Origins of Bangla Language - All You Need to Know
The History of The Bangla or Bengali Language runs very deep and may be surprising for many to uncover. It is important for learning Bangla or Bengali as it helps us understand the origins of the language and our ancestors. Let us explore.
Origination of Language
Fun Fact: It is believed that almost all of the languages of the current world originated from the African continent. As the history of human evolution seems to begin in the African continent, many ventured further out into different regions of earth. People began to form their own languages as it started to differ in every place. The reason for so many languages to exist in the world today is due to the mass diaspora that began thousands of years before. Each community had their unique way of speaking, their own way with words, hence the beautiful languages that are present currently. It is estimated that around 7000 languages are spoken today, a massive number with many unique speakers.
In this article, we explore the origin of the Bangla Language and how it has come to become the language of love today.
The Root: Indo-European
The core root of the Bangla language starts from the Indo-European Language tree. It is estimated that this language was first spoken around 8000 years ago! It was spoken in the European regions, as the name suggests. As people began to move around more, the language split into two sub branches, Indo-Iranian and European.
Transformation: Indo-Iranian
Indo-European began to change as people in the Iranian plateau developed a new variation of the language and it came to be known as Indo-Iranian. The first Indo-Iranian texts are said to be from around 2500 BCE. There is a controversy associated with where it originated. Indo-Iranian further divided into two branches, Iranian which gave birth to languages such as Persian, Kurdish, Pashto etc, and Indo-Aryan which is where we find Bangla’s origin.
First Instances: Indo-Aryan
In Bangla we call it “Indo-Arjo” and this is where we can find early forms of Bangla. Indo-Aryan was spoken at around 1500-600 BCE. Indo-Aryan further went to create the Indic language which then gave birth to many South Asian Languages we see today based on their region. The regions were North-Western, Northern, Eastern, East-Central, Southern and Central zones. There was also a branch of Indic which was known as “Gourio-Arjo” or Gourio-Aryan. Both Indo-Aryan and Gourio-Aryan gave birth to the Aryan language.
The Start: Eastern Region
As Aryan started to convolute into different languages, in the Eastern zone we can find it divided into two main parts again, Bengali-Assamese and Bihari language. The Bengali-Assamese further divided to create the Bangla Language. The earliest form of Bangla literature we find is the “Charyapada” which is believed to be written around the 10th to 12th Century. The conversion of language did not end there as we can see many different dialects of Bangla today. Check out our article on Dialects of Bangla to know more!
Doesn’t Bangla originate from Sanskrit?
A common misconception is that Bangla originates from the Sanskrit language. There are two forms of Bangla, Sadhu (সাধু) an old form of Bangla that is not used anymore and is mostly found in old scriptures and Cholito (চলিত) the informal version of Bangla that is ever changing as generations pass by. The Sadhu language is considered to have originated from the Aryan language and is considered as what we call Sanskrit these days. But the Cholito form is where Aryan got divided into different regions and gave birth to the South Asian Language. In early forms of Bangla we can see it has a lot of loanwords from Sanskrit but the concept of Bangla originating from Sanskrit is wrong.
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