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Bengali alphabet
| Bengali alphabet বাংলা বর্ণমালা বা লিপি | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | Abugida |
Time period | 11th century to the present[1] |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Official script | for Bengali language and Meitei language[2][3] |
| Region | Bengal |
| Languages | Bengali, Sanskrit, Kokborok, Kudmali, Hajong, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Meitei, Magahi[4] |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Sister systems | Assamese and Tirhuta |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Beng (325), Bengali (Bangla) |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Bengali |
| U+0980–U+09FF | |
| Part of a series on the |
| Culture of Bengal |
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| History |
| Cuisine |
| Part of a series on the |
| Culture of Bangladesh |
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| Brahmic scripts |
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| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
The Bengali script or Bangla alphabet (Bengali: বাংলা বর্ণমালা, romanized: Bāṅlā bôrṇômālā) is the standard writing system used to write the Bengali language, and has historically been used to write Sanskrit within Bengal.[6] . It is one of the most widely adopted writing systems in the world (used by over 265 million people).[7] It is the sole national script of Bangladesh and one of the official scripts of India, especifically used in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley of Assam. The script is also used for the Meitei language in Manipur, defined by the Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021.[8]
From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali writing system is derived from the Brahmi script.[9] It is written from left to right. It is an abugida, i.e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realised not as independent letters, but as diacritics modifying the vowel inherent in the base letter they are added to. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms, which makes it a unicameral script. The script is characterized by many conjuncts, upstrokes, downstrokes, and other features that hang from a horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called matra(মাত্রা). The punctuation is all borrowed from 19th-century English, with the exception of one.[9]
- ^ "Ancient Scripts". Archived from the original on 16 November 2010. Retrieved 20 March 2007.
- ^ "GAZETTE TITLE: The Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021". manipurgovtpress.nic.in. Archived from the original on 6 March 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
"Manipuri Language" means Meeteilon written in Meetei Mayek and spoken by the majority of Manipur population: Provided that the concurrent use of Bengali Script and Meetei Mayek shall be allowed in addition to English language, for a period up to 10 (ten) years from the date of commencement of this Act.
- ^ "Manipuri language and alphabets". omniglot.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
- ^ Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (26 July 2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 549. ISBN 978-1-135-79710-2.
- ^ Daniels, Peter T. (2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages". In Kachru, Braj B.; Kachru, Yamuna; Sridhar, S. N. (eds.). Languages in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 285–308. ISBN 978-0-521-78141-1.
- ^ Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (26 July 2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-1-135-79710-2.
Although in modern usage Sanskrit is most commonly written or printed in Nagari, in theory it can be represented by virtually any of the main Brāhmī based scripts, and in practice it often is. Thus scripts such as Gujarati, Bangla, and Oriya, as well as the major south Indian scripts, traditionally have been and often still are used in their proper territories for writing Sanskrit.
- ^ "Ancient Scripts: Bengali". web.archive.org. 16 November 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
- ^ "The Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021". manipurgovtpress.nic.in. Manipur Government Press.
- ^ a b "Bengali script | writing system | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
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