Bengali Language - Spoken and Literary Varieties

Spoken and Literary Varieties

Bengali exhibits diglossia, though largely contested notion as some scholars proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax, have emerged:

1. Shadhu bhasha (সাধু shadhu='chaste' or 'sage'; ভাষা bhasha='language') was the written language with longer verb inflections and more of a Pali/Sanskrit-derived (তৎসম tôtshômo) vocabulary. Songs such as India's national anthem Jana Gana Mana (by Rabindranath Tagore) and national song Vande Mātaram (by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay) were composed in Shadhubhasha. However, use of Shadhubhasha in modern writing is uncommon, restricted to some official signs and documents in Bangladesh as well as for achieving particular literary effects.
2. Cholito bhasha (Bengali: চলিত ভাষা) (চলিত cholito='current' or 'running'), known by linguists as Manno Cholit Bangla (Standard Colloquial Bengali), is a written Bengali style exhibiting a preponderance of colloquial idiom and shortened verb forms, and is the standard for written Bengali now. This form came into vogue towards the turn of the 19th century, promoted by the writings of Peary Chand Mitra (Alaler Gharer Dulal, 1857), Pramatha Chowdhury (Sabujpatra, 1914) and in the later writings of Rabindranath Tagore. It is modeled on the dialect spoken in the Shantipur region in Nadia district, West Bengal. This form of Bengali is often referred to as the "Nadia standard" or "Shantipuri bangla".

While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali, spoken dialects (defeated language of the captive speaker exhibit a greater variety. South-eastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in Standard Colloquial Bengali. Other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh speak in dialects that are minor variations, such as the Medinipur dialect characterised by some unique words and constructions. However, a majority in Bangladesh speak in dialects notably different from Standard Colloquial Bengali. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to Standard Colloquial Bengali. The dialect in the Chattagram region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety—often, speakers are fluent in colitobhasha (Standard Colloquial Bengali) and one or more regional dialects. For some counter-views, one may browse some different articles.

Even in Standard Colloquial Bengali, Muslims and Hindu use different words. Due to cultural and religious traditions, Hindus and Muslims might use, respectively, Pali/Sanskrit-derived and Perso-Arabic words. Some examples of lexical alternation between these two forms are:

• hello: nômoshkar (S) corresponds to assalamualaikum/slamalikum (A)
• invitation: nimontron/nimontonno (S) corresponds to daoat (A)
• water : jol (S) corresponds to paani (S)
• father : baba (P) corresponds to abbu/abba (A)

(here S=derived from Sanskrit and/or Pali, P=derived from Persian, A=derived from Arabic)