When India gained independence from Britain, the province of East Bengal (now Bangladesh) joined Pakistan. The Bengali Language Movement Inspired the UN International Mother Language DayĪs we can see, Bengali has not only been a literary language-it has also been politically significant. This gives you even more reason to read them in the original! 3. Tagore translated many of his own works into English, but there are noticeable differences from the original Bengali. The Indian national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana,” was adapted from one of Tagore’s Bengali poems. He also was a major figure in the Bengali resistance against the British Raj. Have you heard of Rabindranath Tagore? This Bengali writer from Kolkata, India was the first lyricist and also the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. It has a rich history of poetry, and many works from Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, and Persian languages have also been translated in Bengali.

Throughout India, Bengali has a reputation as the language of beautiful written works. There are millions of people from Bangladesh and the Bengali regions of India abroad, so you can surely find Bengali speakers in just about any country. Surprisingly, it is also an honorary official language of Sierra Leone! This is because the Sierra Leone government wanted to thank the Bangladeshi peacekeepers who helped the country during the 1991-2002 civil war. Bengali is an official language in West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam in India, and the national language of Bangladesh. Bengali is Consistently a Top-10 LanguageĪs of 2022, Bengali has the seventh-largest number of total speakers and the fifth largest number of native speakers of any language in the world.Īccording to a 2011 survey, it is the second most spoken language in India. Find and Stick to Your Favorite Resourcesģ Great Reasons to Learn the Bengali Language 1.Learn the Alphabet to Conquer Pronunciation.Getting Started: Your First Bengali Words and Phrases.Bengali Shares a Lot of Words with Languages You May Already Know There’s a Lot That Bengali Lacks… for the Better! The Bengali Language Movement Inspired the UN International Mother Language Day Bengali is Consistently a Top-10 Language 3 Great Reasons to Learn the Bengali Language.

Bengali alphabet learning