A Precise
Précis on the spoken forms of Bengali
By now, we have
come to know the ancestry of the language Bangla along with a few other brief details regarding its
transformations and classifications; but to develop an overall idea, it’s necessary to know it’s most recent
form. That directs to the spoken form; though spoken Bangla shares a common ground with the archaic structure
up to a certain extent, it can be easily noticed that there also exists a certain dissimilarity that
differentiates between the two. However, a little recap may prove beneficial before proceeding further on the
given topic.
With its roots set deep within the Eastern Indo-Aryan language
belonging to the Indo-European language family, Bangla was derived out of Magadhi Apabhransha along with two
other languages, namely Oriya and Assamese. Prototyped as per the dialect of the Shantipur region in Nadia
district, West Bengal and districts located along the Hooghly River, the spoken forms of Bangla vary according
to the regions where they are spoken; thus came the term regional that’s often used as the prefix. The regional
form shares a lot with the contemporary style of written Bengali i.e. Cholitobhasha; as a matter of fact, the
standard pronunciation of Bangla words are almost the same in both the forms. According to Suniti Kumar
Chatterjee, the spoken form of Bengali spans over four broad categories, namely, Radh, Banga, Kamarupa and
Varendra; the classification Jhadkhandi was later added by Sukumar Sen and a brief description of each are
provided below:
Radh/Radhi (pronounced raar-hi): The
basis of standard or colloquial Bangla, it is widely spoken all over southwestern Bengal.
Banga/Bangali: A form spoken in both
the east and southeastern areas of Bengal, it retains numerous features from the medieval Bangla that are
extinct in Radhi. Noted for its use of epenthetic (semi-) vowels, absence of vowel height assimilation and
nasal consonants.
Varendra or remote Bangali,
Jharkhandi and Kamrupi: With a lot of similarity with Assamese, southwestern Bihari and the language spoken in
the Kanthi area with Oriya respectively, these three forms have deviated from the original Bangla though they
share the primary framework.
As of now, it is West Bengal and
Bangladesh where the use of Bangla as the lingua franca is widespread; further analysis shall reveal a plethora
of tribal languages widely used in the districts of Rajshahi, Chittagong, Moymonsingha etc. that
have their roots in Bangla. Among these, tribal languages like Chakma, Khasia, Manipuri, and Santali are the
mostly spoken ones, whereas other tribal languages like Malpahadi and Hajang are the next in the line. However,
the three forms that have widely incorporated the attributes of Bangla into them are as
follows:
Garo: A form used in Dhaka,
Mymensingh and in some parts of Meghalaya in India, Garo or Achik Katha is primarily a spoken form devoid of scripts. Based on
proverbs, idioms, songs, rhymes, oral narratives and folk-tales, it can easily pass as the code of the
religious beliefs and culture of the people inhabiting in the regions aforementioned. The vocabulary is a blend
of words taken from many other different languages, whereas the syntax, semantics, verbs etc. follow a set
pattern like many other developed languages. Garo, however, resembles Bangla and Assamese the most, though
being a primary language.
Santali: A vocabulary that borrows
largely from Bangla, Santali has a lot common with the Bangla grammar as well There are other grammatical
similarities too. As in the Munda language, vowels in Santali can be nasal. Though flexion is absent for
Santali at the end of words, the pronouns are different for animate and inanimate objects.
Chakma: With similar vocabulary,
philology, prosody, idioms and phonetics, the linguistic aspects of Chakma also borrows a lot from the early
Bangla as well as the syntax.
Apart from the derivatives, spoken
form of Bangla in West Bengal also varies from district to district though the variations are centered on the
phonetics and the pronunciation keeping the grammar and the syntax unadulterated; that way, with ears attuned
to the different tongues, one can stop him/herself from being at sea while traveling from one border of the
state to the other.
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