Bangla Language
Bangla Language next to Assamese, Mangla is the easternmost of the language belonging to the Indo-European language family. The new Indo-Aryan (NIA) language is historically related to Irish, English, French, Greek, Russian, Persian rtc. Bangla is bounded by Oriya, Magadhi and Maithili to the west and Assamese on the east. It is flanked by various Austric languages like Santali, Mundari, Khasi and Sino-Tibetan languages like Kachhari, Boro, Garo, Tripuri etc each of them encroaching at times on the Mangla-speaking areas.
Bangla is the state language of Bangladesh and one of 18 languages listed in the Indian Constitution. It is the administrative languages of Kachar district (Assam). Bangla speakers number about 230 milion today, making Bangla the seventh language after Chinese, English, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese. It is perhaps the only language on the basis of which an independent state was created.
Bangla emerged as a new Indo-Aryan language by 900-1000 AD through Magadhi Apabhrangsha and Abahattha, two stages of Magadhi prakrit (600 BC-600 AD), along with two other Indo-Aryan language, Oriya and Assamese. Until the 14th century, there was little linguistic difference between Bangla and Assamese. The evolution of Bangla may be divided into three historical phases: Old Bangla (900/1000-1350), Medieval Bangla (1350-1800) and Modern Bangla (1800-present time). The earliest example of old Bangla is to be found in the poems of the Charyapada, through the language of these poems is also related to eastern Magadhi languages. Srikrishnakirtan or Srikrishnasandarbha of Baru Chandidas is an example of the early from of medieval Bangla. Other writings in medieval Bangla are the translation of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Vaishnava lyrics, Poetical biographies of Sri Chaitanya, various forms of the Mangalkavya, narrative poetry written at the count of Arakan and Rosang, Shakta Poetry and Purbabanga-Gitika. An influx of Perso-Arabic words into the language took place at this point of evolution. Bangla also borrowed from Sanskrit, the words known as Tatsama and Tadbhava, English and other languages in the modern Bangla phase.
Bangla has been greatly influenced by two non-Aryan language- I. Dravidian and II. Kol. Their influence is evident not only in the vocabulay but also in the construction of sentences. A large number of onomatopoeic words, repetitive words and conjunctive verbs in Bangla reveal non_Aryan influence; for example, words such as ghoda toda (horses etc), kapad-chopad (clothes etc), tuk-tuk, khatkhat, khankha, dhandha, basiya pada (sitting down), lagiya thaka ( to persevere) etc. There are plenty of Dravidian and other non_Aryan words in Bangla, especially in place names, indicating that Bangla passed through many stages and was influenced by various other languages.
One of the main influences on Bangla was that of Sanskrit as this language was the vehicla of literature and culture for almost the whole of the subcontinent since the beginning of the Christian era. In the days of old Bangla, many Bengalis used to write poetic works in Sanskrit. Even after the evolution of Bengla, many well-known Bengali poets, such as Jaydev, Umapatidhara and Govardhan Acharya, continued to compose their literary works in Sanskrit. The result was that many pure Sanskrit words entered Bangla from the very early stages.
Following the establishment of Muslim rule in Bengal in the 13th century, Bangla came under the influence of Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Persian was the language of the court during Muslim rule in the 14th and 15th centuries. Because of this special status as well as other cultural influences, Bangla picked up many Persian words at this time. In the 16th century, with the Portuguese inroads, several Portuguese words entered Bangla; for example, word such as anaras (pineapple), ata (custard-apple) and tamak (tobacco).
From the 17th century, the Dutch, French and English started arriving in Bengal. As a result, words from these languages started entering Bangla vocabulary; for example, from the French: cartouche, coupon, depot; Dutch: hartan, iskaban, iskurup; English: table, chair, lord/lat, general/jadrel etc. During the 17th and 18th centuries effective use of Bangla prose began through the efforts of Christian English education, Bangla started absorbing increasing numbers of English words. Following the establishment of the Bengali Department at Fort William College in Calcutta in 1801, the efforts of its head, William Carey and his associate Bengali scholars, made Bangla fit for fine prose. During the 19th century, the efforts of Bengali writers contributed to the further groeth of the language. Among them were Raja Rammohun Roy, Bhahanicharan Bandyopadhyay, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Michael Madhusudan Duttt and Mir Mosharraf Hossain. The 20th century witnessed the elevation of colloquial Bangla to a written litereey medium through the work of many talented writers such as Rabindranath Tagore and Pramatha Chowdhury.
