Bengali

II	This is a Category II Language.

Bengali, or locally, Bangla (বাংলা), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly in Bangladesh and in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura by approximately 200 million people. After Hindi, Bengali is the second most spoken language in the Indian subcontinent, and among the top 10 most spoken languages in the world. The language has a rich literary heritage and underwent a renaissance in the late 19th century.

Preliminaries

The examples of Bengali words, phrases, clauses and sentences used in this book are generally presented simultaneously in three written forms: one using the Bengali script, a transliterated version using Latin letters, and an English translation.

The Bengali-to-Latin transliteration scheme is the one followed in the English Wikipedia and can be seen here.

বাংলা লিপি - The Bengali Script

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The origins of Bengali
2. The present form of Bengali
3. The Bengali abugida
4. Conjunct consonants

Chapters

1. Greetings
2. Talking about oneself
3. Asking questions
4. Liking and disliking
5. Food and Drink
6. Numbers
7. Shopping
8. Staying at hotels
9. Housing
10. Letters
11. Traveling
12. Staying well
13. Emergencies

Vocabularies

1. Animals
2. Body parts
3. Differences in dialect
4. Dressing
5. Foods
6. Housing
7. Household objects
8. Music and dance
9. Plants
10. Relations
11. School
12. Tools

Appendix

1. Common phrases
2. Overview of grammar
   1. Sentence patterns
   2. Verbs
   3. Nouns
   4. Adjectives
   5. Postpositions
   6. Auxiliaries
3. External references