128-615: Bir Bikrom ( Bengali : বীর বিক্রম , lit. 'Valiant hero') is the third highest gallantry award in Bangladesh . Like the other gallantry awards, this was introduced immediately after the Bangladeshi Liberation War . Bir Bikrom was awarded to 175 fighters. 175 fighters have been awarded on 15 December 1973 for their heroic actions at the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. The government of Bangladesh declared
256-492: A bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from
384-410: A considerable role in rousing the people's emotions during the movement. Since the events of February 1952, poems, songs, novels, plays, films, cartoons, and paintings were created to capture the movement from the varied point of views. Notable artistic depictions include the poems Bornomala, Amar Dukhini Bornomala and February 1969 by Shamsur Rahman , the film Jibon Theke Neya by Zahir Raihan ,
512-590: A different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west. Bengali exhibits diglossia , though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax : Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises
640-480: A diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following: In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic ; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô -hô- jo -gi- ta "cooperation", where
768-590: A general strike began. At the assembly, six legislators including Manoranjan Dhar , Boshontokumar Das, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Dhirendranath Datta requested that chief minister Nurul Amin visit wounded students in hospital and that the assembly be adjourned as a sign of mourning. This motion was supported by some treasury bench members including Maulana Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish , Shorfuddin Ahmed, Shamsuddin Ahmed Khondokar and Mosihuddin Ahmed. However, Nurul Amin refused
896-672: A large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore , which borders Odisha , have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar , some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari , Kaithi and Tirhuta . In Sylhet and Bankura , modified versions of
1024-810: A long circular (No. 10) titled 'Rashtra Bhashar Andolan' was promoted to the Secretariat of the Bengali Provincial Organizing Committee before the Communist Party of Pakistan '. In this circular, the Communist Party's statement, line, and organizational duties regarding the language movement are clearly indicated. In accordance with the principles and lines of the State Language Movement laid down in Party Circular No. 10 of
1152-592: A mainly ethnic Bengali population. In 1948, the Government of the Dominion of Pakistan ordained as part of Islamization of East Pakistan or East Bengal that Urdu will be the sole federal language, alternately Bengali writing in the Perso-Arabic script or Roman script ( Romanisation of Bengali ) or Arabic as the state language of the whole of Pakistan was also proposed, sparking extensive protests among
1280-660: A majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB. The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects. Even in SCB,
1408-501: A memorandum and sent it to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. The Prime Minister did not respond to this either. In the height of civic unrest, Governor-General of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah arrived in Dhaka on 19 March 1948. On 21 March, at a civic reception at Racecourse Ground , he claimed that the language issue was designed by a " fifth column " to divide Pakistani Muslims. Jinnah further declared that "Urdu, and only Urdu" embodied
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#17330857726901536-609: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Bengali language movement Collective leadership The Bengali language movement was a political movement in former East Bengal in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co- lingua franca of the then- Dominion of Pakistan to allow its use in government affairs,
1664-416: A public meeting held in Dhaka, where community leaders called for the immediate release of Maulana Bhashani and other political prisoners. However, Pakistani politicians such as Fazlur Rahman aggravated sectional tensions by declaring that anyone who wanted Bengali to become an official language would be considered an "enemy of the state". Bengali students and civilians disobeyed the restrictions to celebrate
1792-562: A rounded total of 280 million) worldwide. The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal , which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal . Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura , southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Bengali is also spoken in
1920-435: A single language, one that was not indigenous to Pakistan, should serve as the national language. This kind of thinking also provoked considerable opposition in the western wing, wherein there existed several linguistic groups. As late as in 1967, military dictator Ayub Khan said, "East Bengal is ... still under considerable Hindu culture and influence." The Shorbodolio Kendrio Rashtrobhasha Kormi Porishod , with support from
2048-408: A special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্) , may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m] ). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô , may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in
2176-575: A state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan . On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka ; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan. 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000. In 2010,
2304-570: A state language was formed towards the end of December 1947. Professor Nurul Huq Bhuiyan of the Tamaddun Majlish convened the committee. Later, Parliament member Shamsul Huq convened a new committee to push for Bengali as a state language. Assembly member Dhirendranath Datta proposed legislation in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to allow members to speak in Bengali and authorise its use for official purposes. Datta's proposal
2432-609: A survey among teachers, intellectuals, high civil servants, members of the Legislative Council, according to which, out of 301 respondents, 96 favoured the introduction of the Arabic script, 18 the Roman script and 187 gave opinion in favour of the retention of the Bengali script. Besides, many people did not give any answer. The committee produced its report by 6 December 1950; but it was not published before 1958. Here an effective measure
2560-463: A vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি) . A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form. In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô , three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are
2688-494: Is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram , a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it
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#17330857726902816-536: Is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language . Bengali
2944-468: Is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs , and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words . Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra . Since
3072-482: Is a major national holiday in Bangladesh. A month-long event called the Ekushey Book Fair is held every year to commemorate the movement. Ekushey Padak , one of the highest civilian awards in Bangladesh, is awarded annually in memory of the sacrifices of the movement. Songs such as Abdul Gaffar Choudhury 's Ekusher Gaan , set to music by Shaheed Altaf Mahmud , as well as plays, works of art and poetry played
3200-400: Is an abugida , a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô ) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked. The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century). It
3328-668: Is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka ( Sri Lanka Matha ) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore , while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala . After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone ,
3456-699: Is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata , a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District . There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use
3584-404: Is known as Apabhraṃśa , by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time. Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating. The local Apabhraṃśa of
3712-488: Is observed as Language Movement Day , a national holiday. The Shaheed Minar monument was constructed near Dhaka Medical College in memory of the movement and its victims. On 17 September 1999, UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day , in tribute to the Language Movement and the ethnolinguistic rights of people around the world. The present-day nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of
3840-477: Is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme). Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs , combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable . Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/ , are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of
3968-545: Is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It is the second-most widely spoken language in India . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam . It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It
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4096-500: Is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal , and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar , Arunachal Pradesh , Delhi , Chhattisgarh , Meghalaya , Mizoram , Nagaland , Odisha and Uttarakhand . Bengali is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America,
4224-500: The Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist . Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji , Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda , and Muhammad Enamul Haq . The Digital Revolution has also played
4352-660: The Arabic , Persian , and Turkic languages . The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist -ruling Pala Empire , from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including
4480-477: The Awami Muslim League , decided to commemorate 21 February as Shohid Dibosh . On the first anniversary of the protests, people across East Bengal wore black badges in solidarity with the victims. Most offices, banks and educational institutions were closed to observe the occasion. Student groups made agreements with college and police officials to preserve law and order. More than 100,000 people assembled at
4608-519: The Bengali-speaking majority of East Bengal . Facing rising sectarian tensions and mass discontent with the new law, the government outlawed public meetings and rallies. The students of the University of Dhaka and other political activists defied the law and organised a protest on 21 February 1952. The movement reached its climax when police killed student demonstrators on that day. The deaths provoked widespread civil unrest. After years of conflict,
4736-702: The British Indian Empire . From the mid-19th century, the Urdu language had been promoted as the lingua franca of Indian Muslims by political and religious leaders, such as Sir Khwaja Salimullah , Sir Syed Ahmed Khan , Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq . Urdu is a Central Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch , closely related to Hindi and belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It developed under Persian , Arabic and Turkic influence on apabhramshas (last linguistic stage of
4864-468: The Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 , made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh. It is also the de facto national language of
4992-486: The Dhaka High Court . The rally changed its direction and moved in the direction of the Secretariat building. Police attacked the procession injuring several students and leaders, including A. K. Fazlul Huq . Continuing strikes were observed the following four days. Under such circumstances, the chief minister Nazimuddin signed an accord with the student leaders agreeing to some terms and conditions, without complying to
5120-564: The Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra . Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c. 1869 . Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in
5248-520: The Nadia region . Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia , with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian , Arabic , Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact. In
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5376-590: The University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh ) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature. The national anthems of both Bangladesh ( Amar Sonar Bangla ) and India ( Jana Gana Mana ) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore . Notuner Gaan known as " Chol Chol Chol"
5504-499: The boldface represents primary and secondary stress. Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters ; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school". The Bengali-Assamese script
5632-557: The phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti , Chittagonian and Chakma , have contrastive tone ; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong
5760-411: The "Urdu-only" policy was seen as a contravention of the Perso-Arabic culture of Muslims and the founding ideology of Pakistan, the two-nation theory . Some of the most powerful politicians from the western wing of Pakistan considered Urdu a product of Indian Islamic culture, but saw Bengali as a part of "Hinduized" Bengali culture. Most stood by the "Urdu only" policy because they believed that only
5888-560: The 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of
6016-571: The 1950s and 1960s. Although the question of official languages was settled by 1956, the military regime of Ayub Khan promoted the interests of West Pakistan at the expense of East Pakistan . Despite forming the majority of the national population, the East Pakistani population continued to be under-represented in the civil and military services, and received a minority of state funding and other government help. Due to regional economic, social, and political imbalances, sectional divisions grew, and
6144-588: The 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali: In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement . This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh ), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as
6272-576: The 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty . During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa . Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by
6400-451: The Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra . The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example,
6528-573: The Bengali ethnic nationalist Awami League invoked the 6-point movement for greater provincial autonomy. One demand was that East Pakistan be called Bangladesh (Land/Country of Bengal), which subsequently led to the Bangladesh Liberation War . The Language Movement had a major cultural impact on Bengali society. It has inspired the development and celebration of the Bengali language, literature and culture. 21 February, celebrated as Language Movement Day or Shohid Dibosh (Martyrs' Day),
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#17330857726906656-426: The Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments , but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel , either [ɔ] as in মত [m ɔ t] "opinion" or [o] , as in মন [m o n] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ] . To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it,
6784-543: The Dominion of Pakistan and as a medium of education in East Bengal. However, the Pakistan Public Service Commission removed Bengali from the list of approved subjects, as well as from currency notes and stamps. The central education minister Fazlur Rahman made extensive preparations to make Urdu the only state language of the Dominion of Pakistan. Public outrage spread, and many Bengali students met on
6912-415: The Dominion of Pakistan. Political leaders such as Shamsul Huq, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman , Shawkat Ali , M Sirajul Islam , Kazi Golam Mahboob , Oli Ahad , Abdul Wahed and others were arrested during the rallies. In the afternoon of 11 March, a meeting was held to protest police brutality and arrests. A group of students marching towards the chief minister Khawaja Nazimuddin 's house was stopped in front of
7040-616: The East Bengal Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Pakistan dated February 11, they circulated a cyclostyled manifesto on February 20, which read, "Respond to the call of the All-Union State Language Working Committee. Do strike, hartal, meeting and march across the province on 21st February to demand Bengali as one of the national languages with equal status for all languages.” This brief manifesto calls for, “English shall no longer be
7168-403: The Language Movement is considered to have laid the foundations for ethnic nationalism in many of the Bengalis of East Bengal and later East Pakistan, it also heightened the cultural animosity between the authorities of the two wings of Pakistan. In the western wing of the Dominion of Pakistan, the movement was seen as a sectional uprising against Pakistani national interests. The rejection of
7296-520: The Middle East and other regions. Bengali was accorded the status of a classical language by the government of India on 3 October 2024. It is the second most spoken and fourth fastest growing language in India , following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei ( Manipuri ), along with Gujarati , in the third place, according to the 2011 census of India . Bengali has developed over more than 1,400 years. Bengali literature , with its millennium-old literary history,
7424-666: The Muslims of the Arab world, North Africa and Indonesia. On February 10, 1951, the Secretary of the Pakistan Buddhist League, Rabindranath Burmi, issued a statement opposing these proposals in favour of Urdu instead of Arabic as state language. These proposals to make Arabic the state language did not gain much support in any part of Pakistan. However, according to Badruddin Umar, as this demand
7552-599: The Roman alphabet in his article entitled "Bangla Bornomalar Poribortton" (বাংলা বর্ণমালার পরিবর্ত্তন, Changes in the Bengali Alphabet) published in Daily Azad on 18 April 1949. The romanisation proposal continued on even after 1952. In 1957, the East Pakistan Education Commission recommended the use of the revised Roman script in adult education. Around 1957–1958, there was a significant demand for
7680-537: The United Front ministry, and was approved by a planning committee chaired by University of Dhaka Vice-Chancellor Mahmud Husain and College of Fine Arts principal Zainul Abedin . Hamidur Rahman's model consisted of a large complex in the yard of the Dhaka Medical College Hostel. The design included a half-circular column symbolising a mother with her martyred sons standing at the dais in the centre of
7808-628: The University of Dhaka campus on 8 December 1947 to formally demand that Bengali be made an official language. To promote their cause, Bengali students organised processions and rallies in Dhaka. Leading Bengali scholars argued why Urdu should not be the only state language. The writer Abul Mansur Ahmed said if Urdu became the state language, the educated society of East Bengal would become 'illiterate' and 'ineligible' for government positions. The first Rastrabhasa Sangram Parishad (National Language Action Committee), an organisation in favour of Bengali as
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#17330857726907936-491: The University of Dhaka premises in defiance of Section 144. The university vice-chancellor and other officials were present as armed police surrounded the campus. By a quarter past eleven, students gathered at the university gate and attempted to break the police line. Police fired tear gas shells towards the gate to warn the students. A section of students ran into the Dhaka Medical College while others rallied towards
8064-665: The anniversary of the protests. Demonstrations broke out on the night of 21 February 1954 with various halls of the University of Dhaka raising black flags in mourning. Political tensions came to a held as elections to the provincial assembly of East Bengal were held in 1954. The ruling Muslim League denounced the opposition United Front coalition, which—led by A. K. Fazlul Huq and the Awami League—wanted greater provincial autonomy. Several United Front leaders and activists were arrested. A meeting of parliament's Muslim League members, chaired by prime minister Muhammad Ali Bogra , resolved to give official recognition to Bengali. This decision
8192-408: The assembly. When a group of students sought to storm into the building, police opened fire and killed a number of students, including Abdus Salam , Rafiq Uddin Ahmed , Shafiur Rahman , Abul Barkat and Abdul Jabbar . The Government reported that 29 people died in that day. As the news of the killings spread, disorder erupted across the city. Shops, offices and public transport were shut down and
8320-536: The basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh ( Barisal , Chittagong , Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives . Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [ tɕɔ ] , ছ [ tɕʰɔ ] , জ [ dʑɔ ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ] , ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ] , জ [dzɔ~zɔ] . The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on
8448-450: The central government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language in 1956. The Language Movement catalysed the assertion of Bengali national identity in East Bengal and later East Pakistan, and became a forerunner to Bengali nationalist movements, including the 6-Point Movement and subsequently the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 . In Bangladesh, 21 February ( Ekushey February )
8576-423: The clauses, Bengali language was given equal recognition as state language like Urdu. In Parliament and the Legislative Assembly, besides Urdu and English, there was an opportunity to speak in Bengali. The constitution also provided opportunities for higher education in Bengali. However, the military government formed by Ayub Khan made attempts to re-establish Urdu as the sole national language. On 6 January 1959,
8704-469: The consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in
8832-572: The construction of a Shaheed Smritistombho , or Monument of Martyrs. Completed at dawn on 24 February, the monument had a handwritten note attached to it with the words "Shaheed Smritistombho" . Inaugurated by the father of the slain activist Sofiur Rahman, the monument was destroyed on 26 February by police. On 25 February, industrial workers in the town of Narayanganj observed a general strike. A protest followed on 29 February whose participants faced severe police beating. The government censored news reports and withheld exact casualty figures during
8960-414: The continuation of its use as a medium of education, its use in media, currency and stamps, and to maintain its writing in the Bengali alphabet / Bengali script When the Dominion of Pakistan was formed after the separation of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, when the British left, it was composed of various ethnic and linguistic groups, with the geographically non-contiguous East Bengal province having
9088-455: The country. In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam . Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. In Pakistan , Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan . The Department of Bengali in
9216-522: The decision. On 7 May 1954, the constituent assembly resolved, with the Muslim League's support, to grant official status to Bengali. Bengali was adopted as an official language of Pakistan along with Urdu in the article 214(1) when the first constitution of Pakistan was enacted on 29 February 1956. Mohammad Ali Bogra raised the language related clauses of the constitution in Parliament. According to
9344-565: The demand for Bengali language in the certificate issued by the Dhaka University Central Student Union was again raised, but he refrained from making any comments. In a meeting of the National Language Working Council held under the chairmanship of Ataur Rahman Khan on November 17, Aziz Ahmad , Abul Kashem , Sheikh Mujibur Rahman , Kamruddin Ahmed , Abdul Mannan , Tajuddin Ahmed and others drafted
9472-478: The demand that Bengali be made a state language. On 6 April 1948, in East Bengal Assembly resolution was passed making Bengali an official language of the province by Nazimuddin led Muslim League government. On November 18, 1948, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan visited East Pakistan. On November 27, he addressed a student meeting at the playground of Dhaka University. In that meeting,
9600-454: The demonstration, the government imposed Section 144 in Dhaka, thereby banning any gathering. According to the earlier decision, students of Dhaka University and other educational institutions gathered at Dhaka University premises on February 4. The rally protested the proposal to write Bengali in Arabic script and demanded Bengali as the state language. The students took out a huge demonstration after their assembly. On February 11, 1952,
9728-587: The development of Dobhashi . Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah . Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali, allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate. Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian , which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on
9856-540: The driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state separate from British India. After the partition of India in 1947, Bengali-speaking people in East Bengal , the non-contiguous eastern part of the Dominion of Pakistan , made up 44 million of the newly formed Dominion of Pakistan's 69 million people. The Dominion of Pakistan's government, civil services, and military, however, were dominated by personnel from
9984-672: The east to Meherpur in the west. The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam , composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet . After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan ; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement. In
10112-643: The eastern part of the British Indian sub-continent) primarily used the Bengali language. Bengali is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language that arose from the eastern Middle Indic languages around 1000 CE and developed considerably with a rich literature, history and cultural identity. Unlike many other Indic Languages, Bengali got patronage from the States and Empires in the Middle Ages. During the Bengal Renaissance ,
10240-549: The eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages , the Bihari languages , and the Odia language . The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around
10368-616: The effort to introduce the Arabic alphabet in Bengal. Both Karim Fazli and Fazlur Rahman established a society called 'Hurful Qur'an Samity' with a Maulana named Zulfikar Ali of Chittagong and tried to form a movement to introduce Arabic letters in Bengal through him. Abdul Hakim, the former director of the East-Bengal Education Department said; "Some funny legends are heard in Dhaka about a Bengali Wazir Sahib's own knowledge of Urdu. He wanted to fulfill his ardent desire to beautify
10496-466: The final ন in মন [m o n] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla] ). A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures . These allographs, called কার kar , are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example,
10624-431: The following demands: Disorder spread across the province as large processions ignored section 144 and condemned the actions of the police. More than 30,000 people congregated at Curzon Hall in Dhaka. During the continued protests, police actions led to the death of four more people. This prompted officers and clerks from different organisations, including colleges, banks and the radio station, to boycott offices and join
10752-714: The government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002. In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations . Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum . Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi , Vangiya , Kamrupi and Varendri ; but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects ( Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form
10880-499: The graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i] , where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar ) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma] , মী [mi] , মু [mu] , মূ [mu] , মৃ [mri] , মে [me~mɛ] , মৈ [moj] , মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures,
11008-412: The graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden. Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi –
11136-521: The implementation of Bengali language written in Arabic script (Bengali language with the "Hurful Qur'an"). At the Nikhil Pakistan Teachers' Conference held in Karachi on 29 December 1948, Fazlur Rahman proposed to write Bengali in Arabic script for the sake of Islamization of the language. East Bengal Provincial Education Department Secretary Fazle Ahmad Karim Fazli was one of the main initiators of
11264-472: The in order to be admired by the all-powerful Urdu Mahal of the Centre. For this purpose, a sum of Rs. 35,000 per annum for the publication of books was arranged to hand over the central sanction to the aforesaid Provincial Education Secretary.” In response, Muhammad Shahidullah opposed the proposal, fearing further complications, and advocated making Bengali unchanged as the state language of East Bengal and one of
11392-483: The language as: While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However,
11520-510: The language movement. Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit . These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit ", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji , as the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal
11648-535: The language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in
11776-428: The letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra , as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e , also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô . The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between
11904-588: The medieval Indian Aryan language Pali – Prakrit ) in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire . With its Perso-Arabic script , the language was considered a vital element of the Islamic culture for Indian Muslims; Hindi and the Devanagari script were seen as fundamentals of Hindu culture . While, the use of Urdu grew common with Muslims in northern India, the Muslims of Bengal (a province in
12032-400: The military regime issued an official statement and reinstated the official stance of supporting the 1956 constitution's policy of two state languages. The Bengali language movement and the banning of Rabindranath Tagore 's works by the central government of Pakistan led to a movement by the intellectuals of Dhaka that led to an increase in the use of Central Standard Bengali in the city in
12160-442: The ministry on 6 June 1955 after the governor's regime ended. The Awami League did not participate in this ministry though. Following the return of the United Front to power, the anniversary on 21 February 1956 was observed for the first time in a peaceful atmosphere. The Government supported a major project to construct a new Shaheed Minar. The session of the constituent assembly was stopped for five minutes to express condolence for
12288-467: The modern Bengali literature developed its stronghold. Bengalis irrespective of religious identity used Bengali language. Supporters of Bengali opposed Urdu even before the partition of India , when delegates from Bengal rejected the idea of making Urdu the lingua franca of Muslim India in the 1937 Lucknow session of the Muslim League . The Muslim League was a British Indian political party that became
12416-544: The monument. Although the imposition of martial law in 1958 interrupted the work, the monument was completed and inaugurated on 21 February 1963 by Abul Barkat 's mother, Hasina Begum. Pakistani forces demolished the monument during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, but the Bangladeshi government reconstructed it in 1973. Ekushey Television , one of the oldest privately owned television channels in Bangladesh,
12544-557: The name of the awardees in Bangladesh Gazette on 15 December 1973. This list has been prepared on the base of the Gazette. Additionally, two army officers were awarded Bir Bikrom during Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict such as: Major General Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy and Brigadier General Mozzafor Ahmed. Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ),
12672-585: The neighbouring states of Odisha , Bihar , and Jharkhand , and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi , Mumbai , Thane , Varanasi , and Vrindavan . There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East , the United States , Singapore , Malaysia , Australia , Canada , the United Kingdom , and Italy . The 3rd article of
12800-405: The official language; Want equality of all languages of Pakistan; Bengalis , Punjabis , Pathans , Sindhis , Balochs , Urdu speakers etc. have to be given the right to get education in their own mother tongue and conduct government affairs; We want to make Bengali language one of the national languages. Instead of English, Urdu, Bengali - the movement to give equal status to all languages in
12928-514: The parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language. As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India. In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language . Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming
13056-556: The presidency of the East Pakistan Arabic Language Association, approved a draft memorandum to be submitted to the Assembly, where it was requested to government for Arabic to be made the state language of Pakistan and for the provision of 'Darse Koran' or Quran teaching in various centers and mosques of the city. On January 18, 1950, some students of Rajshahi College called a meeting to demand that Arabic be made
13184-533: The procession. Protesters burned the offices of two leading pro-government news agencies, the Jubilee Press and the Morning News . Police fired on a major janaza , or mourning rally, as it was passing through Nawabpur Road . The shooting killed several people including activist Sofiur Rahman and a nine-year-old boy named Ohiullah. Through the night of 23 February, students of Dhaka Medical College worked on
13312-406: The protests. Most pro-government media held Hindus and communists responsible for encouraging the disorder and student unrest. The families of Abul Barkat and Rafiq Uddin Ahmed tried to charge the police with murder, but the charges were dismissed by the police. On 8 April government report on the incidents failed to show any particular justification for police firings on the students. Although
13440-466: The representation of the Muslim League was reduced to a historic low. The United Front ministry ordered the creation of the Bangla Academy to promote, develop, and preserve Bengali language, literature, and heritage. However, the United Front rule was temporary, as Governor General Ghulam Muhammad cancelled the government and started Governor's rule on 30 May 1954. The United Front again formed
13568-519: The requests. On the same day, the East Bengal Organizing Committee of the East Pakistan Communist Party circulated a cyclostyled manifesto entitled "To build a united East Bengal Tumdal United Movement against the barbaric killings of the tyrant Nurul Amin Sarkar", calling on all institutions and the multi-lingual public of Pakistan, regardless of party affiliation. Support is invited for
13696-427: The so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ] . The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent
13824-410: The spirit of Muslim nations and would remain as the state language, labelling those who disagreed with his views as "Enemies of Pakistan". Jinnah delivered a similar speech at Curzon Hall of the University of Dhaka on 24 March. At both meetings, Jinnah was interrupted by large segments of the audience. He later called a meeting of a state language committee of action, and overruled the contract that
13952-403: The stage play Kobor by Munier Chowdhury and the novels Ekushey February by Raihan and Artonaad by Shawkat Osman . Two years after the first monument was destroyed by the police, a new Shaheed Minar (Monument of Martyrs) was constructed in 1954 to commemorate the protesters who died. Work on a larger monument designed by the architect Hamidur Rahman began in 1957 with the support of
14080-594: The state language. 3 State Bank Governor Zahid Hussain proposed to make Arabic the state language and this proposal was then supported by Syed Akbar Shah, member of Sindh Legislative Council and Vice-Chancellor of Sindh Arabic University . On 1 February 1951 at the session of the World Muslim Conference in Karachi, the leader of the Ismaili community Aga Khan said, if Arabic is made the state language of Pakistan, common communication will be established between
14208-503: The state languages of Pakistan. During that time, romanisation of Bengali was also proposed along with other proposals regarding the determination of the state language of Pakistan. After 1947, many other East Pakistani academics, including Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda and Nazirul Islam Mohammad Sufian, supported the idea of writing Bengali in Roman script. In 1948, Mohammad Ferdous Khan opposed it in his pamphlet "The language problem of today". Abul Fazl Muhammad Akhtar-ud-Din supported
14336-399: The state. English made English as the state language in order to continue the imperialist and feudal system of exploitation while keeping the various linguistic communities of Pak-India backward. The League government also adopted English as the state language for the same purpose; has kept and wants to make the only child the state language. Making one language the state language will leave
14464-485: The students slain in the police shootings. Major rallies were organised by Bengali leaders and all public offices and businesses remained closed. With the defeat of the Muslim League in the East Bengal assembly elections, the central government became flexible in recognising Bengali as the state language of Pakistan along with Urdu. At least a few thousand people protested in the National Assembly on April 22 against
14592-536: The superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ) , denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow"). The Bengali consonant clusters ( যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn ) are usually realised as ligatures, where
14720-477: The university premises cordoned by the police. The vice-chancellor asked police to stop firing and ordered the students to leave the area. However, the police arrested several students for violating section 144 as they attempted to leave. Enraged by the arrests, the students met around the East Bengal Legislative Assembly and blocked the legislators' way, asking them to present their insistence at
14848-427: The use of Roman letters again. At that time Muhammad Abdul Hai and Muhammad Enamul Haque opposed it. Students of the University of Dhaka and other colleges of the city organised a general strike on 11 March 1948 to protest the omission of Bengali language from official use, including coins, stamps and recruitment tests for the navy. The movement restated the demand that Bengali be declared an official language of
14976-399: The various linguistic communities of Pakistan backward and will hinder the overall development of Pakistan. Therefore, all the Bengali, Punjabi, Pathan, Siddhi, Belche, Urdu speaking nations of Pakistan should come together in the movement to give equal status to the different languages of Pakistan and make them the state language." At nine o'clock in the morning, students began gathering on
15104-484: The visible matra and an invisible baseline). There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem. Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on
15232-435: The vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit ( tadbhava ), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit). For example: The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels . The inventory
15360-477: The western wing of the Dominion of Pakistan. In November 1947, a key resolution at a national education summit in Karachi advocated Urdu and English as the sole state languages. Opposition and protests arose immediately. Students from Dhaka rallied under the leadership of Abul Kashem , the secretary of Tamaddun Majlish , a Bengali Islamic cultural organisation. The meeting stipulated Bengali as an official language of
15488-554: Was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire , and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit. Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam , and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi . Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what
15616-544: Was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of
15744-423: Was followed by a major wave of unrest as other ethnic groups sought recognition of other regional languages. Proponents of Urdu such as Maulvi Abdul Haq condemned any proposal to grant official status to Bengali. He led a rally of 100,000 people to protest against the Muslim League's decision. Consequently, the implementation failed and the United Front won a vast majority of seats in the legislative assembly, while
15872-470: Was formed in a meeting at the Bar Library Hall of the University of Dhaka, chaired by Maulana Bhashani . The central government's proposal of writing the Bengali language in Arabic script by East Pakistan's education secretary Fazlur Rahman was vehemently opposed at the meeting. The action committee called for an all out protest on 21 February, including strikes and rallies. In an attempt to prevent
16000-527: Was proposed by the government to solve the language problem, where they recommended writing Bengali through Arabic characters. The Urdu-Bengali controversy was reignited when Liaqat Ali Khan's successor, Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin , staunchly defended the "Urdu-only" policy in a speech on 27 January 1952. On 31 January, the Shorbodolio Kendrio Rashtrobhasha Kormi Porishod (All-Party Central Language Action Committee)
16128-573: Was related to the question of development of Islamic culture, it indirectly supported the demand of the introduction of Arabic script in Bengali language to some extent in some groups. Shortly thereafter, the East Bengal Language Committee, presided by Maulana Akram Khan , was formed by the East Bengal government to prepare a report on the language problem. At 1949, Language Committee of the East-Bengal Government conducted
16256-444: Was signed by Khawaja Nazimuddin with the student leaders. Before Jinnah left Dhaka on 28 March, he delivered a speech on radio reasserting his "Urdu-only" policy. Muhammad Shahidullah believed that Bengalis could learn Urdu at the same time as learning English, he also believed that: "When Arabic becomes the state language of Pakistan, the creation of the state of Pakistan will be justified." Therefore, in December 1949, he assumed
16384-501: Was supported by legislators Prem Hari Burman, Bhupendra Kumar Datta and Sris Chandra Chattaopadhyaya of East Bengal, as well as the people from the region. Prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan and the Muslim League denounced the proposal as an attempt to divide the Pakistani people, thus the legislation was defeated. Since the partition of the country in 1947, the Union Minister representing East Pakistan Fazlur Rahman campaigned for
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