Romanization of Bengali
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Romanization of Bengali, or the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script, is hardly as uniform as the Romanizations of many other languages such as Japanese, Sanskrit, or Chinese.
In the context of Bengali Romanization, it is important to distinguish between transliteration from transcription. Transliteration is orthographically accurate (i.e. the original spelling can be recovered), whereas transcription is phonemically or phonetically accurate (the pronunciation can be reproduced). Several conventions exist for writing Indic languages including Bengali in the Latin script, including IAST (based on diacritics), ITRANS (uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards), and the National Library at Calcutta romanization.
| transcription (in IPA) |
transcription (on Wikipedia) |
transliteration (ITRANS) |
transliteration (diacritics) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| সাপ "snake" |
[ʃap] | shap | sApa | sāpa |
| শাপ |
[ʃap] | shap | shApa | śāpa |
| গামলা "basket" |
[gamla] | gamla | gAmalA | gāmalā |
| বই/বৈ "book" |
[boi] | boi | bai | bai |
Bengali, like most Indo-Aryan languages, has an Abugida orthography, i.e. a vowel is inherent in every non-conjunct consonant - either অ ô (e.g. ম in মরা môra) or ও o (e.g. ম in মরি mori), although many instances exhibit schwa-deletion (e.g. ম in গামলা gamla). Because of this ambiguity in the spelling system, the transliteration and transcription of a Bengali word can differ. A word like গামলা is correctly transliterated as gāmalā (gāmlā would correspond to the orthography গাম্লা) and transcribed gamla [gamla]. Transcription models would confuse homophonous words such as সাপ (sāpa) and শাপ (śāpa), which are both pronounced shap [ʃap].
On the other hand, correct transliterations are hard to pronounce for those who do not already speak Bengali, as the graphemic transliteration of Bengali can be misleading with respect to pronunciation.
Two standards are commonly used for transliteration of Indic languages including Bengali. The older diacritic approach, or ITRANS, is a transliteration scheme that uses upper- and lower-case letters contrastively and is more suited for ASCII-derivative keyboards. IAST uses diacritics instead of contrastive upper-case letters. Diphthongs remain a problem for most transliteration schemes, as in the distinction between বই from বৈ; this is not resolved in standard IAST or ITRANS transliterations also.
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[edit] Wikipedia Phonemic Romanization
Bengali 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, with IPA transcriptions following.
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These correspond to the IPA transcription of Bengali shown below.
[edit] IPA Phonetic Transcription
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[edit] Diphthongs
Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.[1] 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.[2]
| IPA | Transliteration | Example |
|---|---|---|
| /ij/ | ii | nii "I take" |
| /iw/ | iu | biubhôl "upset" |
| /ej/ | ei | nei "there is not" |
| /ee̯/ | ee | khee "having eaten" |
| /ew/ | eu | đheu "wave" |
| /eo̯/ | eo | kheona "do not eat" |
| /æe̯/ | êe | nêe "she takes" |
| /æo̯/ | êo | nêo "you take" |
| /aj/ | ai | pai "I find" |
| /ae̯/ | ae | pae "she finds" |
| /aw/ | au | pau "sliced bread" |
| /ao̯/ | ao | pao "you find" |
| /ɔe̯/ | ôe | nôe "she is not" |
| /ɔo̯/ | ôo | nôo "you are not" |
| /oj/ | oi | noi "I am not" |
| /oe̯/ | oe | dhoe "she washes" |
| /oo̯/ | oo | dhoo "you wash" |
| /ow/ | ou | nouka "boat" |
| /uj/ | ui | dhui "I wash" |
[edit] See also
| Topics related to the Bengali language |
| Grammar • Phonology • Vocabulary • Dialects • Consonant clusters • Script • Romanization • Literature • Language Movement • International Mother Language Day |
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