Bengali vocabulary

The origins of words in the Bengali vocabulary are numerous and diverse, due to centuries of contact with various languages.

Linguistic classification

Bengali (বাংলা Bangla) is one of the Magadhan languages, which form the eastern group of the Indic branch of the Indo-European language family. The core of Bengali vocabulary is thus etymologically Indo-European. However, centuries of borrowing has led to the adoption of a wide range of words with foreign origins.

Classifications of origin types

Sources of modern literary Bengali words

  Tôdbhôbo (native)

  Tôtshômo (Sanskrit reborrowings)

  Deshi (indigenous loans) and Bideshi (foreign loans)

The typical Bengali dictionary lists 75,000 separate words, of which 50,000 (67%) are considered তৎসম tôtshômo (words directly reborrowed from Sanskrit), 21,100 (28%) are তদ্ভব tôdbhôbo (native Bengali vocabulary with Sanskrit cognates), and the rest being borrowings from দেশী deshi "indigenous" (i.e. Austroasiatic) or বিদেশী bideshi "foreign" sources.

However, these figures do not take into account the fact that a huge chunk of these words are archaic or highly technical, minimizing their actual usage. The productive vocabulary used in modern literary works, in fact, is made up mostly (67%) of native tôdbhôbo words, while tôtshômo reborrowings only make up 25% of the total. Deshi and bideshi borrowings together make up the remaining 8% of the vocabulary used in modern Bengali literature.

Examples of borrowed words

Due to centuries of contact with Europeans, Mughals, Arabs, Persians, and East Asians, Bengali has absorbed countless words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary. The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. Close contact with neighboring peoples facilitated the borrowing of words from Hindi, Assamese, Chinese, Burmese, and several indigenous Austroasiatic languages of Bengal. After centuries of invasions from Persia and the Middle East, particularly under the Mughal Empire, numerous Turkish, Arabic, and Persian words were absorbed and fully integrated into the lexicon. Later, European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English. Some very common borrowings are shown below.

Borrowings from neighboring languages

Austroasiatic languages (দেশী Deshi)

Chinese (চীনা China)

Japanese (জাপানি / নিহনগো Japani / Nihongo )

Burmese (বর্মী Bormi)

Borrowings from the Mughal era

Arabic (আরবি Arbi)

Persian (ফার্সি Farsi)

Turkish (তুর্কি Turki)

Borrowings from the Colonial Era

Dutch (ওলন্দাজ Olondaj)

The few borrowings from Dutch remaining in Bengali mostly involve card games.

Portuguese (পর্তুগিজ Portugij)

Portuguese borrowings mostly describe household items, fruits, and religious concepts dealing with Catholicism:

Household

Food

Religion

Other

French (ফরাসি Fôrashi)

Only a handful of French borrowings are still used in Bengali today.

English (ইংরেজি Ingreji/Ingrishi)

Most borrowed words of European origin in Bengali were imported through English and involve civic and household concepts:

Civic Life

Household