Bengali (Bangla)
Bangla (also known as Bengali) is spoken in Bangladesh (the eastern part of Bengal, formerly East Pakistan) and in part of India, primarily in the state of West Bengal. With over 200 million speakers, it ranks in the top ten among the world languages. The language spoken by educated Bengalis in Calcutta, termed suddha "pure" Bangla, is the standard. West Bengal and East Bengal dialects, for the most part, are mutually intelligible. However, a few Bangladesh dialects, most notably those of Sylhet and Chittagong, would not be understood by speakers of the standard language.
The history of Bangla and its literature is divided into three periods: old Bangla (c 1000-1350 AD), middle Bangla (1350-1800) and modern Bangla (1800- present). Bangla has a rich literature dating back to 1000 AD. Old Bangla is known primarily from a single ms. of Buddhist songs, the Caryapada or Caryagiti, which was discovered in Nepal in 1907. A vast body of literature exists in middle Bangla on both Hindu and Muslim themes. Among the many great modern Bangla writers, the best-known figure is Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. In the nineteenth century a literary form of Bangla called sadhu bhasa "refined language" developed. Although today literature is no longer written in sadhu bhasa, it continues to be employed in Bangladesh for official documents. Bengalis take great pride in their language and literature. Bangladeshis trace the beginnings of their struggle for independence from Pakistan to the language movement (bhasar andolan) of 1952, which demanded that Bangla be made a state language of Pakistan.
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