Bengali, also calledBangla (বাংলাBāṁlā), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by 270+ million people worldwide. Most people living inBangladesh and theIndian states ofTripura andWest Bengal use it as a first language. Bengali is the sole official language of Bangladesh and one of the 22 scheduled languages ofIndia.
The pronunciation in Bangladesh differs significantly from that of India and the so-called "Standard Bengali". The difference is basically in pronunciation and a few vocabulary differences, which make it problematic for Indian Bengalis to understand the Bangladeshi dialect and vice versa.
There are 11 vowels and 38 consonants in written Standard Bengali, some of which are not distinguished by their pronunciations.
Bengali vowels can either be independent or hooked on to the consonant in the form of diacritics. The distinction between long (দীর্ঘdīrgha) and short (হ্রস্বhrasba) vowels is purely orthographic and both vowels are pronounced the same. The vowelঅ does not have any equivalent diacritic and certain consonants in Bengali words are pronounced with the অ-sound.
Bengali consonants have many qualities not quite familiar to native English speakers, includingdental,aspirated andretroflex consonants. Dental consonants are pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth, aspirated consonants are pronounced with a puff of air and retroflex consonants are pronounced with the tip of the tongue flapping against the roof of the mouth.
Some of the above consonants, especially ব, ম, য and ঃ, can be silent and double the previous or following consonant. The silent য can be identified in the form of ্য (for example, বিদ্যাBIHD-dah).
The distinction between র, ড় and ঢ় is not always necessary and some speakers merge two or all of the three consonants into one.
Bengali also use several multigraphs, which represent certain pronunciations, including diphthongs.
As a general rule used in this phrasebook, stress the initial syllable of a sentence, phrase or clause.
Wikivoyage provides pronunciation help in certain contexts such asphrasebooks and destination names. Wikivoyage's pronunciation help mainly usespseudo-phoneticisation, for which readers can find a simplifiedpronunciation guide.
Unless otherwise noted, all the Bengali phrases are in Standard Bengali, which is based atNadia and has been spoken by the people ofWest Bengal.
Common signs
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Many Bengali speakers use two calendars in everyday life: the Gregorian calendar and the Bengali calendar. The Bengali calendar is the national calendar of Bangladesh and it is also common in the Bengali-speaking parts of India. However, Bengali speakers most often use the Gregorian calendar instead of the Bengali one, which is limited to certain festivals and holidays determined by the calendar.
The Bengali names mostly approximate the English names here, except August, which has a slightly different name in Bengali.
There are multiple informal or dialectal variants of the names of Bengali months. The following is the standard names of Bengali months.
A year is divided into six seasons in Bengali traditions.
There are three main types of rickshaws used throughout Bangladesh and West Bengal: auto-rickshaws, cycle rickshaws and electric rickshaws.
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