Bengali (Bangla)

Bangla is the state language of Bangladesh and an official language in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. It's spoken by many immigrant communities in the UK,US and the Middle East

Alphabet, Verbs, Numbers

Alphabet

There are no capital letters, it has a continuous line at the top of the letters and the script has conjuncts, upstrokes and down strokes.

Vowels

Bangla vowel, also called Sworoborna (স্বরবর্ণ), represents those letters in Bengali that can be pronounced independently by themselves. They can be classified into independent and dependent vowels.

Independent vowel is used at the beginning of a syllable, whereas dependent vowel is used when the vowel follows a consonant.

Independent Vowels

Dependent Vowels

Two-Part Dependent Vowel

Consonant Letters

Consonant in Bengali are also called vyanjanam (വ്യഞ്ജനം) and it represent those letters that cannot be pronounced independently and have to be combined with vowels to make a final sound. There are 32 consonant letters in Bangla

Additional Consonant Letters

Numeral Letters

Bangla has its own numeric symbols to denote numbers and fractions. At present, however, either Hindu or Latin numeral systems are commonly used

Bangla Special Character Letters

Additional Letters

Vowels for Assamese

Additional vowels

Additional Letters for Currency

Historic Symbols for Fractional Values

৻: Perpendicular Danda, primarily in Bengali numerals and ancient scripts to represent "one-hundred-thousand" (100,000) in some contexts, especially in historical or mathematical texts.

The symbol above ক in কাঁচা is called the "chandra bindu" (ঁ), which is a diacritical mark used in Bengali and some other Indic scripts.

In কাঁচা (kānchā), the chandra bindu is placed above the ক (ka) to indicate nasalization. It changes the pronunciation slightly, adding a nasal sound to the word.

ক (ka) is the base consonant.

ঁ (chandra bindu) adds a nasalized sound to the syllable.

So, কাঁচা is pronounced as kā̃chā, where the "a" sound is nasalized. This nasalization gives the word a distinct sound, and it's a feature in many Bengali words.

This symbol, therefore, helps in indicating a nasalized pronunciation and is important for correct pronunciation and meaning.

Verbs

Numbers