Outside of India and Bangladesh, Bengali is spoken by immigrant populations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Bengali speakers can revert to a more formal, neutrally-accented register of the language to be better understood by speakers from other regions. The Bengali of West Bengal is called “Western” Bengali as it’s spoken in Bangladesh is the “Eastern” standard.Īside from variations in spelling and diction, pronunciation differences clearly distinguish the two forms. There are some dialectical differences between the Bengali of India and that of Bangladesh. Hindi and English-India’s two official languages-dominate in that city. Even so, only a little over half Kolkata’s population speaks Bengali. Bengali plays an important role in Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal. India’s national anthem, “ Jana Gana Mana,” was originally written in Bengali.Ībout 85% of the people in West Bengal speak Bengali. Among state-recognized regional languages in India, only Hindi has more speakers than Bengali. In India, it’s also spoken in the West Bengal state, as well as the states of Tripura and Assam. Known to its native speakers as Bangla, it’s the only national and official language of Bangladesh, where ethnic Bengali peoples comprise 98% of the population. Bengali ranks among the top ten most spoken languages in the world.
