Language

   We are Bengalis, and bangle, the bangle language, in our mother tongue.

    Bangle is the national language of Bangladesh. Our language was the main inspiration in our liberation war. We love our language; we fought for its status, and founded an independent country. If we had not fought for Bangla, there would have been no Bangladesh.

    Bangle is a rich and developed language, and it has the sixth largest native speaks in the world. More than 250 million people speak bangle in Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and all over the world. More than ten million Bengalis in the US, the UK, and other parts of the world speak Bangla in their daily lives.

   It is one of the major languages of the world. Our language has a long history; it is more than years old.

    Bangla is an Aryan language. More than two thousands years ago a language was spoken in India which is now called the Old Indo-Aryan language. It was a great language. All languages change in time. The Indo-Aryan language had changed throughout centuries and given rise to many languages in different parts of India. The language that developed in our area from the Aryan language came to be known as Bangla. The Bangla language took a distinct form in the 10^th century. Our language has a number of sister languages. Hindi of India is a sister language of Bangla.

   Bangle originated in the 10^th century. It has changed in many ways during the last thousand years. There are three ages of Bangla. The ancient age (950-1200), the middle age (1350-1800), and the modern age (since 1801-). There was also a dark age that lasted from 1200 to 1350.

   The oldest specimens of the Bangla language is found in an anthology of songs named the Charyapad. It contains 46 and a half songs composed by 24 Buddhist poets. The names of our oldest poets seem exotic to us. They were Kanhapa, Lyipa, Kukkuripa, Biruapa, and others. They had written beautiful religious songs full of dazzling images. Our oldest poets were a kind of rebels. They did not lead conventional family life lives. They came from the lowest levels of the society.

     In the middle age we had innumerable poets who had composed lyrics and long narratives in verse. The lyrics are called the Baisnab.

   Padabali or the Baisab verses. These are superb love lyrics devoted to Radha and Krishna, two eternal lovers. The long narrative verses are called Mangalkabyas, the Auspicious Poems. These were written in praise of some gods in order to preach their religions to the people.

   The Bangla language is rich both in vowels and consonants. Bangla has 7 vowel sounds and 30 consonant sounds, although 35/36 consonant characters are used in writing. We have voicelss and voiced, unaspirated and aspirated consonants, and nasals, velar, palatals, retroflexes, dentals, and English. We have our own writing system. The script that we use for writing Bangla is called the Brahmilipi, the Brahmi script, which is more than 2,000 years old. You should learn Bangla, which is your own language.