The Challenges of Bengali Language and Other Issues

Mafizul Huq

Like many other nations, the Bengali is not only a mixed-race but also coalesced into one great nation living in the greater Bengal, and so is its language. When people of this region, especially Bangladeshis, talk in their regional dialects, then the language becomes gobbledygook to be understood by the people of other regions unless they speak in the bookish language. The world’s major languages, which have borrowed words from the other languages and having so many dialects, are spoken in standard versions. Bengali, of course, has its own version of the standard spoken language. The majority of Bengali’s loan-words were directly borrowed, almost 75% of them, from Sanskrit language into its lexicon, and other South Asian languages also borrowed heavily from this ancient language. It has commonly been assumed that Bengali has 8000 thousand loanwords from Persian language alone, which later became a lingua franca for the South Asians, which was once a language of the ruling and upper-class people who ruled Subah Bangala, a subdivision of the Mughal Empire, for more than four hundred years. Consequently, during the time of Mughal Empire, Persian language was replaced by a simple Urdu based on the Khariboli dialect, a language spoken by the local people of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, contained the exact same vocabulary of Persian.

Like many other parts of India, the people of Bengal, who wanted to work at the different governmental levels would learn Persian language, which is one the sweet and voluminous languages. So people of the Bengal would learn Persian regardless of their religious belief. Thus many Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim people got their surname/ family names from Persian and Arabic languages, for example, Sarkar Family based on Persian Sarkar for superintendent, chief, lord. Majumdar, which is a loan and blended word from Arabic and Persian, means someone who is a cashier, record keeper, and archivist. Mallick or Malik is someone who is a lord, king. More examples could be mentioned here in this regard. During a decade-long sojourn in Doha, Qatar, I came across all the aforementioned languages and ruefully noticed that Indian and Pakistani people would speak to us with a patronizing greetings and sometimes even used a condescending tone for our use of eat verb for everything and for our spoken language anomalies, for example, ”you folks eat rice, eat smoke, and eat water too.” Despite having the right words for communications and written Bengali, we use the eat verb for eating, drinking and even for smoking. Over there, I learned a few languages and also talked to other people whose languages I was not aware of, but none of them said using a single word for doing all the three things. In Canada in the winter season, I often hear some of our erudite friends say in Bengali, ”Canada is a country of ice and now it is icing.” That is not supposed to mean that Bengali does not have a word for snow, and yet we don’t say, ‘‘It’s snowing.” This type of language indicates how careless we are while using our own language.

Recently, lexicographers say that a staggering 4,000 words are incorporated into English lexicon every year, despite having hundreds of thousands of words in this language. No English speaking people cares how many new words are added to English each year, but Bengalis always spar with each other over borrowing new words from other languages. We not only don’t use our existing words but don’t adopt from other languages. On the other hand, The Bollywood Hindi movie-makers borrowed almost 75% words from English, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish languages, which make songs, music, and dialogue so melodious and romantic. The Bollywood film industry goes on a word-borrowing spree for its contemporary Hindi movies and episodes. Centuries ago, in the absence of a lexicography, an English word would have been spelled in different ways, for example, the spelling of CHURCH could have been spelled in up to 9 different ways, and all the spellings were considered acceptable in standard English. But a few hundred years ago, in England, there had been resentments and sparring over reforms, and as a result of many centuries’ movements, English has got its spelling reformed, that hardly allows more than one spelling.

The Bangla Academy gives a leeway over which spelling a writer may follow or type. It seems there is no orthography in this language. Bengali language, actually it’s a peephole comparing to English, doesn’t have as many words as the other major languages. We often boast over our language and literature and also take pride in the ranking of Bengali being the 8th spoken language in the globe. But unfortunately, a substantial number of us cannot write and spell and, or even speak the language properly and precisely. I think it is a disgraceful embarrassment for us because in 1952 when our predecessors fought against the then Pakistan government to instate Bengali as one the state languages next Urdu. They sacrificed their lives so we can moderately apply this language to all areas of life for our nation building and prosperity, but they would have been ashamed about seeing the careless use of this language.

We are careless making spelling mistakes when this language has been the state language of Bangladesh for over 4 and half decades. Bengali has sizeable loanwords in its lexicon from English, Roman, French, Arabic and Persian languages that have G and Z sound letters in their alphabets. Like many other Indian languages, including Sanskrit, there is no Z sound-letter in the Bengali alphabet. So we, Bengali people, get it very difficult to pronounce Z sound loanwords borrowed from those languages. So we often mix up G and Z letters and mispronounce the words. But in our local dialects, there are Z sound words. The Hindi speaking people borrowed the Devanagari alphabet for writing and reading Hindi, and created a Z or Za sound-letter putting a dot at the bottom of G or Ga letter, but the Bangla Academy did not take an initiative to fill out the absent for a Z or Za or an anthastha Za. Unfortunately, even our highly educated Bengali people have trouble pronouncing or speaking the English words containing with Z, G or J, and often mix them up, though the letters have different pronunciations. That is so embarrassing, especially if you live in an English speaking country. Tough there is an anthasta Z or Za in the Bengali alphabet, but that also sounds like Roman G or J. So it is a great problem with the Bengali alphabet for not having an anthasta Za, and we always mix up Z and G/J while speak other languages including English, if we are not aware of these letters’ different pronunciations.

Despite the limitations of our vocabularies, we have divided so many words according to our religious beliefs and lines. Adab, an Arabic word, has many meanings. The word is widely spoken among the Urdu speaking liberal Muslims in South Asia, to greet and respect each other in place of Assalamu Alaikum. But in Bangladesh, it has been used between Hindus and Muslims since Pakistan era because it is a secular word and both Hindus and Muslims who don’t want to speak their own greetings. Though now a day, some Hindus say Assalamu Alaikum to a Muslim instead of Adab or some liberal Muslims say Namashkar to a Hindu. Some of both Muslims and Hindus think Adab is a Hinduani word. A quarter century ago legendary actor Dilip Kumar paid a visit to Bangladesh; he greeted BTV viewers with Adab. But a number of even highly educated Bengali Muslims openly expressed their resentment, saying how a Muslim could greet his fellow Muslims with such a Hinduani word? Numerous Turkish, Persian, and Arabic words were absorbed and fully integrated into the Bengali lexicon under the Mughal Empire. Bengali Hindus use some Arabic, Persian, and Turkish words which Bengali Muslims avoid them, thinking those are Hinduani words, Baba (A), Babu (T), Dada (T) is used to address elder brother, Adab (A), and Kaka (P) most probably an Indo-Persian word. Bangladeshi Muslims use Paani or pani, a Khariboli, basically a Hinduani word, for water, thinking it is an Islamic or Muslim word. Baba is widely spoken in the Arab world for the father. The ancient Romans, who ruled the Arabia and its surrounding territories even before the birth of Jesus, would speak in Latin language and in this language; the meaning of Papa is a father. In the Arabic alphabet, there is no P letter, and the Roman letter B is used for P, for example, Pakistan is called Bakistan, Poland is Boland, Paris is Baris, and so forth. When the Ottoman Empire invaded and conquered the Arabia, they imported the Latin word Papa as Baba to South Asia and Eastern European countries. In the Greater Noakhali region, some of both Hindus and Muslims say Baba instead of Abba or Abbu or Abu. I sued to call my father Baba. The word Abba (A) or Abbu is used to address father in south Asia and some parts of Arabia. Hindi, an Arabic word transformed from Sindhi, was called by the people of Persia and Arabia, who could not pronounce it properly.

There are two alphabets that are often mixed up in spoken Bengali. These alphabets are sa/স and chha/ছ. If we ask about someone’s wellbeing, we say “keman achhen?” The correct pronunciation would be, bhalo achhi, most of the time, they will say, bhalo asi/ভালো আসি, instead of bhalo achhi. It’s because this word came from a Persian in which this is said Ast, for example in Persian, Haleh shoma chetor ast, or in English, How are you? That is why in the local dialects, we say, Keman Aso? It is assumed that in the ancient time, Bengali alphabet chha/ ছ was wrongly used instead of Sa/ স for the Persian borrowed words, and another such example in this regard could be mentioned here is that PASAND (P) becomes PACHHANDA . Again, there is another snag here, most of the time Sa’s/ স pronunciation’s is sh/শ.

Like many other Indian languages, including Sanskrit, there was an anthasta Va sound letter in Bengali alphabet too, but we lost this letter over the centuries. Now we have only Bargiya Ba or ব. So in the absent of this letter and, or for losing of this letter, we cannot write all the Sanskrit words contained with anthasta Va with an anthasta Va letter in Bengali but with the Bargiya Ba or ব, for example, Ravi to Rabi, Savita to Sabita, Vimal to Bimal, Dev to Deb and many more. Now, we have a great trouble pronouncing Roman letter V and we often mix up Roman letter B and V. The majority of our highly educated people mix up these two letters while speaking English, though both have two different pronunciations.

The folks who teach English always give importance on word stress because without that a person cannot speak this language properly. So they teach techniques and tricks for better spoken and understanding this language. Like English, Bengali’s sister language Hindi that also has word stress. On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier in this discourse that we lost anthasta Va letter from our Bengali alphabet, again we are on the way to lose our dirgha u kar / দীর্ঘ উ কার/ূ and দীর্ঘ ই কার/dirgha I kar. And, because of losing those letters and signs, we don’t have word stress in our language. Our words and alphabets are on the decline, and time will tell us whether we are in the right direction despite losing these things when the major languages always go on the borrowing spree. Only time will tell us how many more letters and words we will be losing in the future, unless Bangla Academy takes concrete measures that will, definitely, identify and rectify the faults.