Forum Pakistan

Bengali was, until 1971, the official and national language of *East Pakistan. It belongs to the eastern
subgroup of the new *Indo-Aryan languages of the Indo-European family and has its roots in the Middle Indian language of Magadhi, It is also spoken by 200 to 300 thousand Bengalis living in Pakistan. Bengali is traditionally divided into seven dialects or dialect groups: 1. central or standard, 2. western 3. southwestern, 4. northern,S. Rajbangshi, 6. eastern, and 7. south-eastern. As a result of the division of India in 1947, speakers of dialect grou ps 1, 2 and 3, and most of 4 and 5, remained in India while speakers of dialects 6 and 7, and partly 4 and 5, went to Pakistan.

Modern Bengali exists in two functional styles, the classical (Shadhubhasha) and the standard or spoken (Cholitbhasha). The difference between them shows both in grammar (those of pronouns and verbs), and in vocabulary (the Shadhubhasha vocabulary is more archaic, mostly Sanskrit). The division of functions is also significant. Shadhubhasha exists only in written form, where as Cholitbhasha is used in both its written and oral varieties and serves as the principal means of interdialect communication.

Three periods can be distinguished in
the history of the Bengali language: 1. Old Bengali (10th through 12th centuries), 2. Middle Bengali (13th through 18th centuries), 3. Modern Bengali (from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day). The structural features of Bengali were determined by its early contacts with unrelated languages. These include Munda (Santali and others) and *Dravidian (Malto and Kurukh) in the west, numerous Burmese languages, and Khasi (the Mon-Khmer group) in the north. They influenced not only Bengali vocabulary but also its grammar and phonetics. They also influenced the existence in some of these dialects of semantically relevant tones. Historically the Bengali language, especially its vocabulary, was influenced by those languages which functioned officially in the territory in which it was in use: Persian and Arabic in the thirteenth through 18th centuries and English from the beginning of the 19th century. Bengali was affected by Sanskrit more than any other closely related language, borrowing from it up to 80 per cent of its vocabulary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ye.M. Bykova, 'The Bengali Language', Moscow, 1966; 'The Bengali Language- Questions of Grammar', Moscow, 1962; 'Questions of Bengali Grammar', Moscow, 1964; L.M. Chevkina, 'On the Role of Social Factors in the Development of Bengali: The People's Republic of Bangladesh', Moscow, 1979; Essays in the Grammar of Bengali, Pt. I, Moscow, 1968, S.K. Chatterji, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, Pts I-III, London,