Talk:Bengali language/Archive 1

• Bangla will be used to refer to the language.*, suggest then that article be moved to 'Bangla', and 'Bengali language' point to there, or else rest of this article use 'Bengali language'.

• 'the script used to print Bengali is called Devanagari.'

This is nonsense. Bengali is written with a script quite similar to but distinctively different than Devanagari - it has no other name in English than the Bengali script. See [1]

• 'Eastern Bengal ... was a colony of Pakistan'

This doesn't sound NPOV to me. Perhaps 'Eastern Bengal ... was part of Pakistan'?

• 'In languages such as French, words have gender. One must remember the gender associated with each word.'

So what? Was some info here lost?

-- Morwen 1840 utc 2nd august

History and Literature

We need to have a comprehensive account of the history of the language. It's very rich, and goes back to 11th century CE to Buddhist writing. I'm not familiar enough with it, and wouldn't want to write about it without studying first. I will do that, but can anyone start it up? :Also, it would be nice if a Bangladeshi, or someone versed in Bangladeshi literature (i.e. post-partition bengali lit. from East Bengal), could add some writers from there to the list of Bengali literature. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:59, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

I will give it a shot, but I would need to make sure I don't end up writing trivial ones and miss out the more important ones.

Could someone also check the spelling of name of the Portuguese missionary mentioned in the History section? "Assumpcam" doesn't sound like a Portuguese name to me -- but I am not sure, since that was a few hundred years ago. However, I'm quite sure it should be "Assumpção", or something like that ("Assumpçam" would sound the same, but I doubt it was ever spelled like that). But "Assumpcam" sounds very strange: in modern Portuguese, "c" in that position has the sound of "k", while "ç" always has the sound of "s" as in "sink", so the name as it is written sound really weird to me (I'm Brazilian).

Ranking

Bengali as the 4th most spoken language? And with 190 million native speakers? Portuguese has, at minimum, 199 million speakers, using the population of each country from CIA World Fact Book, almost with only true statistic data from each country, and it is known as the 6th most spoken. It think that Bengali is the 5th most spoken from data that I've seen. Pedro 17:03, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've changed it from 4 to 5. I don't feel like most language polls can be accurate, obviously, given the huge numbers one works with. I'm trying to locate one that's been done in the last year or so.--LordSuryaofShropshire 19:56, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. That's why I've searched for official numbers from each country. At least in Portuguese speakers, I'm sure that's ok.Pedro 23:28, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the "4th largest" ranking comes from the very reputable fieldwork done by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)'s Ethnologue survey, whose latest numbers cite 207 million native speakers. See their latest Ethnologue report. I agree, though, that these rankings are often murky. This neat page shows the various rankings and speaker populations of the world's languages.--Rashad Ullah 09:51, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How come this data conflicts with the List of languages by number of native speakers? --fantumphool

There are about 140 million native Bangla speakers in Bangladesh, about 80 million in West Bengal, and there are Bengali speakers in Assam, Arunachal, Meghaloy, Mizoram, Andaman Nicobar Islands, Tripura, and elsewhere in the world such as Singapore, US, UK, Canada and Australia. Assamese, Orissa, Sikimese, and some other languages are very close to Bangla and are related. Today there are those who do not wish the inhabitants of these regions to know that they are one family... for obvious political reasons. Ongo (northern Bengal and northern Bihar, Bongo (central Bengal), Kolingo (Orissa), Pundro (western Bangladesh and West Bengal) and Odro (sorry I do not know the location at the moment)... were settled by 5 brothers and their people. (NOVO)

I think the most important difference is the result of what exactly is counted. CIA factbook like many others include non-native speakers. Now, whether than's right or not is a personal choice. I, for example, prefer surveys that only include native speakers. Bangla is either 4th or 5th. It's impossible to say since surveys in different countries happen at different times. I don't think the native speakers of Bangla are 190 million. Bangladesh itself has a population of 140 million (at least). West Bengal, Singapore, UK and Malaysia combine to only 50million? That sounds iffy to me.

.

NPOV?

"Bengali is thus arguably the only language for which people have sacrificed their lives."

This appears to be a blatant falsehood. It may be true that the people who sacrificed their lives for Bengali are the only ones specifically recognized with a holiday.

-- Carlmarks 21:48, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with Carlmarks. Since language is so often the most apparent part of one's culture, it seems probably that many people have lost their lives for speaking a language. For one example, see Catalan. Under Franco, people in Catalonia were killed for speaking their language. Also banned were Basque and Galician. I'm going to remove the sentence from the otherwise fantastic article. Leland 07:49, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the POV is in you. In fact, there are more languages that people die for it. Galician (Portuguese dialect), Vasque, Catalan in Spain (I’ve heard moving commentaries about this by Spanish people, wounds that are open until today - I cant image how it is to be forbidden to speak its own language), and certainly others have died for other languages. But that sentence exists because of something and taking of or hiding useful information that could help one understands the value that the language has to a certain culture is not correct.

So the sentence should be: "Bengali is one of the various languages for which some people have sacrificed their lives." --Pedro 10:30, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, what would be the point of that? That's about the least interesting sentence I've ever read. I think it's obvious to any English speaker reading the article that people died for this language. Leland 16:28, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

we're talking about minorized languages or languages in substitution. That doesnt happen with popular languages. If they got a holiday dedicated to the language, then it is more reasenable that it shoulb be stated. Many things in an encyclopedia are obvious. But, in fact, there can be hundreds of languages that people have sacrificed their lives. And for the asian languages I really doubt that there was really a sacrifice like those in Spain. Because beganli is widely spoken, i really doubt that the language was so much forbitten, if it was... there should be lesser number of speakers, what happens in Spain, were the minority languages are very influenced by Spanish and in the basque country, for ex., those who speak their language is a minority due to that attacks against the language. -Pedro 17:22, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pedro, I don't mean to be rude here, but are you arguing with me or against me? How can you say there was no sacrifice for Bengali when the article states the opposite? Leland 07:52, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• • I'm not arguing, I'm just talking and put in "talk" my ideas (What I thing, my POV...) about the subject. :| -Pedro 09:29, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just note the sentence uses the word "arguably" and hence technically speaking it is right. (You are arguing on it, aren't you?) :-) It was safely written, but yes a better description could be

"Bengali is the only mass-spoken language for which people have sacrificed their lives." Any ideas on this? I know mass-spoken sounds vague but well it distinguishes Bengali from languages that are spoken by some 1000 people in some remote part of Siberia, for example.

They gave their lives to establish Bangla (the largest language of the then Pakistan) as a state language. The then Pakistani government decided to make Urdu the only state language, however, Urdu speakers represented only 4% of the total population and Bangla represented more than 50%. Even today in Pakistan only 8% speak Urdu, yet it is the state language ignoring Punjabi which is spoken by 44%. (NOVO)

clarify

I am having a lot of trouble discerning the meaning of this sentence:

"in Bengali the language is called Bangla, (বাঙলা) now more widely used in international arena and became english word as well as the origin and the people are called Bangali(বাঙালী)."

can someone help? Should it be something more like:

" in Bengali the language is called Bangla(বাঙলা), a name now more widely used in the international arena, where it has come into usage as an English word as well as a Bengali word. The people are then called Bangali(বাঙালী)."

thanks Lethe

Yes... you are on the ball there. I think it's good now --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:18, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

The people of the region are Bangali and their language is Bangla. The British probably mispronounced Bangali and named the people and the language Bengali. (NOVO)

I'm not sure what this sentence means:

"Bangla makes use of a specific yet logical verb tense system."

How does Bangla tense differ from any other tense inflexion found in other widely-known languages. I.E., why not just merge this sentence with the previous and say:

"Verbs are inflected for person, tense, and honor -- but not for number."

thanks --jonsafari 21:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The second does sound better. "yet logical" is a little arguable. It sort of implies specific would usually result in illogical conjugation systems! On an entirely different note, since the Bangla-speaking region uses British English or RP, we should use honour instead of honor, I think, in accordance with Manual of Style. -- Urnonav 21:32, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That was me who placed it there. I was trying to convey that...actually, I have no clue what I was trying to convey so it's probably best that it was removed. Ttownfeen 00:04, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Usage of "honour" is fine by me. --jonsafari 00:39, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

spam?

What's with the blatent spamming of a website in the article:

If you wish to talk more on Calcutta (http://www.cafekolkata.com) or Kolkata (http://www.cafekolkata.com), please visit Cafe Kolkata (http://www.cafekolkata.com).

This really doesn't have anything to do with learning about the language. At the very least, it should be moved to thie links section.

Bongo?

I've never heard this term used to describe what is known in English as Bengal from the people I know (I'm Bangladeshi-American). We use the terms "Bengal" and "Poshcheem Bengal". Also, I rarely hear the term Purbo Bengal used to describe Bangladesh. Most Bangladeshis in America use the term "desh", but that's probaly analogous to older european immigrants refering to the "old country".

Also, this article to me tends to exude a sense that the Bangla spoken in Dhaka is a sort-of pidgin and lower-grade form of the "standard" Kolkata-style Bangla. I dunno, maybe I'm just being quick to take offense.

Clarification on terms

• Bongo = Bengal

• Bangladesh commonly also refered to Bengal until Bangladeshi independence, after which it was politically incorrent to use Bangladesh to mean Bengal. (You will see several post-Indian-independence West Bengali movies and novels which use Bangladesh to describe Bengal).

• Bangladesh was also called:
  1. Purbo Bongo/Purbo Bangla (the exact areas of Bangladesh and East Bengal are NOT same, but it is more or less accurate: greater Kustia district was part of Poshchim Bongo before the separation): the term is more of a regional rather than a political description and has been used throughout time, although less in recent days
  2. Purbo Bangla/Purbo Bongo and then Purbo Pakistan: during Pakistan regime (1947-1971)
  3. Bangladesh, and rarely, Purbo Bongo: after independence (1971 onwards)

Hope that clears up things.

There are a lot of dialects in Bengal or Bongo... to call the language of Dhaka a lower grade form of some other dialect is foolish. (NOVO)

My revisions

Hello to my fellow Bengalis and Bengalophiles! I'm new to Wiki, but as a linguistics graduate student who is of both West Bengali and East Bengali heritage, and who uses both dialects of Bengali (and researches on both), I thought I'd try my hand at fixing up this article. I started this morning with the "Variation" section, which--while not half-bad--was written by somebody with a noticeably West Bengali bias and which lacked terminological precision (especially when it came to describing the sound changes). So I changed that around. Clearly the next thing to do is to describe the script (§4) and sounds (§6) of Bengali in a systematic way--I'd like to utilize the Unicode characters, but don't know very well how to do this yet, so I appreciate help from one who knows more than me about this. Also, kudos to those who wrote and edited §1 through §3--I don't have much to add to those.

I'd like also to respond to two points made in the immediately preceding post here: yes "bongo" [bOngo] (vanga) is the standard Bangla word for "Bengal." I too grew up mostly in America but have routinely heard West and East Bengalis alike refer to "poshchim bOngo" and "purbo bOngo." (I'm using [O] to represent the open "aw" sound). The term is said to come from Sanskrit "vanga," although this is contested. On the other hand, on the observation that the Wiki article (before my revision) made the Bangla of Dhaka "sound like a pidgin"--well, yes and no. A pidgin is a technical term, and the previous author did not claim that Dhakaiya Bangla was a pidgin, but you correctly detected some bias (see the new version, it's been totally changed). For the record, Muslim Bengalis don't "substitute" Sanskrit words with Perso-Arabic---this was a very misleading way to phrase it. The real story, which I'm going to have to work on and put online, is that all kinds of native Indic (Sanskrit and Prakrit-derived) as well as Perso-Arabic words were used by Bengalis of both religions...but Calcutta Brahmanical elites of the late 18th and 19th ceunturies attempted to purge Bengali of its non-Sanskritic elements, and Muslim writers responded, especially in the 20th century, with turning more and more to Perso-Arabic words. What is striking is, despite the socially and politically motivated linguistic divergence in Bengali, the news broadcasts from Dhaka and Kolkata are essentially in the same language--even the same dialect and style--- while the broadcasts of "Urdu" from Islamabad and "Hindi" from New Delhi show linguistic divergence to the point of mutual non-comprehension.

But to return to the issue of bias: there's nothing biased in presenting one dialect as the "standard." The Calcutta version of "cholti bhasha" is the standard--this doesn't connote any kind of value judgment about the language, though many people assume the "standard" language is somehow "better." My point is simple: if you listen to news broadcasts or speeches or lectures given in Dhaka, they are in a standardized version of the language that is essentially identical to the standard used in Calcutta, and which originates from Calcutta speech in the late 19th century (Tagore popularized this "Cholti Bhasha"). Incidentally, I changed the references from Chalit Bhasha to Cholti Bhasha because that is the more frequent term (the article, pre-revision, flip-flopped between "Cholti" and "Chalit" haphazardly).

--Rashad Ullah 09:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Language differences in two parts of Bengal

The author of the section on differences in language seems to be a little biased about which one is the standard Bangla. I think the entire notion of standard Bangla is arguable.

Major arguable topics included:

• Bish being a Bangladeshi term only: not true, both bish and kurhi are equally used in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
• language of educated people: well, educated people on both sides of the border speak standard Bangla; so why is the reference made to West Bengal only?

What is "standard" Bangla, if there is one?

If somebody is bent on defining "standard Bangla", well in Bangladesh, Bangla Academy works on laying out standards. Historically, it's not Kolkata language that's considered standard, but it's the language of Krishnonogor. This is the common notion of people and has little scientific basis. However, this was not "standard"; it is more like the "best-sounding" version of Bangla.

What is now considered standard is not the language of any region in particular (not any I know of). I have been to Kolkata; commonly spoken Kolkata dialect today (espcially under non-Bangla influence) is as far from standard Bangla as is Dhaka dialect. However, local dialects of erstwhile Nodia district (also includes Kustia, Chuadanga, Jhinaidah and Meherpur districts in Bangladesh) are extremely close to the standard Bangla.

>> 1. The standard/dialect debate always remind me of the famous saying : "A (standard) language is a dialect with an army and a navy"(Max Weinreich ). In other words, it's just another dialect, of or chosen by and forced onto others, by the elite class of a country/nation. Period. Nothing else is special about it, no inherent merit whatsoever. All statements regarding relative inherent merits are completely subjective opinions (eg. "best-sounding" above) and practically meaningless.

Trying to draw lines between languages and dialects is like trying to chop up the rainbow.

2. I read somewhere that the original dialect spoken in Kolkata was the dialect of the 'Sonar Bene'. Can anyone clarify this ? Who were they ? --Monmajhi 22:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

There's a bit more to a standard language than just a choice of vocabulary and pronunciation of the elite. The elite is always influential in the creation of a standard, but the standard can never actually become popular (i.e. an actual standard) without the consent of the wider audience that is intended to eventually use it in public life. Language standards are tools of democratic reform and equality by providing a reasonably neutral form of communication as much as they're weapons in the hand of dialect-opressors.

The use of a standard in formal or official situations doesn't mean that it oppresses dialects. It's only when the standard is forced upon people in situations of a private or local nature that it truly becomes oppressive.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Grammatical differences

In recent days the most important difference in what is considered standard in West Bengal and Bangladesh is the way dates are said.

In West Bengal, 1st of Boishakh is Pohela Boishakh. In Bangladesh, 1st of Boishakh is Ek Boishakh. This change was implemented by Bangla Academy, fairly recently (in 2001 if I am not mistaken). Some debates persist as to the accuracy of this method. I am uncertain of the reasons, but this should be mentioned.

Pronunciation and vocabulary differences are associated more closely with the geographical division made by river Padma (Padda) and not with the political border. Sirajganj and Faridpur are the only districts West of the river that have dialects similar to the East.

Pronunciation

This could go on for ever. It's a regional issue. In general, the region between the border and the Padma river (Khulna and Rajshahi divisions) speak dialects more similar to West Bengal dialect than to Eastern Bangladesh dialect. What is commonly perceived as Bangladeshi dialect by the people from the West, is actually the dialects of Dhaka and Barisal divisions.

Dialects of Chittagong region is practically unintelligible to people from the rest of Bangladesh. Dialect of Sylhet, while less of a problem in terms of comprehension is still very different from any other dialect of Bangladesh. Sylhetis commonly refer to themselves as Sylhetis and not as Bengalis. Both of these regions have a huge number of words that are not present in standard Bangla (as defined by Bangla Academy).

Vocabulary differences

Jamay This word is the source of several misunderstandings between the East and the West, even inside Bangladesh. The word means "bride-groom". However, West of Padma river (including West Bengal), it means "son-in-law". On the East bank of Padma, it means "husband". The confusion is bound to happen.

A slight variation is Jamata which means "son-in-law" on both sides of the river.

Existence of Muslim influence?

As for Perso-Arabic words, well, these were promoted initially by the Muslim rulers and then by authors who tried experimenting with language. However, these have little links with people's religion. For example, both the West and East Bengal use the word "kolom" to mean pen. This word is of persian origin.

Greetings

Most Hindus in Bangladesh, comfortably use pani to mean water and some even go to the limits of using "salam-walaikum" as a greeting - something that not even all Muslims do! Muslims in Bangladesh have a tendency to say "Adab" when greeting Hindus. Although, in current day, this use is becoming less and less frequent. Newer generations indifferently use the salam for official reasons and skip a greeting for informal purposes. Older Hindu generations continue to stress on use of "nomoshkar".

Hope this gives some idea of Bangla as it is used in Bangladesh today. I have been born and brought up in the true East Bengal (Eastern part of Bangladesh) but my family strictly imposes use of standard Bangla at home. So, any questions regarding differences in Bangla can be directed to me. I will be happy to answer.

Polli Kobi

Actually Jibonanondo Das is not called Polli Kobi, at least in Bangladesh. The person called Polli kobi is undoubtedly Jasim Uddin --Ragib 20:57, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You are right. I feel ashamed about that. :">! Correcting it straight away. Urnonav

Total Speakers

In terms of Total Native speakers, Bangla is the 4th largest. Hindi has many speakers but in terms of native speakers it is NOT the 4th largest. Please see the links and references section for the source. --Ragib 16:07, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are a few issues which cause the whole controversy:

• Number of native speakers versus number of speakers in total (which sometimes is based on guestimate)
• Consideration of local dialect versus separate language
• Counting Urdu speakers as Hindi speakers

In general, it surprises me that 322 million people speak Hindi, but if you consider the fact that some of these surveys consider languages that are mutually unintelligible with Hindi as dialects. Some surveys use Hindi to mean Hindustani, which is basically the street language formed by mixture of Hindi, Urdu and a few other languages in Western South Asia. There is also the issue that quite a few people understand Hindi but do not speak it fluently or at all. -- Urnonav 23:34, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration of words in the Bengali language

An attempt is being made to create a standard English transliteration scheme for words in the Bengali language. Anyone with knowledge of the language (and English of course) and of phonetics is requested to check out the project page for discussion on this issue. For a start, I found some reasonably good schemes already in use by other authorities, but each one lacks one thing or another. -- Urnonav 09:02, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

East Bengal vs. East Pakistan

I'm a little confused by the recent edits ... especially rewording of East Pakistan as East Bengal. "During the period 1947-1971, when eastern (Muslim) Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) was part of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan, the Bangla language became the focus and foundation of the national identity of the people of East Bengal, leading ultimately to the creation of the sovereign state of Bangladesh". The sentence here is ambiguous ... what was the REAL name of the area? So far as I know, the area that is now Bangladesh was called East Bengal after the partition of 1947, but was renamed East Pakistan in the mid 1950s. Therefore, the sentence I quoted needs to be reworded to remove the ambiguity.--Ragib 21:05, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about something along the lines of "During the period of 1947-71, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan (and first known as East Bengal and later East Pakistan) ... identity of the people, leading...Bangladesh"? Ttownfeen 20:39, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Page move

I suggest that this page be moved to Bengali—there's no need for disambiguation there. Any thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:11, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. There's nothing else on Bengali. However, I would think that we should create an article at Bengali that refers to the population and culture in general. I am in doubtful situation as to how much information we can put there, but I frequently come up with things to write that should be classified under Bengali as in Bengali people/culture/bla bla. -- Urnonav 11:28, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Very well. For the time being, though, I am going to change Bengali to redirect to Bengali language, as the current disambiguation is completely unnecessary. Feel free to replace it with an article at your convenience. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:08, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Asamese and Orhia

The discussions on Asamese and Oria, while important, should not be in the first paragraph. Could this be moved to a different section, possibly a section of its own discussing related languages? I changed the first paragraph's recent edits slightly although I am not satisfied with my changes either. "Almost mutually understandable" sounds very iffy. There ought to be a better way to write that. The notes on dialect should move to the section on related languages or to the section on dialects. The intro is always better limited to a single paragraph or, at most, two with few sentences. Any comments on these?

-- Urnonav 00:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Foreign language influences

I removed Hindi from the list of foreing language influences. The list already includes Persian and Arabic. So, I am a little unclear as to whether there are words that were specifically Hindi (not Persian, Arabic or English) that have been absorbed into Bengali/Bangla. I am guessing that if a word is not "native" Bengali then it's very unlikely it will be native "Hindi" since both languages have similar roots. Could somebody with more knowledge of etymology and linguistics please look into this matter since I'm not an expert on this issue? Thanks!-- Urnonav 23:39, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Due to the Islamization movements in Bangladesh (formerly part of Pakistan) some Hindi words were absorbed partially. They were taken in the guise of Urdu and said to be more Islamic than the Bengali words. (Actually, some Islamists still declare the language Bangla to be Hindu and Urdu to be Islamic. LOL). The word for water in Bangla is Jol... now most Muslim Bangalis use Pani (Hindi >> Urdu). To say Jol is considered Hinduani (Hinduistic). There are other words taken from Hindi (Urdu) and fed into Bangla as Islamic substitutions!!! So there are funny adoptions of Hindi words into Bangla. (NOVO)

Bangla is not evolved from Sanskrit

This is not true that Bangla or Bengali language is evolved from or its a somewhat derivative of Sanskrit. Bengali follows a totally different track of evolution where it owes its origin to New Indo European root. It descends from Indo European language through Magdhi Apabhrangsha or Magdhi Prakrito which is totally different than Sanskrit.

This has been wonderfully backed up by the discovery of 'Charjapad' in Nepal By Haraprasad Shastri.

For more info please see : http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/B_0137.HTM

(The above message was left by Anon at 68.83.109.22)

I think that's unlikely, although I am not an expert. I think we'd need some more concrete evidence to counter such the well-accepted belief that Bengali is descended from Sanskrit. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the term Sanskrit is somewhat ambiguous. According to my understanding Bangla/Bengali derived from Vedic Sanskrit. No spoken languages today derive from Classical (Paninian) Sanskrit, the one that most people have in mind when the term Sankrit is mentioned. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. --jonsafari 19:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with jonsafari. No language can be derived from "Sanskrit" in the strict sense, which literally means purified, by Panini, ofcourse. However, If Sanskrit refers to the loose amalgamation of languages influenced by the Vedic language, then the statement is more or less true. --ppm 00:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

The belief is widely held ... yes... but I agree with Anon. It is BELIEVED to be descended from Sanskrit... NOT PROVED. It is the opinion of some language giants. Thats all. As far as I am concerned Bangla has more than one main root. (NOVO)

Vande Matram

Is it India's "Unofficial" national anthem? Isn't Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore the national anthem? What is the actual status of Vande Matram? --Ragib 03:46, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Vande Matram is India's Official Song

I'm curious, what is the difference between "official" and "national" song? Which one is recognized by the Government of India? Are both of them officially designated as such? Thanks--Ragib 00:29, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, upon some googling, I found the following statement by Dr. Rajendra Prasad in 1950 "The composition consisting of words and music known as Janaganamana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations as the Government may authorise as occasion arises, and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honored equally with Janaganamana and shall have equal status with it. (Applause) I hope this will satify members." (Constituent Assembly of India, Vil.XII, 24-1-1950)[2]. Quite an interesting fact to know. --Ragib 00:44, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Cholitobhāshā/Cholitbhāshā/Chalitbhasha

Why are the references to "chalitbhasha" being removed? It is the most common pronunciation of the word. At least leave it in one instance. (Comment left by anon at 149.79.146.138 (talk · contribs))

"Chalitbhasha" is not the correct word. There is no hashanta after soft-taa. so the pronunciation is like Cholito or chalita bhasha, or to be fair to the West Bengali dialect, Cholti bhasha. So, there is no point adding any reference to Chalit bhasha. Thanks. --Ragib 06:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interesting that you would call "choltibhasa" a part of this so-called "West Bengal dialect". I think "cholitbhasha" is just a colloquial form of the word "cholitobhasha". There are some other words in which people assume "implicit hoshonto" when there shouldn't be one or reverse, although I can't think of one off the top of my head right now. The difference between cholti and cholito is not of regional dialect I believe. cholti is what choltibhasha calls itself, while cholito is the shadu form of the work cholti! I don't think cholit is wrong; so while it should be mentioned, the proper word to use is cholti, in my opinion. -- Urnonav 04:43, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vocabulary section

Hi everyone

I added this unnecessarily large section on vocabulary/etymology - I'm realizing now it might be too much. What do you all think? If there are just too many words, feel free to take some/most of them out as you see fit. Or if you think that the whole section needs to be redone, let me know and I'll get around to it.

Thanks

SameerKhan 03:42, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Peer Review

Would anybody object if the article were nominated for peer review? The article is well towards achieving Featured Article status. Ttownfeen 20:03, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sure, sounds great to me. --Ragib 20:10, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. Ttownfeen 02:08, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

It was nominated, but Ttownfeen hasn't been around since to help impliment any of the suggestions. That is critical for a successful peer review. Would someone else like to look at the comments there and take charge of this article's peer review? If not, it will probably be removed pretty soon. - Taxman ^Talk 17:34, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'd be happy to do that. I'll take a look at the comments/suggestions. Thanks --Ragib 17:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

alleged copyvio

A question was raised about this article being copyvio from http://www.translation-services-usa.com/languages/bangla.shtml. This is not correct, because if you look at the bottom of that page, you'd find the source, none other than nationmaster.com , which is a wikipedia mirror. I'm almost sure because I wrote or edited several sections of the page, which show up in that webpage. So, I reverted it back. Thanks. --Ragib 04:45, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

reasons for reverting the recent changes

"shemiz/kamiz" - turns out bangla borrowed the same word twice - once from french, as "shemiz" from "chemise" (the french pronunciation of a pan-mediterranean word) and once from spanish or simultaneously from urdu/farsi/arabic as "kamiz" from "qaamiis" (the arabic pronunciation of the same word). the words do not mean the same thing in bangla - they refer to different articles of clothing.

anyhow, the two words ultimately come from the same place, but it's still important to distinguish the paths of borrowing, as "shemiz" and "kamiz" were borrowed from different modern languages at different times in different contexts.

about "daoat" instead of "dawat", the reasoning is because [w] is a sound that does not occur in that sort of phonological position in bangla. in fact, that is the reason why many bengalis have trouble pronouncing english words like "power" and "hour", sounding more like "paoar" and "aoar". i suppose this may be something only native english speakers notice! furthermore, the way we have been transliterating bangla on wikipedia makes no use of [w], using [u] or [o] instead depending on the exact pronunciation. for example, "khaoa" is written with an [o] although "kaua" (dialectical word for "crow") is written with a [u]. phonetically, only "kaua" has a [w], defined as a high-back glide, while "khaoa" has a nonsyllabic "o", not a [w]. anyhow i am probably not making sense the way i am explaining this, but i just thought i'd explain why i don't think we should be using [w] (or [y] for similar reasons) in transliterating bangla.

--SameerKhan 08:49, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Bangladesh from Bangla

I removed the following phrase from the article:

and that gives us the name of the country "Bangladesh"

Bangla Desh is a word that has been in existence for way longer than the country Bangladesh has existed and was used and still frequently is used to cover what in other words is "Bengal". Hence, whether Bangla came from Bangla Desh or the other way round is what happened is a little "iffy". Also it is totally irrelevant to the article.

Urnonav 07:39, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of Bangla is already there in IPA format. There is no need to add redundant explanations for pronunciation. Thanks. --Ragib 06:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Continuing after our previous conversation (Tarikash (Talk), Ragib (Talk), Bangladesh (Talk), Bengali Lanuage (Talk)) ... IPA characters are not visible in IE(Internet Explorer) unless you have modified it to use unicode fonts, no regular user knows how to do that. So more than 70% people on internet cannot see many characters used in the IPA/unicode, instead they see a ractangular blank box in that character place, that is why we need to explain things in another alternative way. To make a clear conception of correct pronunciation, using example of different words, as well as IPA, is completely fine, and in my opinion, even better. Using only IPA, doesn't clarify the pronunciation. When all browser software will be totally unicode compatible and all users starts to use that type of browser then IPA alone may be enough.
- Tarikash 10:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Many doesn't know how to interpret IPA into pronounceable words, that is why dictionary, and we still use reference to commonly known easy words, to make the word pronunciation easy and correct.
- Tarikash 10:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, if we are to follow that logic, we are to dedicate a paragraph to every article on a non-English name. Articles need to be concise and encyclopedic, your addition is a non-standard, non-encyclopedic paragraph explaining something which is already there. This is not a reader for kindergarten kids, the IPA notation is the standard way of doing this. You just re-invented the wheel. --Ragib 00:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

If you want you can simply bring that 3 or 4 words related to IPA, down into the second paragraph which is explaining the pronunciation correctly, faster, better. Here in USA, 90% people, even some Bangladeshies also often pronounce it wrong, specially when in front of other non-native Bengali speakers. And many make bad jokes about the bad meaning of "Bang" (pronounced like Bangladeshi word for "frog"). This paragraph teaches the correct pronunciation, thus reducing harassment/confusion.
Including the para below ...
Actual pronunciation of "Bangla" is ... bäng-lä ("Bung-laa") ... the letter "a" in the "Bang" is pronounced like the beginning of the word "Bungalow" (single story house), or pronounced like the sound of the letter "ä" in the word "art" or "fathar". "La" is pronounced like the beginning of "Lava" or "Lucky".
- Tarikash 01:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

If someone pronouncing the word "Bangla" in a wrong way, how do you correct him ? do you or does anyone else carry IPA list like bible in their pocket ? ? ? So you can show IPA character and teach him the meanings of those symbols, or find corresponded pronunciation word/characters ? No, no one does that, not even you. We easily give example of commonly used words, so the correct pronunciation becomes easy to understand and speak. Easily pronounciable words can co-exist with IPA. There is nothing wrong in that. These logics are not hard to understand, but if you're blindly ignoring it, then it is different.
- Tarikash 01:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

i don't agree that adding "familiar english words" for comparison is a good idea. there is no way an english speaker, using only english sounds, can pronounce the word "bangla" in the bengali way. adding the "familiar english words" would not help the english speaker any more than not giving any pronunciation guide at all. and i can say for sure that writing "bungalow", "father", etc. will not help native english speakers, considering the "u" in "bungalow" and the "a" in "father" or "art" are not even the same sound (although they may be the same in a bengali speaker's pronunciation). even worse, none of those sounds would actually be the same as the "a" in the bengali pronunciation of "bangla". so even with all the extra work, english speakers would sound just as off as if they just saw boxes for the IPA.

--SameerKhan 22:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Tagore

I removed "Influenced primarily by universalist Hindu philosophy in the Upanishads, Tagore" in the literatire section as Tagore's what was primary influence can be widely debated and perhaps was too wide to describe in a sentence.--ppm 06:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Tagore (actually Robindronath Thakur) was not a Hindu. It is a myth. He was born in a Brahmo Somaj family... a different religion all together. (NOVO)

Jana Gana Mana: "sanskritized Bengali language"

The article Jana Gana Mana begins: "Jana Gana Mana ... is the first of five stanzas of a poem by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, written in the highly sanskritized Bengali language." - There's been some question about whether it's meaningful or appropriate to use this expression "sanskritized Bengali language". Can anyone contribute to this? (Please discuss in Talk:Jana Gana Mana.) Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 16:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I replied there. Thanks. --Ragib 16:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Bangla or Bengali?

I know that "Bangla" now has has greater currency in English (something that I disagree on), but why is it if the title of this page is at "Bengali language", then we use the other spelling? Shouldn't pages be consistent to the title? --Khoikhoi 04:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It's probably that the change was never made in order to avoid a conflict or drama. Or, it could be as simple as no one having bothered to move the page. --Ttownfeen 05:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that Bangla is more widely used. If you listen to Voice of America, you'd hear them announcing the Bangla news program as Bangla. However, remebering Calcutta/Kolkata, I never moved this page. Bengali language is an equally common name, but in Bangladesh or West Bengal, nobody speaks "Bengali", everyone speaks "Bangla". In any case, that doesn't matter much. --Ragib 05:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Our choice of the name should be the most common and the very odd announcement in the lead that the alternative name is to be used throughout the article seems quite arbitrary. We should go by the term used by other English language encyclopedias, not the prefered choice of native speakers communicating in English. Encyclopedia Britannica and Ethnologue both call it "Bengali", for example.

For those who want to insist on "Bangla", you'll have to convince us with more authoritive sources than Voice of America. Either way, the title of the article is the term that should be used consistently and without exceptions.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned before, the language's name is Bangla, not Bengali. This reminds me of the old debate on Calcutta/Kolkata about a year ago. Anyway, the constitution of Bangladesh, written in English, specifically mentions that the state language is "Bangla". What other "authoritative" sources are you asking for? I don't see the need of anything else. Removing systemic bias is one of the goals of wikipedia. Thanks. --Ragib 17:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The name of the language is without question "Bangla" in Bengali, but that is by no means unequivocal in English, and we're discussing the term used in the majority of the English-speaking world, not Bangladesh and programming aimed at Benagali people. If "Bengali" is more common among native English-speakers and English-language sources, then that's the term that should be used.

And by authoritive sources, I mean English-language encyclopedias, linguistic literature, various works of reference, etc. Only one term should be used consistently in the article and that should be the title, not the term listed as alternative. The current use of terms is not satisfactory.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Then let's just move the article to Bangla language and be done with it. --Ttownfeen 20:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

That's the thing, though. I'm fairly convinced that "Bangla" isn't the most common term except in communities who speak Bangla or are associated with Bangladesh. EB and Ethnologue, who are generally quite authoritive when deciding these things, believe "Bengali" is still more appropriate.

And the move shouldn't be to Bangla language, but simply Bangla since there's nothing else called "Bangla". "Language" is a general disambiguator, not an integral part of the name.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Unless anyone has good reasons to object, I'll change the usage of terms in the article to just "Bengali". We can't call an article one thing and then decide to use a different term in the article prose. We already had one complaint about it in the PR and we're bound to get more when we try for FA status.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your point. We need to pick up one term as title, and stick to it through the whole article. --Ragib 20:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

But the official name of the language in Bangladesh, as dictated by the Constitution of Bangladesh (written in English) is "Bangla". So we have at least one country that recognizes Bangla as the official language, calling it "Bangla". Therefore, what we should do is move to article to "Bangla language" or "Bangla". --Ttownfeen 01:44, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

That's what I meant ... we need to pick a single name and stick to it. I'd prefer "Bangla language" too. "Bangla" is a little ambiguous, as that word also stands for the country or region. Thanks. --Ragib 02:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The Bangladeshi constitution is not an appropriate arbitrator for these kinds of issues. This is an question of langauge usage, not of language policy. Even if Bangladesh has a constitution written in English, the population of the country do not make up a majority of the world's English speakers, especially not if we're talking about native speakers. We're supposed to follow the conventions of the English-speaking world as a whole, not just that of Bangladesh. Now I'm not exactly sure what's most common, but some very authoritive sources, including Encyclopedia Britannica and the Ethnologue use "Bengali". "Bengali" also seems to be more common in dictionaries while "Bangla" appears to be in more widespread use in contexts that relate to the Bangla-speaking community. If you have any claims or sources that contradicts this, please present them.

A consistent use of "XXX language" in an article is just not good English. A language name is an autonomous noun, even it often coincides with an adjective. "Bangla" can not be confused with "Bangladesh" in standard English usage.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Peter Isotalo that "Bengali" is a more correct word to use for the Bengali/Bangla language. "Bengali" has been used in English for centuries and is established as an English word. The fact that the Bangladeshi contitution uses "Bangla" does not mean that it is the correct English word - one constitution does not overrule 300 years of English dictionaries, encyclopaedias, academic texts etc. Also, the contitution of India, in English, mentions Bangla/Bengali as "Bengali". However, while "Bengali" is more correct, there is no harm in using "Bangla", as although Bengali is in more common usage (at least in the U.K., where most people will have heard of "Bengali" but have no clue about "Bangla"), Bangla is still used in several contexts and I have seen it used quite a bit, so I suppose both are correct. There's no point changing it all back to "Bengali" and all this bickering over this minor issue is hardly very useful. What's so wrong with using "Bangla" - as long as there is some kind of mention of the fact that Bangla is often known as Bengali, there would be no ambiguity and everyone would understand it properly. Besides, Bangla is being used more and more nowadays, so it's not exactly the same as referring to "French" as "Francais" and "German" as "Deutsch", because "francais" and "deutsch" are not English words, but, nowadays at least, both "Bengali" and "Bangla" are English words. Just thought I would give my opinion... Regards, Tanzeel 11:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that people will complain about it in an FAC. The only comment on article contents in the last PR concerned this very issue. I agree that this is really quite insignificant, but it is confusing if we use one term in the title, establish it in the lead as the most common and then suddenly switch after a few sentences. It smacks of language prescription.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would type out an argument, but frankly, it's just not a big deal to me, either. Bengla probably will gain enough "currency" one day to merit a change, but it seems now isn't it. Just look at how long it's taking the new names of the major Indian cities to take hold.--Ttownfeen 21:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking of Bangla call it Bangla! Bengali is a misnomer created by the British... no need to continue the ignorance. Let people know the real name of the language! (NOVO)

I am partial towards the idea of sticking to the term "Bengali", but I don't feel that strongly about it one way or another. I feel that there is nothing derogatory or incorrect about the term "Bengali", just as there is nothing derogatory or incorrect about the term "Spanish", "German", "Chinese", or "Arabic". I would think it very strange for the Wikipedia entries on these languages to be entitled "Español", "Deutsch", "Zhongwen", or "al-`Arabiyyah". Similarly, I wouldn't expect the Bengali Wikipedia entry on English to be called "English". I would expect it to be called "Ingreji". There is a distinction between language names like "Persian", which is a cover term for a number of languages including "Farsi", and language names like "Bengali", which are basically equivalent to "Bangla" with respect to language. If anyone wants to make a change, I'd support it, but if people want to keep things the way they are, I am totally fine with that as well. I just don't think it's right to say that "Bengali" is "not the real name" or "just a relic of British colonialism". Honestly guys let's lose the melodrama. --SameerKhan 06:24, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The name "Bangla" is not widely used in English I'm afraid, so this article really should stay at "Bengali Language". I agree with everything SameerKhan has written above. This has nothing to do with colonialism, nor is Bengali being singled out for 'derogatory' treatment. It is simply that the names for foreign languages in English are normally different from the names in the languages themselves, it's not a big deal. Wikipedia should stick to the most common English usage. Sikandarji 17:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we've reached a consensus. I was initially in favor of using "Bangla", but I've since then changed my position, and I too support using Bengali consistently throughout the article. Of course, we need to mention in the header page that the language's native name is "Bangla". Other than that, Bangla->Bengali is just fine with me. --Ragib 19:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. So is there a simple way to change mentions of "Bangla" to "Bengali", or do we have to do this by hand? If this is something we should do on a case-by-case basis, I guess we can all start on whatever articles we come across and go from there. --SameerKhan 07:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You can request a bot at WP:BOTREQ. --Ttownfeen 22:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

restoration of TOC

Khoikhoi, thanks for pointing out how the the TOC had found its way to the middle of the article. I inserted a template about a month ago that wraps the Table of Contents in the article text, which removes a lot of white space in the article (a pet peeve of mine). Unfortunately, when SameerKhan rearranged the article, I failed to notice that the TOC had moved as well. That was my mistake.

I also restored "Script" as the first section, not just so I could have a damn wrapped TOC--well, for the most part--but also because the script is an important part of Bangla that should be explained first.

--Ttownfeen 04:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Looks good! --Khoikhoi 05:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah sorry! Totally my bad on the TOC misplacement. I didn't even realize it was in the Script section. Thanks for Khoikhoi for pointing that out and Ttownfeen for fixing that. And about reverting to the old order: if people prefer this order, that's fine. --SameerKhan 09:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Vidyasagar

Vidyasagar, as respectable as he is, doesn't deserve a whole para in a short Bangla literature writeup. That should go to the vidyasagar entry itself. --ppm 17:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I started Bangla literature, and added the Vidyasagar part there. I think any edits in the current article shouldn't increase the size, as the article is about the language itself and less abt the literature.--ppm 19:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I also changed the redirect at Bengali literature to point to Bangla literature (it pointed to this article before). --Ragib 20:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a mess, I know.

About six months after the fact, I've started taking the peer review suggestions (which mainly only amounted to "Look at other language FAs") to try and improve the article. It's not going to be easy, though. The "variations in dialect" is like a 300-lb rock and it's gonna be hard to break up properly. I think you all have probably realized by now that I know about as much Bangla to qualify as a non-speaker. So, I can only mainly contribute by looking at articles for information and for cleanup.

Hopefully, you guys can cleanup the mess I make trying to cleanup the article (if that makes any sense).

Here's to hoping we can get this sucker to FA-status. :-)

--Ttownfeen 06:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...my knowledge about Bangla grammar is quite pathetic, still will try to do whatever possible--ppm 04:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

We need a map showing the Bangla speaking region...one idea is to use Image:IndiaWestBengal.png and paint Bangladesh purple.--ppm 04:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

suggestions

1. Take that list of vocabulary words and put it somewhere else...anywhere. It's just not pretty-looking, to be blunt.
2. Remove the tables. They aren't needed as they are already to be found in the pertinent daughter articles. The flow of the article with improve if those tables are converted to prose.
3. One big thing this articles suffers from is too much specific information. Most people interested in learning about Bangla are not looking for the specific manner in which the inflection of verbs the Kolkota vernacular is different from the formal language. The layman reader will be interested in knowing there is a pronounced difference in Sadhubhasha and Cholitibhasha and would benefit from examples, but what's there now is just overkill. The list of vocabulary words borrowed from other languages is a prounounced example.

Input?

--Ttownfeen 06:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think my tone came out as a little harsh. I am a little irritated because I've been staring at this thing for an hour trying to see what I can do to improve the article without actually changing content. (It was with much hesitation that I've beent trying to pidgeon-hole the former Variation in dialect section into the little subsections of "Geographic distribution".) Much hard work was put into the sections that I would instantaneously dimiss, and that's wrong. To whoever added the things I complained about, if they still read this, thanks for the information. But my message remains the same, the path to FA status is "addition by substraction". --Ttownfeen 06:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Considering the large vocabulary lists and tables are my fault, I should probably offer my thoughts on these suggestions. With respect to the lists, I definitely agree - there are only three things we can do with the lists: (1) move them to a later section, (2) move them into a separate article altogether, or (3) remove them. It's true I spent a lot of time on the vocabulary lists, but I understand that it's neither easy to read nor professional.

With respect to the tables, however, I definitely disagree. I think that the tables are much clearer than the prose. Tables like these are used in other language articles, especially those articles with a neat, organized structure. It makes it much easier for linguistically-oriented people to find reliable information, while it allows more casual readers to get a feel for the system of the language. I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this, but I am strongly attached to all the tables! Others? --SameerKhan 12:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I just moved a lot of the dialectal variation information back down into another section that I just entitled "phonological variation", under "variation in dialects". I agree that this is highly specific information and should not be included in the first mention of dialects. In the "geographic distribution/dialects" section, I added a more basic overview of dialect groups, without really going into any detail on any particular dialect. Does this look a little better? --SameerKhan 12:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks good! RE: the tables. We can work on them; it's not as though we're facing a deadline. RE: the vocabulary words...I really just don't know. They are useful; I just don't how to best make them useful and asthetic. --Ttownfeen 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the tables should stay. What I'm not sure about is the vocabulary section ... really it's an overkill. No need to list an incomplete list of words ... Thanks. --Ragib 04:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay so I redid the vocabulary section, so it's way more readable (I hope!). I removed my lists and added in a pie chart for fun. Maybe all the words that were on there before can be transferred to an entry like this equivalent article on Hindi words? Or we could just forget them altogether!

I'll work on the other lists (lexical variations, etc) at a later date. --SameerKhan 08:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Great job on the vocabulary section. I think the piechart is awesome! --Ttownfeen 05:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

reference to wikipedia

In a wikipedia article on a subject, it is not correct to talk irrelevantly about wikipedia. Sure, not too many people from Bengal are into wikipedia. That's not, in any way, a measure of any type of status of a language. There are 100s of other factors. But most importantly, talking about wikipedia and other things in a wikipedia article about a language is not encyclopedic, and irrelevant.

Next, the social status of Bangla is nowhere as low as mentioned. In Bangladesh, it is true that the most affluent 1 or 2% may look into English as a social status symbol, but the rest of the 98%, and most media DO focus on Bangla. A look into contemporary media in Bangladesh (TV, news, drama etc) would justify that completely.

In light of that, I removed the irrelevant comments about the status. Because, simply put, the comments are not correct. Thanks. --Ragib 05:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

ugh i am horrible with the charts

hi all,

to anyone who can fix charts: can you make my diphthong chart be NOT bold? and can it be centered? is it too big? should i split it into two smaller charts? or should i get rid of it altogether? i thought it would show something special about bangla (well, about all the eastern indic languages actually), but if it's too ugly, we can get rid of it. --SameerKhan 11:27, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I got it to not be bold, though I'm sure if it was to degree you wanted. I'm working on how to center it. --Ttownfeen 19:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

sounds vs phonology

What's the difference between the two? They seem similar enough that it would good if we could merge the two sections into one. --Ttownfeen 19:15, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There is absolutely no difference. "Sounds" is just more user-friendly.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Webpage for Bengali phrases

I believe our website satisfies the requirements to be listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bengali_language URL of our site is: http://www.linguistsguide.com/English_Bengali.htm Description: Bengali words and phrases. Hope our site will be listed in the external links section Thanks

Yet another spam!! --Ragib 06:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This is not a spam message. Linguistsguide is the first result for the search 'learning bengali'. I hope this site will be useful to the visitors of Wikipedia-bengali_language. I apologise to you for writing message in a way that seems to be an advertisement. Hope a positive response from you. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.145.159.44 (talk • contribs)

Exactly, you just explained why your message is a spam!! Wikipedia is not out there to promote your site's google ranks. Thanks. --Ragib 15:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

But I have posted a message according to the information I got from this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Links (the information is like this 'Do you think your site qualifies? Leave a message on the talk page of the article where you want your link added. The talk page is accessed by clicking the "discussion" tab when viewing the page.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.145.159.44 (talk • contribs)

I did take a look, and saw a commercial website intent on getting google adsense revenues. The intention of the External links section is to have links relevant to a page, and not to direct traffic to your website. Thanks. --Ragib 15:49, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Please open this page and go through the links. You will find sites with many more number of google advertisements than our site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam_language . I have just given an example. In many Wikipedea pages there are links with commercial content. I understand the pages that you maintain does not contain sites with commercial content.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.145.159.44 (talk • contribs)

Rather than continuing this conversation, I suggest you take a look at WP:NOT and WP:SPAM, and refrain from spamming. Wikipedia is NOT a link farm. Your only intention, as seen from your pattern of mass spamming language articles, it to draw traffic to your ad-filled site. Sorry, but no thanks, wikipedia can live without these links. --Ragib 16:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

First you said commercial content. Now you say spam. The norms you cited are circumstancial. It is you who decide whether it is spam. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Links , my message in not a spam. You can declare it spam by the norm that you have shown to me. And 'usually' spammers are those who cause annoyance to the receiver by sending advertisement messages( in my case I have not advertised. I sent you a personal message for adding my website as an external link). And if you think the message as spam, rather than continuing the discussion you should have deleted the message(in Ref to your comment: 'Yet another spam!! '. And you have declared it spam after so much conversation. I too understand that there is no meaning in continuing this discussion.I have sent these messages to your consideration and not the public. So I request your permission to delete this discussion.(I tried to delete this discussion, but for some reason you have not given the permission. Thats why I am writing this message) Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.145.159.44 (talk • contribs)

The vocabulary graph

The graph says the largest amount is native vocabulary, but the text says is sanskrit borrowings. Either the text or the graph got it mixed up. LodeRunner 05:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The text claries it in the next sentence.--ppm 01:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Second peer review?

The article seems to have stablized. Maybe time for some external review?--ppm 19:31, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added some things to do in the to do-list. They're pretty much the kind of requests that will show up at a peer review.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think it was absolutely necessary to ask for a new peer review. We know a lot of what the article lacks already. --Ttownfeen 20:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I can recommend doing it once more when people don't have anything else to comment on here. There are usually quite interesting and fresh insights that can be offered at PRs.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Map

Will this map work? Image:Bangla_extent.png I used the world map used all over wikipedia for this one.--ppm 19:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

It's makeshift, I must admit, but it's better than anything I could have come up with. I'd go ahead and put it in. --Ttownfeen 20:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

One doubt I had is whether Tripura should be added or not--ppm 22:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Sound samples

What are sound samples?--ppm 19:28, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Audio files of someone speaking the language. --Ttownfeen 20:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I can give it a try if I get some specs. How long? Literature? Conversations?--ppm 22:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

A short passage or two from some a popular work of literature would be really nice. Preferably something that isn't too controversial and, if possible, known to most speakers of Bangla. And try to put your best effort into both both the recital and the sound quality. It doesn't have to be perfect, but avoid sounding dry or monotone. Give it a few tries, if anything.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

File:02 abani bari2.ogg is a poem by Shakti Chattopadyay. It is famous, and not contrvoersial. I am not adding it myself, as I am not sure the sound quality is sufficient. Pls feel free to be scathing in you comments. I'll try to do a Bangladesh piece (may be prose this time) soon.--ppm 19:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The sound quality seems good to me. Could we have more information about the poem though? A transcription, full title, when it was written, etc. A translation, even if just a rough one, would be nice.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:04, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Here u are. For those who know the poem, I must apologize for the indifferent translation--ppm 21:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's excellent. I'm no expert, but it seems ready to go to the article. --Ttownfeen 22:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now it's tentatively placed in literature section.--ppm 03:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Another map

This one is probably better: Image:Location-Bangla01.png--ppm 03:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I inserted it. Now, do we want a color coded map like Russian? If so, these questions need to be answered:
1. Is Bengali an "official" language in India? (it IS a "state language")
2. Which countries do have significant "pockets" of Bengali speakers? (UK? West Indies?)--ppm 03:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

If an international extent map were to be created, I would suggest three levels: offical status, semi-official status (or some more elegant name), and existing communities.

Answering your first question, I refer to Languages of India, which states:

While 22 major languages are recognized as "Official Languages" by the Constitution of India, Hindi, in the Devanagari script, is often wrongly assumed by many people in India to be the only national language of the union (federal) government of India. While Hindi has been adopted along with English as the official language of the central government, no special status is bestowed on either Hindi or any other language as the sole 'national' language of India.

And, of course, there are all things in our article. Basically, Bangla's status in India is complicated. I think it might be easier to answer the second question, strange as that is. I'd say that most Bangla speaking communities are limited to the US and Commonweath nations. I might throw in places like Malayasia, Singapore, and Japan. And of course, there's the middle east (specifally the Gulf countries). I really can't of other places were you would find large Bangla-speaking populations.

--Ttownfeen 05:37, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

So I guess you're suggesting, 3 colors - one for Bangladesh, one for India, another for the rest. --ppm 05:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

>>> I have a small information to add here. I am not sure whether you know this or whether it's relevant here at all ! But here it is: LIBERIA has included Bangla as one of their state languages (in recognition of the role and contribution of the Bangladeshi Peacekeepers there). I am not 100% sure of the details, but that's what the BD media has reported.

Do you think this has any relevance here ?--Monmajhi 21:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

can u give a reference pls? I kinda remember that being Sierra Lionne, no?--ppm 03:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

>> Yap, you are right! It IS Sierra Lionne. They've declared Bangla as the 2nd State Language (phrase retranslated from bangla news item) of their country. Here is a reference from the 17th April 2006 issue of a Bangla daily newspaper  : http://www.prothom-alo.net/v1/newhtmlnews1/category.php?CategoryID=1&Date=2006-04-17&filename=17h22  ;

This is not the original news item on this issue nor is it mainly about Bangla's status as state language there in Sierra Leonne, but it does mention this.

--Monmajhi 01:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Uploaded a global map. Data from http://www.iom.int/DOCUMENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/bangladesh_diaspora.pdf.
--ppm 00:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks excellent, but is it supposed to be in the infobox? --Ttownfeen 21:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

That's where it is for Russian language and Spanish language--ppm 15:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Verb Inflection

I enjoyed the little table of examples of noun declension. Might this also be done for two or three verbs? In particular, a little paragraph of how 'systematic' is the verb inflection would be interesting. for example, in english, present/past inflection is quite unsystematic, e.g. speak, spoke; run, ran; but there is also regularity like e.g. smash, smashed; look, looked etc. something to get a flavor of 1) classifiation of verb inflections 2) how each class generally inflects. -- Wilgamesh 05:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. We'll definitely look into that. I went ahead and placed the task in the todo list. --Ttownfeen 21:57, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested in some of the tables at Bengali grammar#Verbs, though it's been a while since I worked on them. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Grammar sections that are divided into sub-sections based on individual word classes are problematic. They tend to get fractionalized, make for very tedious reading and make it harder to get a general overview. With the word class-division they also attract a lot of tables and lists. May I suggest you try writing more generalized? Try to focus on what makes Bangla unique compared to a) other languages around the world b) closely related languages and c) neighboring, but unrelated languages.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that organizing it into subclasses and using tables makes it an easier read, as people can just skip to what they want to read about, instead of sifting through a generalized grammatical overview. Of course, it would be great to start the grammar section with a sort of simple overview of the language, but using such a paragraph to replace what we have now would be basically ignoring most of the richness of the language. If readers can't tell that the charts show what makes Bengali interesting and different, then they probably won't appreciate it even if we say "this is what makes Bengali interesting and different". --SameerKhan 07:05, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm very interested in all aspects of linguistics, yet even I find the word class-structure rather dull to read and overly rigid. We're writing articles that are intended to be read by the widest possible audience, not just to satisfy us wikiaficionados and hobby linguists.

The section here in the main aritcle ought to be written to make it as easy as possible for those who've never even heard of Bangla before to understand and appreciate it. There's plenty of room to get much more specific in a dedicated sub-article.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Phonology transcription

The article is coming along nicely, but I'm skeptical about the double set of phonology tables right now. They should be merged to make them easier to read. It might also be a good idea to use normal Latin orthography to avoid too much difficulty with browsers that have problems with Unicode, but in that case, the use of "ţ", "đ" and "ŗ" rather spoils the whole idea since they seem like fairly obscure characters. I would also recommend trying to use ^h to display /bʰ/, instead of using /bh/ (or /bhh/ for that matter) since I'm pretty sure it shows up even on rather restricted browsers.
And is /ê/ really less problematic to display than /æ/?

Peter ^Isotalo 07:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

It's unfortunate, but there's not that much that can be done about making the transliteration all that easier for browsers. It's tough when the language in question has so many more distinctions to deal with. We could start making a capital-lower case distinction, but I really think that that is visually not so pleasing and would make people not realize the phonemic distinction at hand. For the IPA, if the browser can't support it, I don't think it's a big deal. The IPA is used in all the best language articles, and I don't think it's necessary to make adaptations to fit everyone's browser, since we use the transliteration throughout the article anyway. About /ê/ and /æ/, the difference is just to keep consistency within the system. Both of them are basically equally prevalent for most browsers, and the /ê/ works better with the fact that it is phonologically the front counterpart of /ô/, while /æ/ looks like the front counterpart of /a/ (as in Farsi or English). Also, it makes it easier to see correspondences with related languages like Assamese, which would have an [ɛ] for the /ê/ sound. Anyhow... let's first see if anyone else has any thoughts instead of having me blab on! --SameerKhan 07:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

If we can make it easier for people to read our notation we should do it. There is no point in throwing up our hands because it requires some compromises.

If "ţ", "đ" and "ŗ" are just as difficult to decode as the equivalent IPA, then IPA should be used. The same goes for /ê/, /ô/. The relevant system is a phonology of Bangla in IPA. If the IPA here is incorrect accordnig to available sources on Bangla phonology, then fix the transcription, but don't use nonstandard (non-IPA) transcription unless necessary. How /a/ may be pronounced in other languages isn't relevant.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree about "ţ", "đ" and "ŗ". If they really are just as hard to encode as the IPA equivalents, let's just go with something else. I wouldn't suggest the IPA because we've been trying to stick to letters that have both a capital and lower case version for these articles. Unfortunately, the IPA doesn't have capital retroflexes. Any ideas from anyone out there? If there really is nothing easier, I'd say we stick to the system we have for now.

With respect to the vowels, I don't think I made myself understood. First of all, the IPA is not an adequate system for transcribing the phonology of any language. It's meant to serve as a phonetic transcription tool, not a phonemic representation. That's why we have both IPA and Romanization versions. When I said that we should keep ê and ô in the Romanization, my reasoning was not that they are more phonetically accurate, or that we should respect the guidelines of other languages' Romanizations, but that they best represent the Bengali phonology itself. The fact that Bengali has patterns of high- and low-mid vowel harmony between e and ê, and o and ô makes it best to maintain some visual pattern in the transcription. If we went with the IPA or some other system, it'd be difficult to see why some verbs switch between [e] and [æ] or [o] and [ɔ]. These would look like random patterns to someone not trained in the IPA. Even someone who has never seen ô and ê before can see that they must be something close to o and e, as is true in the Bengali phonology. Also, when transcribing a language with the sounds [æ] and [a], it is generally understood (even in the IPA-savvy world) that the [a] represents a back vowel (even if this is not true following very strict IPA), as it is presumably being differentiated from a front [æ]. However, when there is only an [a] and no [æ] in the language, the [a] is assumed to be more central/front (as it is in Bangla). Romanizing the [æ] as [ê] instead of [æ] keeps the phonology- or phonetics-trained reader from mistaking the Bangla vowel system for the Assamese style front-[a] and back-[ɒ] system or the English/Farsi style front-[æ] back-[ɑ] system. Anyhow, let's see what others think about this.

History

Looking at FA language articles ([3]) it seems that many of them have a well written History section. We should consider doing that here, with the "modern history" going as a subsection.--ppm 04:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge

merge "Variation in dialects" and "Dialects" - the best way to do this is to delete the first one (variations)--ppm 00:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Manipuri

"Meithei (Manipuri), a Sino-Tibetan language used in the Indian state of Manipur, was written in the Bengali alphasyllabary for centuries, until the 1980s, when Meetei-Mayek (the Meithei alphasyllabary) returned to daily usage. " --- this needs reference. The Meetei-Mayek article itself talks about efforts to reinstate it, not it being in daily usage. This webpage of an Indian ministry seems to suggest the exact opposite:Manipuri--ppm 23:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Literature in a linguistic article

It really pains me to point this out only now, when plenty of work has been done on it, but the section on literature doesn't belong in an article about a language. While it's certainly relevant to Bangla, the article is about linguistics, not literature, and hence a separate section on literature simply isn't included in the language template nor do any FAs have a section on literature. On the other hand, it would make a wonderful addition to Bengali literature which currently has no references.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Edited Examples of E-W Variations

hello,

i deleted two examples of different but synonymous bengali-derived words, one used in West Bengal and the other in bangladesh.

first, i have lived in calcutta and other WB districts for more than 30 years, and very, very few people actually call turmeric 'haldi'. the overwhelming majority call it 'holud', just as in bangladesh. so i deleted that line.

secondly, 'thakurjhi' is not the *name* of the relationship; the husband's sister is still referred to as 'nonod', as in bangladesh. it is only when she is *addressed* is the word 'thakurjhi' sometimes used, and even then not always. other salutations like the simple 'didi' are at least as common. i deleted that line, too.

i added an example to this section, the usage of 'bari' as opposed to 'basha', which has always struck me as important, especially so when i visited dhaka in 1996. however, i do not know how to write the 'daw-e-shunno raw' of 'bari' in the roman script, so i just wrote 'bari'. someone please correct this, if a correction is needed.

- tathagata (tathagatab at gmail dot com)

Thanks for your input! --SameerKhan 18:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

To-do

Can someone possibly look at the to-do list and do an update? --ppm 15:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)