Bengali phonology is the study of the inventory and patterns of the consonants, vowels, and prosody of the Bengali language.

Consonants and vowels[link]

The phonemic inventory of Bangla consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels. Several conventions exist for romanizing Indic languages, including IAST (based on diacritics), ITRANS (uses upper case letters suited for ASCII keyboards), and the National Library at Calcutta romanization. Bangla words are currently romanized on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to the spelling. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, along with IPA transcriptions above them. Sounds in parentheses are not distinct for all speakers. There are also y and w as predictable intervocalic glides, which are often confused in writing.

Although Standard Bangla is largely uniform across West Bengal and Bangladesh, there are a few sounds that are produced variably in different pronunciations of Standard Bangla (in addition to the myriad phonological variations in non-standard dialects):

• ^1 /f/: ফ can be produced as a voiceless aspirated stop [pʰ] or a voiceless labial fricative [ɸ]~[f], depending on the speaker.
• ^2 /s/ is a phoneme for many speakers of Standard Bangla (সিরকা [sirka] 'vinegar', অস্থির [ɔst̪ʰir] 'uneasy', ব্যস [bas] or [bæs] 'enough').
  • For some speakers, /s/ and /ʃ/ are phonemically distinct (আস্তে [ast̪e] 'softly' vs. আসতে [aʃt̪e] 'to come'). For most, there is no difference.
  • For some speakers, [s] can be analyzed as an allophone of either /ʃ/ or /tʃʰ/ ([ʃalam] for সালাম [salam] 'greetings' or বিচ্ছিরি [bitʃtʃʰiri] for বিশ্রী [bisri] 'ugly').
  • Some words that originally had /s/ are now pronounced with [tʃʰ] in Standard Bengali (পছন্দ pochondo [pɔtʃʰond̪o] 'like', compared to Hindi-Urdu pasand).
• ^3 /z/: জ and য represent a voiced affricate [dʒ] in Standard Bengali words of native origin, but can also represent [z] in foreign words and names (জাকাত [zakat̪] 'zakah charity', আজিজ [aziz] 'Aziz'). Many speakers replace /z/ with /dʒ/. However, a native s/z opposition has developed in Chittagong Bengali.
  • Some words that originally had /z/ are now pronounced with [dʑ] in Standard Bengali (সবজি [ɕobdʑi] 'vegetable', from Persian sabzi).
• ^4 /ɽ/: In the form of Standard Bengali spoken in Dhaka, /ɾ/ and /r/ are often indistinct phonemically, and thus the pairs পড়ে [pɔɾe] 'reads'/'falls' vs. পরে [pɔre] 'wears'/'after', and করা [kɔra] 'do' vs. কড়া [kɔɾa] 'strict' can be homophonous.

The murmured series is missing in the Eastern Bengali of Dhaka and in Chittagong Bengali, where it is replaced by tone, as in Panjabi (Masica 1991:102).

Consonant clusters[link]

Native Banala (তদ্ভব tôdbhôbo) words do not allow initial consonant clusters;^[1] the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e. one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul/ishkul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school".

Sanskrit (তৎসম tôtshômo) words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the mr in মৃত্যু mrittu "death" or the sp in স্পষ্ট spôshṭo "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী bideshi) borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity,^{[citation needed]} as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন ṭren "train" and গ্লাস glash "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries.

Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali.^[2] Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্ট lifṭ "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক bêņk "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ gônj, which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ Nôbabgônj and মানিকগঞ্জ Manikgônj. Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ cand "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of cand would be চাঁদ cãd, with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster.

Diphthongs[link]

Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.^[3] Several vowel combinations can be considered true monosyllabic diphthongs, made up of the main vowel (the nucleus) and the trailing vowel (the off-glide). Almost all other vowel combinations are possible, but only across two adjacent syllables, such as the disyllabic vowel combination [u.a] in কুয়া kua "well". As many as 25 vowel combinations can be found, but some of the more recent combinations have not passed through the stage between two syllables and a diphthongal monosyllable.^[4]

Prosody[link]

Stress[link]

In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as সহযোগিতা shô-ho-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However, in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable has stress, out of harmony with the situation with native Bengali words.^[5]

Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left; for example, while the word সভ্য shob-bho "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob], adding the negative prefix [ô-] creates অসভ্য ô-shob-bho "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ ô. In any case, Word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word, and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress.^[5]

Intonation[link]

For Bengali words, intonation or pitch of voice have minor significance, apart from a few isolated cases. However in sentences intonation does play a significant role.^[6] In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in Bengali carry a rising tone,^[7] with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. This intonational pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence.

In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone.^[7] This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone.^[8]

Vowel length[link]

Vowel length is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel",^[9] unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. However, when morpheme boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. This is because open monosyllables (i.e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types.^[10] For example, the vowel in cā "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in caṭa "licking", as cā is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a macron in these examples.) The suffix ṭa "the" can be added to cā to form cāṭa "the tea", and the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation.^[10]

Furthermore, using a form of reduplication called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in cā can be copied into the reduplicant ṭā, giving cāṭa: "tea and all that comes with it". Thus, in addition to cāṭa "the tea" (long first vowel) and caṭa "licking" (no long vowels), we have cāṭā "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels).

Regional phonological variations[link]

The phonological alternations of Bengali vary greatly due to the dialectal differences between the speech of Bengalis living on the পশ্চিম Poshcim (western) side and পূর্ব Purbo (eastern) side of the Padma River.

Fricatives[link]

In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet divisions), many of the stops and affricates heard in Kolkata Bengali are pronounced as fricatives.

The aspirated velar stop খ [kʰ] and the aspirated labial stop ফ [pʰ] of Poshcim Bangla correspond to খ় [x] and ফ় [f] or [ɸ] in many dialects of Purbo Bangla. These pronunciations are most extreme in the Sylheti dialect of far northeastern Bangladesh—the dialect of Bengali most common in the United Kingdom.

Many Purbo Bangla dialects share phonological features with Assamese, including the debuccalization of শ [ɕ] to হ }[h] or খ় [x].

Tibeto-Burman influence[link]

The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Purbo Bangla (Bangladesh) is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels, a more fronted place of articulation for the retroflex stops ট [ʈ], ঠ [ʈʰ], ড [ɖ], and ঢ [ɖʱ], resembling the equivalent phonemes in languages such as Thai and Lao and the lack of distinction between র [ɹ] and ড়/ঢ় [ɽ]. Unlike most languages of the region, some Purbo Bangla dialects do not include the breathy voiced stops ঘ [ɡʱ], ঝ [dʑʱ], ঢ [ɖʱ], ধ [d̪ʱ], and ভ [bʱ]. Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. In dialects such as Hajong of northern Bangladesh, there is a distinction between উ and ঊ, the first corresponding exactly to its standard counterpart but the latter corresponding to the Japanese [ɯ] sound  listen (help·info). There is also a distinction between ই and ঈ in many northern Bangladeshi dialects. ই representing the standard [i] sound where ঈ represents a much flatter i sound with the tongue much closer to the roof of the mouth.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]