Bengali (/bɛŋˈɡɔːli/),[6] also known by its endonym Bangla (বাংলা [ˈbaŋla]), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam's Barak Valley (lower Assam). It is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India, after Hindi. With approximately 228 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers,[1][7] Bengali is the fifth most-spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world.[8][9]

BengaliBanglaবাংলা"Bangla" in Bengali scriptPronunciation[ˈbaŋla] (listen)Native toBangladesh and IndiaRegionBengalEthnicityBengalisNative speakers230 million (2011–2017)[1][2]
L2 speakers: 37 million[1]Language familyIndo-European

• Indo-Iranian

  • Indo-Aryan

    • Eastern Zone

      • Bengali-Assamese

        • Bengali

Early forms

Prakrit

• Magadhi Prakrit

  • Abahattha

    • Old Bengali

Dialects

• see Bengali dialects

Writing system

Bengali alphabet
Bengali BrailleSigned formsBengali signed forms[3]Official statusOfficial language in Bangladesh (national)

 India (regional)

• West Bengal

• Tripura

• Barak Valley (Assam) (additional)

• Jharkhand (additional)[4]

Regulated byBangla Academy (in Bangladesh)
Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi (in India)Language codesISO 639-1bnISO 639-2benISO 639-3benGlottologbeng1280[5]Bengali-speaking region of Bangladesh and IndiaThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

This article contains Bengali text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

The official and de facto national language of Bangladesh is Modern Standard Bengali.[10][11][12] It serves as the lingua franca of the nation, with 98% of Bangladeshis being fluent in Bengali as their first language.[13][14] Within India, Bengali is the official language of the states of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam. It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal,[15] and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Uttarakhand.[16] Bengali is also spoken by the significant global Bengali diaspora (Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) communities in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle East.[17]

Bengali has developed over the course of more than 1,300 years. Bengali literature, with its millennium-old literary history, has extensively developed since the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding Bengali to be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the language movement.[18][19] The Bengali language is the quintessential element of Bengali identity and binds together a culturally diverse region.