Bengali/Origins

Bengali, as an Indo-Aryan language, developed out of the same common dialects (or prakrits) that diverged from Sanskrit in the 11th through 13th centuries CE. The corrupted grammar that emerged in Magadha, is evident in the Charyapada, a set of Buddhist texts that is partially intelligible to the speakers of, and thus indicative of the diversions in, the three groups which the "meaningless sounds" split into–the Bengali and Assamese group, the Oriya group, and the Bihari group.

Upon the Muslim conquests of India, a great deal of Arabic and Persian vocabulary entered the language, which didn't stop Chaitanya and Chandidas from promoting Hinduism and composing poems in a highly Sanskritized manner. Moreover, some Portuguese and French words were also added in this language when the Europeans began to colonize Bengal.

The British had conquered Bengal in 1757 after the defeat of Nawab Siraj ud-Daula in the Battle of Plassey and expanded their colony to cover the whole India. The 19th century saw the Bengali Renaissance, when different writers had enriched the Bengali literature. Thanks to the British, a good deal of English words had entered the Bengali language and continues to do so even today.

The year 1947 saw the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan. Bengal was divided into West Bengal and East Bengal. West Bengal remained part of India, while East Bengal became part of Pakistan.

After the partition, there were demands from East Bengal to make Bengali an official language of Pakistan. Several people were martyred for the language. Bengali became an additional official language of Pakistan in 21 February 1952 and the day is globally celebrated as the International Mother Language Day.

East Bengal was later liberated from Pakistan in 1971 and became a separate country called Bangladesh. Today, Bengali is the sole official language of Bangladesh and one of the 22 scheduled official languages of India.