Bangladesh demands Bangla be adopted as UN's official language

[itsanufy]

Bengali literature is older than you think.

Alaol - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I know about Alaol and his works. He started only in 1600.
Oldest work of bengali literature was Charyapas between 8th and 12th CE.
Then Srikrishna Kirtan by Boru chandidas around 1350.
These have very little resemblance to modern Bengali.


Later came the pathbreaking work of Chandidas around 1450. He was a humanitarian poet and wrote "Shobar upor manush shotto tahar upore nai" ("Above all is humanity, none else").

Survived in spoken form among the common folks, common sense!

Actually they did ban the language, particularly the Sena Dynasty. Buddhist monks, who were the pioneers in developing proto-Bengali through the Charyapad texts, were persecuted brutally by the Senas. Bengal became heavily Brahminized through the introduction of caste system and enforcement of Sanskrit while suppressing the Pali language which was the basis of Bengali. This is one of the major reasons why the growth of Bengali was delayed by few centuries compared to Odia language although both had the same origin.

It was only during the Sultani period that Bengali was revived. OTOH, the Charyapada texts were later discovered in early 20th century from Nepal's royal library!



He's an Indian. Gotta be patient with people requiring special needs.

Odia language inscription was found as early as 9th century AD. It is considered as a classical language, but Bengali is not.

 

[itsanufy]

Are you really this dense?

Do you understand how vernaculars survive and evolve long term compared to written (literary) registers?

Japanese and Korean have no history because their literary forms were heavily Chinese for so long?

Understand this, you Indians in this forum are 99% a worthless braindead type (the smart ones have ALL left)....

Your entire group now are the miserable masochist braindead type that revel in abuse of your country and your own utter ignorance.

Sorry as an Indian I am not as intellectual as BD. Can you pull together a zest.
He had a valid question
If Brahmins considered Bengali as impure how did it survive?

To my knowledge Bengali literature has most of its notable writers born a brahmin/Baidua/Kaystha. Starting after Charyapad, I can see the tradition is maintained.

 

[Chute]

Sorry as an Indian I am not as intellectual as BD. Can you pull together a zest.
He had a valid question
If Brahmins considered Bengali as impure how did it survive?

To my knowledge Bengali literature has most of its notable writers born a brahmin/Baidua/Kaystha. Starting after Charyapad, I can see the tradition is maintained.

You are still not understanding the difference between vernacular and literary.

"Bengali language" is different to "Bengali literature".

I already gave the East Asian equivalents where there were entirely different language families involved (and yet the elite/prestige literary form of China pervaded past all of that, given China simply had the strongest institutions, realist power and bureaucracy compared to say Korea and Japan....and they very much came under its orbit in the literary register sense, though their vernaculars would stay distinct to the written form).

The vernaculars evolve as they do, with or without Brahmins and whatever they thought and think about the actual Bengali language vernaculars in common use.

The connection that dumb poster was either conflating and/or implying is stupid. The tail does not wag the dog....you can focus and study the tail all you want and say it does, that is your prerogative....not mine.

 

[Maira La]

I know about Alaol and his works. He started only in 1600.
Oldest work of bengali literature was Charyapas between 8th and 12th CE.

Charyapada is not written in Bengali (as we know it). The script is very recognizable but the language itself is ancestor of Bengali and a couple of other languages in the neighborhood.

 

[Species]

Bengali language has more than 80% Sanskrit.
Chaitanya Charitamrita was written on 1557 and that was on Sanskritanize Bengali like that of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Don't tell me that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee didn't write in bengali.

Don't tell me you speak or write in that Sanskritize Bengali.

Modern Bengali (cholito bhasha) is dominated by todbhob words (around 60%) which originated from Magdhi Prakrit and Pali. Only 25% of Bengali words are borrowed from Sanskrit, that is far less than that in Hindustani, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati and other Indo-Aryan languages. Also around 10% of the vocabulary have Perso-Arabic origin.

You need to read some good books of history of Bengali Literature, like that of Bangla Sahityer Itihas by Sukumar Sen. For your information this is used by Dacca University and considered by scholers from both sides as one of the best in that matter.

Never heard of Sukumar Sen, my bad.

The most authoritative sources on the history of Bengali language are Suniti Kumar Chatterji's "The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language" and Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah's "Bangla Sahityer Katha".

Odia language inscription was found as early as 9th century AD. It is considered as a classical language, but Bengali is not.

That's what I said. Bengali fell behind Odia due to the Brahminization of Bengal by the Sena dynasty. The first written form of Bengali emerged only during the Bengal Sultanate era while Odia had literally matured by that time already.

 

[Species]

Sorry as an Indian I am not as intellectual as BD. Can you pull together a zest.
He had a valid question
If Brahmins considered Bengali as impure how did it survive?

To my knowledge Bengali literature has most of its notable writers born a brahmin/Baidua/Kaystha. Starting after Charyapad, I can see the tradition is maintained.

Medieval Bengali literature was actually dominated by Muslim poets. Only few Bengali Brahmins wrote in Bengali who were associated with the royal court/administration. Upper caste Hindu Bengali poets began to dominate only during the British period.

 

[itsanufy]

Don't tell me you speak or write in that Sanskritize Bengali.

Modern Bengali (cholito bhasha) is dominated by todbhob words (around 60%) which originated from Magdhi Prakrit and Pali. Only 25% of Bengali words are borrowed from Sanskrit, that is far less than that in Hindustani, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati and other Indo-Aryan languages. Also around 10% of the vocabulary have Perso-Arabic origin.



Never heard of Sukumar Sen, my bad.

The most authoritative sources on the history of Bengali language are Suniti Kumar Chatterji's "The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language" and Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah's "Bangla Sahityer Katha".



That's what I said. Bengali fell behind Odia due to the Brahminization of Bengal by the Sena dynasty. The first written form of Bengali emerged only during the Bengal Sultanate era while Odia had literally matured by that time already.

Todbhob didn't originated from Sanskrit. I rest my case.
Sanskrit evolved into prakrits and prakrits to Magadhi prakrit, which ultimately give birth to bangla. You can find the diagram in The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language by Suniti Chatterjee.
Trivia - Pani used for water in BD is a pure Sanskrit word. This word is used by Bhusukupad in Charyapad.

Sukumar Sen is perhaps the most famous pupil of Suniti Chatterjee. Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah's is another great scholar in this area.

Senas came in power on 1070. An well preserved Oria Inscription of 1051 CE from East Ganga dynasty is there in the Indian Museum Of Kolkata. There are recorded inscription as old as 9th century.
Indian Museum in Kolkata is a must destination to know Indian subcontinent.

Medieval Bengali literature was actually dominated by Muslim poets. Only few Bengali Brahmins wrote in Bengali who were associated with the royal court/administration. Upper caste Hindu Bengali poets began to dominate only during the British period.

What few, are you sure?
I can name at least a dozon if not more

 

[Species]

Sanskrit evolved into prakrits and prakrits to Magadhi prakrit, which ultimately give birth to bangla.

That's where you are wrong. Sanskrit didn't evolve into anything. For a language to evolve, it needs to be spoken by the common people but Sanskrit was only limited to the Brahmins and that too mostly in literary form.

Prakrit and Sanskrit are more like siblings. The Indo-Aryan language brought by the Aryans gave birth to many vernaculars in different parts of South Asia which came to be known as Prakrits, the one spoken in Bengal was called Magdhi Prakrit. The Brahmins later created a standardized version of the Indo-Aryan language to write the Vedas and other Hindu scriptures which is now called Sanskrit.

Bengali directly descended from Magadhi Prakrit through Apobhrongsho with heavy influences of Pali, the todbhob words in particular. These words have similarities with Sanskrit since both are part of the same family tree but that doesn't mean Bengali is a descendant of Sanskrit. In linguistics, this relationship is called 'cognate'.