The Bengali–Assamese script, sometimes also known as Eastern Nagri,"The Eastern Nagri script was first created to write Sanskrit and later adopted by regional languages like Bengali and Assamese. The Bengali Unicode block of characters is created from the Eastern Nagri script and contains character variants, like for the 'r', that is different in Bengali and Assamese." is an eastern Brahmic script, primarily used today for the Bengali and Assamese language spoken in eastern South Asia. It evolved from Gaudi script, also the common ancestor of the Odia and Tirhuta scripts.See "Parent Systems" on the right, and the citations therein. It is commonly referred to as the Bengali script by Bengalis" Bengalis will refer to the script as the 'Bengali script'.." and the Assamese script by the Assamese,"Assamese has, like Bengali, a long literary tradition in this script which Assamese speakers naturally refer to as the 'Assamese script'." while in academic discourse it is sometimes called Eastern-Nāgarī."In fact, the term 'Eastern Nagari' seems to be the only designation which does not favour one or the other language. However, it is only applied in academic discourse, whereas the name 'Bengali script' dominates the global public sphere." The script was traditionally called Gauḍa (not to be confused with the name Gaudi script – which was its precursor) as seen in the catalogue of books at the Radha-Damodara Mandir maintained by Jiva Goswami during the time of Akbar.Sharma, Pragati , Braj ki Akbarkaalen Pustak Thor: Ek Adhyayan, 2017. Bengali is the official and national language of Bangladesh and three of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic—Bengali, Assamese, and Meitei—commonly use this script in writing;
Besides Bengali and Assamese languages, it is also used to write Bishnupriya Manipuri, Meitei, Chakma, Santali and numerous other smaller languages spoken in eastern South Asia."Already the fact that most Bengalis will refer to the script of their language exclusively as the 'Bengali script', though it is used for many other languages as well, e.g. Assamese, Bishnupriya, Chakma, Meitei, Santali, etc. gives a glimpse of the dominant role of the Bengali language in the eastern part of South Asia Bijan Kumar Roy, Subal Chandra Biswas and Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay, Designing Unicode‐compliant Indic‐script based Institutional Digital Repository with special reference to Bengali, page 55, International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology Vol.8, No.3, 53–67 (September 2018) Historically, it was used to write various Old and Middle Indo-Aryan languages, and, like many other Brahmic scripts, is still used for writing Sanskrit. Other languages, such as Bodo, Karbi, and Mising were once written in this script.Prabhakara, M S , The Hindu, 19 May 2005. The two major alphabets in this script – Assamese and Bengali – are virtually identical, except for two characters — Assamese differs from Bengali in one letter for the /r/ sound, and an extra letter for the /w/ or /v/ sound.Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, The History and Culture of the Indian People: British paramountcy and Indian renaissance (Part 2), page 219, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951Bernard Comrie, The World's Major Languages, page 419, Routledge, 2009, B. P. Mahapatra, Constitutional languages, page 39, Presses Université Laval, 1989,
History
The Bengali–Assamese script was originally not associated with any particular regional language, but was prevalent as the main script in the eastern regions of Medieval India for Old- and Middle-Indo-Aryan including Sanskrit."(T)he script used today for Assamese and Bengali was, by origin, linked to the region and not any one specific modern language. Historically, it was in fact used for Old and Middle Indo-Aryan. Today it is used not only for other modern languages (e.g. Bishnupriya) but also still for Sanskrit." All of these eastern Magadhan scripts are based on a system of characters historically related to, but distinct from, Devanagari. Brahmi, an ancient Indian syllabary, is the source of most native Indian scripts including the South Indian languages and Devanagari, the script associated with classical Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages.
The modern eastern scripts (Bengali-Assamese, Odia, and Maithili) became clearly differentiated around the 14th and 15th centuries from the predecessor Gaudi."This, in turn, gave rise to the modern eastern scripts, namely, Bengali–Assamese, Oriya, and Maithili, which became clearly differentiated around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries." While the scripts in Bengal, Assam and Mithila remained similar to each other the Odia script developed a curved top in the 13th–14th century and became increasingly different."[T]he phase when the curved topsso prominent now in many of the Oriya letterswere just appearing, initiating the parting of ways from the proto-[Bengali-Assamese-Maithili] phase. The beginning and progress of this trend can be noticed in many of the Orissa [inscriptions] of the 13th–14th centuries A.D." Old Maithili also used a script similar to the Bengali–Assamese script called Tirhuta, and Maithili scholars (particularly of the older generation) still write Sanskrit in that script.Atindra Mojumder, Bengali Language: Historical Grammar (Part 1), page 22, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1972
According to manuscripts written in the 17th–18th century from eastern Bihar in the west to Manipur in the east followed related scripts, that could be classed largely into three on the basis of the letter ro: (1) western - with the current Bengali ro; (2) northern - with the current Assamese ro; and (3) eastern - largely lost today with a ro not seen today.
Modern Bengali–Assamese script saw further standardisations following the introduction of printing.
Printing Though there were early attempts to cut Bengali types it was the East India Company's interest in propagating the Bengali language"By 1772, the Company had skillfully employed the sword, diplomacy, and intrigue to take over the rule of Bengal from her people, factious nobles, and weak Nawab. Subsequently, to consolidate its hold on the province, the Company promoted the Bengali language. This did not represent an intrinsic love for Bengali speech and literature. Instead it was aimed at destroying traditional patterns of authority through supplanting the Persian language which had been the official tongue since the days of the great Moguls." that ultimately prevailed. It first commissioned William Bolts, a Dutch adventurer, to create a grammar for Bengali, but he had to leave India after he ran into trouble with the company."[T]he East India Company had commissioned Bolts to prepare a grammar of the Bengali language. But although Bolts, who was a man of great enterprise and ingenuity, had represented himself as a great Orientalist, he ran into difficulties with the Company from 1766 to 1768 which culminated in his deportation from India.<ref? The first significant book with Bengali typography was Halhed's 1778 "A Grammar of the Bengal Language"" The first significant stride in Bengali typography, printing, and publication was made in 1778 with the appearance of A Grammar of the Bengal Language by Halhed." which he compiled from a meagre set of six Bengali manuscripts."Halhed, when compiling his monumental Grammar of the Bengali Language, complained that despite his familiarity with the works of Bengali authors he could trace only six extant books in 1778. These included the great religious epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. All six, of course, were in manuscript." When Halhed turned to Warren Hastings for publishing, he was referred to Charles Wilkins, the type-founder at the Company press at Hoogly. Learned in Sanskrit and Persian, Wilkins singlehandedly cut the most complete set. He was assisted by the Bengali blacksmith, Panchanan Karmakar, who is often erroneously credited as the father of the Bengali type.
Script
In this and other articles on Wikipedia dealing with the Assamese and Bengali languages, a Romanization scheme used by linguists specialising in Bengali phonology and a separate Assamese transliteration table used by linguists specialising in Assamese phonology are included along with IPA transcription.
Alphabets There are three major modern alphabets in this script: Bengali, Assamese, and Tirhuta. Modern Assamese is very similar to modern Bengali. Assamese has at least one extra letter, , that Bengali does not. It also uses a separate letter for the sound 'ro' different from the letter used for that sound in Bengali and the letter is not a conjunct as in Bengali, but a letter by itself. The alphabetical orders of the two alphabets also differ, in the position of the letter , for example. Languages like Meitei and Bishnupriya use a hybrid of the two alphabets, with the Bengali and the Assamese . Tirhuta is more different and carries forward some forms used in medieval Assamese.
Vowels and diacritics The script consists of two sets of letters, the Swarabarna,of a total of 11 vowel letters, used to represent the seven vowel sounds of Bengali and eight vowel sounds of Assamese, along with a number of vowel diphthongs creating the second set of 39 (in Bengali) and 41 letters (in Assamese) called Byanjanbarna. All of these vowel letters are used in both Assamese and Bengali. Some of the vowel letters have different sounds depending on the word, and a number of vowel distinctions preserved in the writing system are not pronounced as such in modern spoken Bengali or Assamese. For example, the script has two symbols for the vowel sound [i] and two symbols for the vowel sound [u]. This redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short and a long , and a short and a long . These letters are preserved in the script with their traditional names of "short i" and "long i", etc., despite the fact that they are no longer pronounced differently in ordinary speech.
Some language-specific usages In the Bengali alphabet, is used to write in foreign loan words. Some other languages use a vowel to denote // which is not found in either Bengali or Assamese; and though the vowel diacritic (matra, ) is found in Tirhuta the vowel letter itself is absent. Assamese alphabet uses an additional "matra" (ʼ) that is used to represent the phonemes and .
+Vowel Table Vowels Vowel Diacritic symbol Assamese Bengali Meitei (Manipuri) Sylheti Hajong Rabha Rajbongsi – ô ô/o ô/a o o ô ô ʼ o – – – – – – a a a꞉ a a a a – æ – – – – – – – – – â â – i i i i i i i – – – – – î – ী i i – ī – – (i) u u u u u u u – – – – – â – u u – ū – – (u) ri ri – ri – – ri rii rii – – – – – li li – – – – – lii lii – – – – – ê e/ê e ê e e ê e – – – – – – ôi ôi ei oi oi – ôi û o o/ô – ô o o ôu ôu ou ou ôu – ôu
Vowel signs can be used in conjunction with consonants to modify the pronunciation of the consonant (here exemplified by , kô). When no vowel Diacritic symbol is written, then the vowel "" (ô) is the default inherited vowel for the consonant. To specifically denote the absence of a vowel, a hôsôntô (্) may be written underneath the consonant.
Consonants