‘The Colloquial Series Series Adviser: Gary King ‘tan Spun of Las COLLOQUIAL 25 series: The Next Step ln Language Lewring All these Colfoglas ate uve ia Hook & CD pack. oF separ Sly: You can order thm through our books o via our web souls com. Colloquial Bengali The Complete Course for Beginners Mithun B. Nasrin and WAM. van der Wurffoack Sew, Mitton Park, Abingon, Oxon OXI4 4RN ee gin of Tao & Ps Keeton eps — Eoghan ” Contents Introduction The sounds of Bengali ‘The Bengali script 1 onset a fr apnar nam ki? What's your name? ‘Are these your cousins? 3 enim itt are cer onar kOeTa baRi ache? How many houses does he have? 4 oeitatieadl cae fire kalimondirTa kon dike? In what direction is the temple of Kali 8 nih fe Fe ores? ‘apni ki ki dekhechen? What have you seen? 6 sa fe arcane apni ki khaben? ‘What would you like to eat? 7 sory fe arg ae? apni ki ranna korchen? What are you cooking? 50 6 73 87 78 crema? 108 daokhabo? Shall I show it to you? 9 ak coat Fe een rim ee Few ee 120 ‘ei cokTa ki ekhane kaosh kore nite pari? Can I cash this cheque here? 10 eH eS cH IP 131 ‘ekhane keu thake na? Doesn't anyone live here? 11 wares fe ee 148 tarpOre ki holo? ‘What happened next? 12 staan em Fe ang 156 apnara skule ki ki poRten? What did you study at school? 13 oi am crea oop fe eae wT? 168 jomi hal dewar jonno ki basbohar kOren? What do you use for ploughing the land? 14 BRS TE IGEN wT Kao AE KR? 180 flaiT dOshTae chaRle kOTae riporT korte hObe? If the flight leaves at ten, at what time should I'check in? 15 saat ora A at UP 191 ObobOrshe ar ki ki kOra hOe? What else is done on New Year's Day? ‘Transliterations of Bengali-script texts 203 Bengali script - summary 22 Numbers 216 Bengali grammar — summary 221 Translation of reading texts 231 Key to exercises 234 Bengali-English glossary 257 Index 279 Introduction The Bengali language () (cor; 1-5) This book provides you with an introduction to Bengal, the lan- fungsof Bangladesh and the se of Went engl indi. may Exc cue that you want to earn this language for prey praca ftusons, beats you need fo communicate with outne speakers of Bong in Bonga or chewhere: Or perhaps you have become ite {sca Bengel language, culture and irae trough seng hms Sy Seas ay qnonourcedshOwot rein Benga), the erctor ‘tho wav warded Littime Achievement Oscar in 1992, oF through Tearing abou the poors and stores of Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for erate Tagore Bengt name st actaly Rabindranath Phaker, pronounced sobiedromtty Thaker). ‘waver your motivation for kang Boga we obouly ned to bein wi the bis, ere therefore start wath spl sentence {the earphones symbol (9) indice that this material sppears on the CD accompanying this book; listen to it to hear how this sen- tenes is pronounced) fami bangla fant na "Bengali Know nor [As you can sce, where English puts the verb or verbs don't know’) immediately after the subject (1), Bengali usually puts the verb towards or at the end of the sentence. Aso note that the word tna “not” immediately follows the word to which ic refers, Le. Jam This is diferent from English, but once you know it, there is noth~ {ng difficult about i In fact, ir we tell you that the Bengal word for “am learing’ is shikhel, you may also be able to say the fllowing useful sentence in Bengali fe. I don’t know Bengali) 1m learning BengalListen to the CD to check whether you have got it right. "You may also have guessed the sentence that you willbe able to uter truthfully ence you have worked Sour way through this book: fami bangla jani Bengali Know From these examples, you will have gathered that, in Heng itself (and nowadays also. sometimes in English), the language is calle bangla. The word of course also crops up in the name for the region where itis spoken, ie. Bengal, and in the name Bangladesh, ‘which very appropriately means “Bangla Country’ (hence its variant spelling, Bangla Desh), “This brings us to the matter of words or voesbulary. It cannot be lenied that mastering Bengali vocabulary, lke learning the vocab lary of any language, wil take areal effort on your part. However there are two facts about Bengal that will go some way towar casing the task of vocabulary acquisition, ie. 1 know Bengali) Two helpful facts about Bengal ‘The fist elpful Tact i that English snd Bengali belong tothe same linguistic g0up, called the Indo-European family of languages. This Introduction ‘means that both English and Bengali (and! many other languages Spoken in Europe and the southstn and western parts of Asia) ae descendants of one and the same language, which, was spoken some six thousand years ago. In the course of time, the dialects of this language have grown apart to such an extent that they are mow completely diferent languages. Nevertheless, the distant kinship ‘means that, here and there, recognisable similarities still exist between English and Bengal “Thus, the Bengali word jamin the sentences given above is related to the English word ‘know’: in spelling, you can see the consonants Jen corresponding to "K-a’(ia English, of course, the "kin know” fo ‘ot pronounced any more, making the relatedness of the to words somewhat hard to detect). And as you probably relied, the Bengal word ma is the sume as English "no(®). Other exampies are mam (Caame), aT eight) dt Ctooth), Ora (door) and gOrom (wasn) eis true that the umber of similar-sounding words like this t not large, yet they are very useful inthe early sages of learning the language: they wil help you realise that you are not groping your ‘way around in completely unknown territory there are some Objects that you can already recognise So can you guess which of the following Bengali words corres: ponds to which English one? naked Uptpen) bing mouth third long path ‘mukh two A second fact about Bengal is even more helpful: dozens if not hundreds of Bengali words wil look very falar to you because they are loanwords adopted from English into Bengal. This happened ‘uring the long period of close contact between the two languages ‘when nearly the whole ofthe South Asian subcontinent was under British rule: As a result iti not too diielt to guess the meanings ‘of the following words, all of whieh are part and parcel of everyday Bengali ‘cer, Teil, kap, ple, gelash,ofih/opis/aisIntroduction ‘Again, you should listen to the CD to hear how these English words sound when pronounced ia Bengal As the last example shows, there fre sometimes various pronunciations in use Tor such loanword. “The borrowing of words from English into Bengali is stil aking place today. English is spoken as a second or third language bs Imany Bengalis and some of them like to pepper their Bengals with English swords, pirases or even complete sentences. Although perhaps ‘we shouldn't be saying this if at any point you're searching for a Bengali word but don't know or remember i, you could ty simply using the English word. As fong as you embed it properly into the Bengali grammatical structure, chances are vou will be understood. You might, for example, try the following sentence whenever You {ct tired of saying "T don't Know Bengali a ings jan ‘OF course, i is better still 10 use the Bengali word, ingref (actus this Is just a more thoroughly Bengalified version ofthe same word) ands: ami ing jan Varieties of Bengal Before we describe the set-up and aims ofthis book and plunge right Into the Bengali language, there are a couple of other things that you should know about the different types of Bengali that you may Encounter. First, ike all other languages, Bengal has various re- Bional dialects, which diverge to a greater or lesser degree from each ‘ther and from whit is considered by speakers of Bengali them- Selves to be “proper” Bengali. As a learner of the language, you are probably best off steering clear of regional dialects and aiming for ‘proper’ Bengali i. the Bengal that is spoken by educated speakers and that doss not evoke negative reactions {rom other speakers. ‘This isthe Bengali that you will ind in this book However, ‘proper’ Bengali ise comes in two types, since there js a standard Bengali in the West (ie. in the Indian state of West Bengal, where the majority of the c.70 milion speakers of the lan- guage are Hindu) and a different standard Bengal inthe Fast (hen Bangladesh, where most of theo. 130 milion speakers are Musi). Each of these two standards evokes mildly nepaive reactions from the other group, with the Western standard sounding over-refined 10 Introduction Bongal-Gangladesh and the Indian state of West Seng: some Eastern ears, and the Eastern standard sounding rural or back- ward to some Western cars (we hope we are offending nobody by there characterisstions ~ as you will discover, all types of Bengali actually sound extremely pleasing and melliluous), The differences between the two varieties are not enormous, but they can be found in ‘reas of the language: pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar (in particular, word endings). We will in al eases note such differences, Using the labels “Easter and "Wester’ (or simply "E° and ‘W"). Note thatthe W-forms are also often used by Hindus ving in Bangladesh. “Another division is that between written and spoken Bengali. You will have noted that the Bengali words and sentences given so farIntroduction Introduction have all bee inthe Roman alphabet. But we can assure you: Bengali has a script all its own, developed from the same source as the devanagart writing system of Sanskrit, the ancient language of North ‘Ge India As you will ind out Turther on in this book, the Bengal ‘Script requires some effort to master but (like Bengali pronunciation ‘and grammat) itis not shockingly dificult, and it does a good job at Fepresenting cloatly and unambiguously most of the sounds of the language. To elve you a litle taste of what is ahead, we give here the sentence "Tam learning Bengali’ ie Bengali script (The script reads from left co right) Do you femember how itis pronounced? ‘aft reer Pree Finally, when you know enough Bengali co tackle literary texts written roughly before the middie of the lst century, you will en counter there type of Bengall that shows many’ old-fashioned word forms and heavy use of Sanskeit words, This elevated and slightly iii varity of the language is called shadb bhasha, ic. pare language. Tis important because itis used in some of the writings by Rabindranath Fhakur and other great authors of 19th- and early 2inhecentury Bengal literature In the same period, texts were also ‘written in a less stylised variety of Bengali this is often called colt {or calto) Basha, Le. “current language, since it was closer to the ‘ordinary spoken language. Present-day writing in Bengalis mostly inveither the Western or Easter standard, depending on where the ‘author comes from. It not unusual, however, to ind Bangladeshi texts that include some Western forms Learning colloquial Bengali with this book So you want to lear Bengali, You have just discovered that you can alroady recognise some Benga words. You have also learned to 3 ‘mi bangla Janina nd ami bangla jan, How will this book help you ta'move from the first sentence t the second one? Teil do so by offering you & large amount of colloquial Bengali sit would be used by ordinary speakers and writers of various types find in various situations, ‘The material has beon carefully graded, So that what is simplest and most useful for a learner comes fist find what is more dificult or specialised comes later. In the fist four Units, all the material i immediately followed by an English transla- tion and in the later unit, lists of vocabulary are given, so that the feuning of any dialogue or text will always be clear. The CD. which forms an essential part of the book, allows you to hear what the material in this book woul! actually sound like, enabling you 10 Alovelop afer for the spoken language and its pronunciation, {in addition, the CD contains various types of exercises. Care has ben taken fo present all this material in a context that as natural fs posible, so that it provider you with moda of the colloquial Bengali that you will encounter (and that you are aiming to pro- ‘uce) serons& range of everyday settings and situations. ‘Besides the Bengai-language material, together with translations, this book also contains explanations of the rules (and exceptions) fof Bengali grammar. However, the focus is always on grammar in Use: particular points are explained in the context of the Bengali dlisiogues or written texts and the emphasis ies on what you can do ‘with the various grammatical forms. This is also reflected in the ‘nature ofthe exereses in the book, which invite you to understand ‘or do things in Bengal rather than produce isolated forms. Key the exercises is provided atthe back of the book, as isa summary of the main grammatical patterns and a glossary Practice makes perfect Since only practice makes perfect, we would! advise you to regularly peat the material that 90u have leamed. anyone should ry 0 Tend thi book ffom cover to cover in one go, in order to be done {ith i quickly, we see ile prospect of them earning much Chioying the lesring experience, ATangsage guide simply cannot be fend lke detective nove. So to prevent this book from ending uP Sn your bookshelf with you none the wiser fori, you will need to {ake your tine over each unit and to regulany Bo theough earlier Units auain. This doce not have to take th form of doing the same things inthe sume way again sod again. Instead, you could carn to An caver text and linen to it with the book closed: you could try {© imemorise parts of texts f you have a microphone you could toad out eran portions and make «recording of sure speaking Bengal you could devine your own questions or exercises to SUPP mont thow in the book, you sould copy texa and pn them on the ‘Sal neat to pour bod and you could change dialogues by making {pear older or younger, or byshiting certain event fom the past, Jo the preseat or future and vie versa, or by ropiaing the mention Dr single objects or poopie by several objects or people (all oF these ‘hangs will aoc the prammatial forms to be ted).Introduction For further practice, ty to enlist the help of a native speaker fof Bengali, Or go online: the Internet makes available a certain amount of spoken Bengal, with endless possibilities for repetition. For instance, at the lime of writing this book, news broadcasts in Bengali are available a + and + hupuhvww bbe co.uk/bengaliadio/aod bengal_promo shtml. In the carly stages of learning, such material could be wed for the ppurpore of becoming familiar withthe sound of the language, while At later stages, it should be possible to idenify specie words oF phrases and eventually work out the meaning of complete sentenocs. ‘When it comos to writien Bengali on the Internet, there is 4 much sroatee Wealth of material, Whichever way you choose to uke (and Wwe provide some concrete suggestions in later unity of this BOO), i will reinforce the central message of this book: colloquial Bengal is Something to be explored and enjoyed. We hope we have whetted your appetite fori What you can do when you have worked through this book \Whea you have worked through the material in this book, you will know enough Bengal to do the following things: + describe and talk about present situations and activities + scribe and talk about Situations and events in the past + scribe and talk about wishes, commands, expectations and pos: Sibilties relating to the future + describe relations of various kinds between things, people and events + express and ask about a wide range of feslings and opinion + report what other people have said or thought ‘The topics about which you will be able to communicate in Bengali include matters as diverse as family relationships, jobs, travel, food, money, the seasons, agriulture, schools and air travel. Tn addition, {you wil be able to read simple texts on these topics, You will al have gained some experience in reading more difcut texts, and be ready to continue improving your knowledge and understanding of Bengali on your own The sounds of Bengali [Although the pronunciation and seript of Bengali are not extremely Gifficult, they are both new to you, s0 we wil arti this section by just decribine the pronunciation of Bengali, To represent the sounds ‘the language, we will use &aystem of transhteration which (with fone exception) employs the ordinary letters of the Roman alphabet. [But in the following section, we will also introduce the Bengali ‘writing system and will start using i in selected texts from Unit 2 ‘awards, The amount of Bengal script will gradually increase as You move further on, However, a transliteration ofall Bengaliseript {ents is given at the back of the book, which also has a Bengal English glossary with each Bengali word given in transliteration But le’ first consider the sounds of Bengali beginning with the ‘vowels. In each case, we give a description ofthe sound quality, with Teference to an identical or very similar sound in English or another European language, followed by some example words. Since describ ing sound quality on paper is notoriously dificult, is essential that You should listen to the CD, on which each of the following sounds and words containing them ean be heard Vowel sounds (1) «01:7 Transliteration Quality Example words 2 sin French of! i [av or ma mother Talia mama mir ‘baba father i asin French peti similar to Ki what English ‘se’ but without dil elder sister finaly" glide « fs in Erench coup; similar 0 mul root English shoe’ bot without due far final W" glide