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Bengali Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal and in Assam, mostly in the districts of Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, Dhubri, Goalpara and Naogaon. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages or sixth in the world. Bengali is the primary language spoken in Bangladesh and is the second most spoken language in India. Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-Iranian languages. With its long and rich literary tradition, Bengali serves to bind together a culturally diverse region. In 1952, when Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan, this strong sense of identity led to the Bengali Language Movement, in which several people braved bullets and died on February 21. This day has now been declared as the International Mother Language Day.  Dialects Regional variation in spoken Bengali constitutes a dialect continuum. Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee grouped these dialects into four large clusters—Rarh, Banga, Kamarupa and Varendra;[1] but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects (Rarh) form the basis of standard colloquial Bengali, while Bangali is the dominant dialect group in Bangladesh. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bengal (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal are pronounced as fricatives. The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels.[citation needed] Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Rajbangsi, Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. Writing system Anandabazar Patrika, a news daily published from Kolkata in Bengali.The Bengali writing system is not purely alphabet-based such as the Latin script. Rather, it is written in the Bengali abugida, a variant of the Eastern Nagari script used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India. In India the Eastern Nagari script is used throughout Assam, West Bengal and the Mithila Region of State of Bihar. It is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000, and is similar to the Devanagari abugida used for Sanskrit and many modern Indic languages such as Hindi. It has particularly close historical relationships with the Assamese script, Mithilakshar also known as Tirhutakshar which is the original native script of Maithili language and the Oriya script (although the Oriya script is not evident in appearance). The Bengali abugida is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting the independent form of nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine signs denoting the consonants with the so called "inherent" vowels. The concept of capitalization is absent in Bengali writing system. There is no variation in initial, medial and final forms as in the Arabic script. The letters run from left to right on a horizontal line, and spaces are used to separate orthographic words. Vocabulary Bengali has as many as 100,000 separate words, of which 50,000 are considered tôtshômo (direct reborrowings from Sanskrit), 21,100 are tôdbhôbo (native words with Sanskrit cognates), and the rest being bideshi (foreign borrowings) and deshi (Austroasiatic borrowings) words. However, these figures do not take into account the fact that a large proportion of these words are archaic or highly technical, minimizing their actual usage. The productive vocabulary used in modern literary works, in fact, is made up mostly (67%) of tôdbhôbo words, while tôtshômo only make up 25% of the total.[57][58] Deshi and Bideshi words together make up the remaining 8% of the vocabulary used in modern Bengali literature.. (Wikipedia) Bangladesh Officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. Together with the Indian state of West Bengal, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The name Bangladesh means "Country of Bengal" in the official Bengali language. The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal and India in 1947, when the region became the eastern wing of the newly-formed Pakistan. However, it was separated from the western wing by 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) across India. Political and linguistic discrimination as well as economic neglect led to popular agitations against West Pakistan, which led to the war for independence in 1971 and the establishment of Bangladesh, with the help of India. However, the new state had to endure famines, natural disasters and widespread poverty, as well as political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative stability and economic progress. Bangladesh is among the most densely populated countries in the world and has a high poverty rate. However, per-capita (inflation-adjusted) GDP has more than doubled since 1975, and the poverty rate has fallen by 20% since the early 1990s. Dhaka and other urban centers have been the driving force behind this growth. Geographically the country straddles the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones. The government is a parliamentary democracy; however, political rule was suspended under emergency law for two years from January 11, 2007 to December 17, 2008[5]. Bangladesh is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, SAARC, BIMSTEC, the OIC, and the D-8. As the World Bank notes in its July 2005 Country Brief, the country has made significant progress in human development in the areas of literacy, gender parity in schooling and reduction of population growth.[6] However, Bangladesh continues to face a number of major challenges, including widespread political and bureaucratic corruption, and discrimination against women and religious and ethnic minorities. Christianity arrived in what is now Bangladesh during the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century AD, through the Portuguese traders and missionaries. Christians account for approximately 0.3% of the total population. The total Christian population is around 1,000,000 out of which 400,500 are Roman Catholics, the 500,000 being Orthodox. Christianity's first contact with the Indian subcontinent is attributed to the Apostle Thomas, who is said to have preached in southern India. Although Jesuit priests were active at the Mughal courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the first Roman Catholic settlements in what became Bangladesh appear to have been established by the Portuguese, coming from their center in Goa on the west coast of India. During the sixteenth century the Portuguese settled in the vicinity of Chittagong, where they were active in piracy and slave trading. In the seventeenth century some Portuguese moved to Dhaka. Serious Protestant missionary efforts began only in the first half of the nineteenth century. Baptist missionary activities beginning in 1816, the Anglican Oxford Mission, and others worked mainly among the tribal peoples of the Low Hills in the northern part of Mymensingh and Sylhet regions. Many of the Christian churches, schools, and hospitals were initially set up to serve the European community. They subsequently became centers of conversion activities, particularly among the lower caste Hindus. The Ministry of Religious Affairs provided assistance and support to the Christian institutions in the country. In the late 1980s, the government was not imposing any restrictions on the legitimate religious activities of the missions and the communities. Mission schools and hospitals were well attended and were used by members of all religions. The Christian community usually enjoyed better opportunities for education and a better standard of living. In the late 1980s, Christianity had about 600,000 adherents, mainly Roman Catholic, and their numbers were growing rapidly. Dictionary: http://www.bengalinux.org/english-to-bengali-dictionary/ |
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| Bible in Bengali: Matthew (210.17K) Mark (178.58K) Luke (229.85K) John (176.64K) and more (the whole bible) http://www.asram.org/texts/bengalibible.html |
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Bangladesh & Sri Lanka Christians Face
Persecution Threat
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Christian Aid welcomes £75m climate change support for BangladeshChristian Aid has welcomed the announcement from the Government that it is to give Bangladesh £75 million to adapt to climate change. It warns, however, that far greater funding commitments to..... |
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| About Bangladesh: This South Asian country was earlier known as East Pakistan. However, a major civil war with West Pakistan (present day Pakistan) in 1971 gave birth to the new country of Bangladesh. Islam is the religion of the majority. Bangladesh remains as one of the few democracies in the Muslim world. Religious atmosphere: There is no reliable estimate of the number of missionaries, but several Christian denominations operate schools, orphanages, or other social programs throughout the country. A substantial number of missionaries, primarily based in Dhaka and Chittagong, are engaged in social development projects. Several faith-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including World Vision and Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) International, operate in the country. Government: Bangladesh is a Parliamentary Democracy that promises its citizens the right ?to profess, practice, or propagate any religion? in Article 41 of its constitution. Religious freedom exists but is steadily being eroded by Islamist pressure and a legal system which gives no safeguards to religious minorities. Strong social resistance to conversion from Islam means that most missionary efforts by Christian groups are aimed at serving communities that have been Christian for several generations or longer. Bangladesh National Party (BNP) is the ruling party and is accused of many atrocities against the religious minorities. Concern has grown about religious extremism in the traditionally moderate and tolerant country, which found apparent form in a string of bomb attacks in august 2005. The government which long denied that it had a problem with militants, has outlawed two fringe Islamic organizations. It includes two Islamic parties, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jama?atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Against Christians: Missionaries often face delays of several months in obtaining or renewing visas. In the past, some missionaries who were perceived to be converting Muslims to other faiths were unable to renew their visas. Religious minorities reportedly have continued to be targeted for attacks, which has led to the requirement for guards to be present at churches. Incidents include killings, rape, torture, attacks on places of worship, destruction of homes, forced evictions and desecration of items of worship. Religious extremism has grown in the last two years. There have been reports of abductions, forced conversion of minorities and reports of rape of young girls. Due to the increase in religious tolerance across Bangladesh, several Christians have fled the country. Year 2007 Update: Adhering to a religious belief has not incurred financial penalties, but religious minorities have been disadvantaged, having less access to military and government jobs. Suggested Actions You Might Take: * Pray for the Christians of Bangladesh that they may be better protected from harm and harassment and that the Christian message may be heard and received by all. * Write a respectful letter to one or more government officials at the address listed below. Request information about what steps the government is doing to ensure their protection and freedom to practice their faith laid out in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights documents. * Contact the elected national officials (Senators, Representatives, etc.) for your area as well as the U.S. State Department and express concern for the well being of the Christians in Bangladesh asking them to make an inquiry into the status. * Please keep us informed of any replies or results you may receive! Contact ICC by email at icc@persecution.org. http://www.persecution.org/suffering/countryinfodetail.php?countrycode=18 |
