Shadhu-bhasha

Shadhu-Bhasha is a literary variation of Bengali language. It remained as a form only to be used in written form unlike the Cholito-bhasa or the colloquial form.

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History

This highly artificially sanskritised form of Bengali is notable for its variations in verb forms and the vocabulary which is mainly composed of Sanskrit words or totshomo words. It was plainly an artificial vocabulary made it easier for literary works in Sanskrit to be translated and understood at that time. Notably Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar standardised the alphabets and paved the path for literary works. The colloquial usage of Bengali consisted of its mostly Pali base, Persian and Arabic words embedded into the vocabulary, as a result the Hindu pundits chose the path of sanskritisation to make a so-called "pure" language which is not to be used in day to day conversation but will be used as a modern representative of classical languages into what the works of Sanskrit literature can be translated. This shifted Bengali from its Pali roots and inserted Sanskrit in its place. This in turn increased the commonality in Bengali vocabulary with other Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi and Urdu.

The development of Shadhu-bhasha and Cholito-bhasha were more or less a parallel development. By the time Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay are creating the ground work for Shadhu bhasha, Kaliprasanna Singha, Peary Chand Mitra and others are realising the strength of the cholito bhasha.

By the time of Rabindranath Tagore the shadhu (pure) part of Shadhu bhasha has waned into just a set of verb forms. And in a decade or two he himself would choose Cholito bhasha as a literary form of Bengali.

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