t have any literature. Srikrishna kirtan Kavya of Boru Chandidas was the only Kavya in the first half of mediaeval period . It was written in fifteenth century. After the religious and social change made by Sri Chaitanya , We got a lot of Bengali literature like Vaishnava literature, Chatanya Jibani and so on.

Origin & Development of Bengali Language & Literature

Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000- 1200 CE from Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakit . The local Apabhransa of the Eastern subcontinent, Purbi – Apabhransa or Abahatta, eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups of the Bengali – Assmese languages, the Bihari languages and Odia languages.

Renaissance And Modern Bengali Language & Literature :

Bengali literature enriched in the second half of the nineteenth century when a renaissance took place in Bengal . Rammohan Roy, Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar , Bankimchandra Chattapadhay, Mychael Mashusudan Dutta and other Poets and Play writers composed various types of literature.

Tagore & Bengali language & Literature :

Rabindranath came to flourish the Bengali literature with his vibrant genius and still now no other writers wasn’t found in Indian literature who is paralal to him. Rabindranath composed 4 thousands poems and hundreds of songs , 2 hundreds short stories, numerous drama and novels , essays, translations , letters which are our assets of Bengali literature.

As a result , Tagore ,by his literature and multi-talented personality , overwhelmed the Eastern and Western world .

Don’t loose trust in humanity.

“Rupsagare Dub Diechi Arupratan asha Kori “. – Tagore