Bangladesh in Italy: Bengali Alphabet

3/09/2010

Italian books about bengali

Grammatica Bengali - Bangla Grammar
"Grammatica Bengali" (Bangla Grammar)
Editing by "Libreria Bonomo Editrice" on 1st May 2008.

This is the only all-italian-language hand-book sold in the world about bangla language's learning. This grammar follows a progressive and logical method to introduce at the bangla language, from basic alphabet notions to all the hardest grammatical rules. It explaines also bengali daily life, society, culture. In appendix a huge practicle glossary

Dizionario Bengali - Bangla Dictionary
"Dizionario Bengali" (Bangla Dictionary), p 592, paperback edition, size 10,5x14,5. ISBN code 9788878871687. Editing by "Antonio Vallardi Editore" on October 2009.

This is the only complete Italian-to-Bangla, Bangla-to-Italian dictionary sold in the world. It includes 14,000 words and 38,000 translations, more a small Bangla Grammar (for italians) and a small Italian Grammar (for bengalis) practicle to learn something about those languages. Usefull for those italian who want to visit Bangladesh and West Bengal, and for those bengali who live in Italy and they need to learn correctly italian.

7/20/2009

Bengali alphabet

The Bengali alphabet is derived from the Brahmi alphabet. It is also closely related to the Devanagari alphabet, from which it started to diverge in the 11th Century AD.

The current printed form of Bengali alphabet first appeared in 1778, when Charles Wilkins developed printing in Bengali. A few archaic letters were modernised during the 19th century.

Bengali has two literary styles: one is called Sadhubhasa (elegant language) and the other Chaltibhasa (current language). The former is the traditional literary style based on Middle Bengali of the sixteenth century, while the later is a 20th century creation and is based on the speech of educated people in Calcutta. The differences between the two styles are not huge and involve mainly forms of pronouns and verb conjugations.

Some people prefer to call this alphabet the Eastern Nagari script or Eastern Neo-Brahmic script The Bengali alphabet is a syllabic alphabet in which consonants all have an inherent vowel which has two different pronunciations, the choice of which is not always easy to determine and which is sometimes not pronounced at all.

Vowels can be written as independent letters, or by using a variety of diacritical marks which are written above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to.

When consonants occur together in clusters, special conjunct letters are used. The letters for the consonants other than the final one in the group are reduced. The inherent vowel only applies to the final consonant.

Bengali, an eastern Indo-Aryan language with around 211 million speakers in Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal and also in Malawi, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Australia, the UAE, UK and USA.

Vowels and vowel diacritics