Bengali phonology
Encyclopedia
Bengali
phonology
is the study of the inventory and patterns
of the consonant
s, vowel
s, and prosody
of the Bengali language
.
inventory of Bangla consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels
. Several conventions exist for romanizing
Indic languages, including IAST
(based on diacritics), ITRANS
(uses upper case letters suited for ASCII
keyboards), and the National Library at Calcutta romanization. Bangla 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, along with IPA
transcriptions above them.
Although Standard Bangla is largely uniform across West Bengal and Bangladesh, there are a few sounds that are produced variably in different pronunciations of Standard Bangla (in addition to the myriad phonological variations in non-standard dialects): /f/: ফ can be produced as an voiceless aspirated stop [pʰ] or a voiceless labial fricative [ɸ]~[f], depending on the speaker. /s/ is a phoneme for many speakers of Standard Bangla (সিরকা [sirka] 'vinegar', অস্থির [ɒst̪ʰir] 'uneasy', ব্যস [bas] or [bæs] 'enough').
s; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e. one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul/ishkul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school".
Sanskrit (তৎসম tôtshômo) words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the mr in মৃত্যু mrittu "death" or the sp in স্পষ্ট spôshṭo "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী bideshi) borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity, as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন ṭren "train" and গ্লাস glash "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries.
Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali. Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্ট lifṭ "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক bêņk "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ gônj, which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ Nôbabgônj and মানিকগঞ্জ Manikgônj. Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ chand "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of chand would be চাঁদ chãd, with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster.
Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowel
s occurring within the same syllable
. 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.
is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic
; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable
of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as সহযোগিতা shô-ho-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However, in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable has stress, out of harmony with the situation with native Bengali words.
Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left; for example, while the word সভ্য shob-bho "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob], adding the negative
prefix [ô-] creates অসভ্য ô-shob-bho "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ ô. In any case, Word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word, and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress.
, with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. This intonation
al pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence.
In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone. This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions
, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone.
is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel", unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. However, when morpheme
boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. This is because open monosyllables
(i.e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types. For example, the vowel in cha: "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in chaṭa "licking", as cha: is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a colon : in these examples.) The suffix
ṭa "the" can be added to cha: to form cha:ṭa "the tea". Even when another morpheme is attached to cha:, the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation.
Furthermore, using a form of reduplication
called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in cha: can be copied into the reduplicant ṭa:, giving cha:ṭa: "tea and all that comes with it". Thus, in addition to cha:ṭa "the tea" (long first vowel) and chaṭa "licking" (no long vowels), we have cha:ṭa: "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels).
.
, Dhaka
and Sylhet
divisions), many of the stops and affricates heard in Kolkata Bengali are pronounced as fricatives
.
The aspirated velar stop খ [kʰ] and the aspirated labial stop ফ [pʰ] of Poshchim Bangla correspond to খ় [x] and ফ় [f] or [ɸ] in many dialects of Purbo Bangla. These pronunciations are most extreme in the Sylheti dialect
of far northeastern Bangladesh—the dialect of Bengali most common in the United Kingdom
.
Many Purbo Bangla dialects share phonological features with Assamese, including the debuccalization of শ [ɕ] to হ }[h] or খ় [x].
on the phonology of Purbo Bangla (Bangladesh) is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels, a more fronted place of articulation for the retroflex
stops
ট [ʈ], ঠ [ʈʰ], ড [ɖ], and ঢ [ɖʱ], resembling the equivalent phonemes in languages such as Thai
and Lao
and the lack of distinction between র [ɹ] and ড়/ঢ় [ɽ]. Unlike most languages of the region, some Purbo Bangla dialects do not include the breathy voiced stops ঘ [ɡʱ], ঝ [dʑʱ], ঢ [ɖʱ], ধ [d̪ʱ], and ভ [bʱ]. Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone
; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. In dialects such as Hajong
of northern Bangladesh, there is a distinction between উ and ঊ, the first corresponding exactly to its standard counterpart but the latter corresponding to the Japanese [ɯ] sound . There is also a distinction between ই and ঈ in many northern Bangladeshi dialects. ই representing the standard i sound where ঈ represents a much flatter i sound with the tongue much closer to the roof of the mouth.
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
is the study of the inventory and patterns
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of the consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s, vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, and prosody
Prosody (linguistics)
In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...
of the Bengali language
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
.
Consonants and vowels
The phonemicPhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
inventory of Bangla consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels
Nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth...
. Several conventions exist for romanizing
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
Indic languages, including IAST
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...
(based on diacritics), ITRANS
ITRANS
The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for Devanagari script. It was developed by Avinash Chopde. The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July, 2001...
(uses upper case letters suited for ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
keyboards), and the National Library at Calcutta romanization. Bangla words are currently romanized on Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
using a phonemic transcription
Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to the spelling. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, along with IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
transcriptions above them.
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Although Standard Bangla is largely uniform across West Bengal and Bangladesh, there are a few sounds that are produced variably in different pronunciations of Standard Bangla (in addition to the myriad phonological variations in non-standard dialects): /f/: ফ can be produced as an voiceless aspirated stop [pʰ] or a voiceless labial fricative [ɸ]~[f], depending on the speaker. /s/ is a phoneme for many speakers of Standard Bangla (সিরকা [sirka] 'vinegar', অস্থির [ɒst̪ʰir] 'uneasy', ব্যস [bas] or [bæs] 'enough').
-
- For many speakers, /s/ and /ɕ/ are phonemically distinct (আস্তে [ast̪e] 'softly' vs. আসতে [aɕt̪e] 'to come'). For others, these are pronounced the same.
- For some speakers, [s] can be analyzed as an allophone of either /ɕ/ or /tɕʰ/ ([ɕalam] for সালাম [salam] 'greetings' or বিচ্ছিরি [bitɕtɕʰiri] for বিশ্রী [bisri] 'ugly').
- Some words that originally had /s/ are now pronounced with [tɕʰ] in Standard Bengali (পছন্দ pochhondo [pɒtɕʰond̪o] 'like', compared to Hindi-Urdu pasand). /z/: জ and য represent a voiced affricate [dʑ] in Standard Bengali words of native origin, but can also represent [z] in foreign words and names (জাকাত [zakat̪] 'zakah charity', আজিজ [aziz] 'Aziz'). Some speakers replace [z] with [dʑ]
- Some words that originally had /z/ are now pronounced with [dʑ] in Standard Bengali (সবজি [ɕobdʑi] 'vegetable', from Persian sabzi). /ɽ/: In the form of Standard Bengali spoken in Dhaka, /ɾ/ and /r/ are often indistinct phonemically, and thus the pairs পড়ে [pɒɾe] 'reads'/'falls' vs. পরে [pɒre] 'wears'/'after', and করা [kɒra] 'do' vs. কড়া [kɒɾa] 'strict' can be homophonous.
Consonant clusters
Native Banala (তদ্ভব tôdbhôbo) words do not allow initial consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e. one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul/ishkul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school".
Sanskrit (তৎসম tôtshômo) words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the mr in মৃত্যু mrittu "death" or the sp in স্পষ্ট spôshṭo "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী bideshi) borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity, as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন ṭren "train" and গ্লাস glash "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries.
Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali. Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্ট lifṭ "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক bêņk "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ gônj, which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ Nôbabgônj and মানিকগঞ্জ Manikgônj. Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ chand "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of chand would be চাঁদ chãd, with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster.
Diphthongs
| 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 | ḍheu "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" |
| /ɒe̯/ | ôe | nôe "she is not" |
| /ɒo̯/ | 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" |
Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s occurring within the same syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
. 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.
Stress
In standard Bengali, stressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic
Trochee
A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one...
; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as সহযোগিতা shô-ho-jo-gi-ta "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However, in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable has stress, out of harmony with the situation with native Bengali words.
Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left; for example, while the word সভ্য shob-bho "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob], adding the negative
Negation
In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
prefix [ô-] creates অসভ্য ô-shob-bho "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ ô. In any case, Word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word, and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress.
Intonation
For Bengali words, intonation or pitch of voice have minor significance, apart from a few isolated cases. However in sentences intonation does play a significant role. In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in Bengali carry a rising toneTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. This intonation
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
al pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence.
In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone. This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions
Wh-questions
Wh-questions may refer to:*In linguistics, a question that makes use of interrogative words *In journalism, the Five Ws...
, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone.
Vowel length
Vowel lengthVowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel", unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. However, when morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. This is because open monosyllables
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
(i.e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types. For example, the vowel in cha: "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in chaṭa "licking", as cha: is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a colon : in these examples.) The suffix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
ṭa "the" can be added to cha: to form cha:ṭa "the tea". Even when another morpheme is attached to cha:, the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation.
Furthermore, using a form of reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in cha: can be copied into the reduplicant ṭa:, giving cha:ṭa: "tea and all that comes with it". Thus, in addition to cha:ṭa "the tea" (long first vowel) and chaṭa "licking" (no long vowels), we have cha:ṭa: "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels).
Regional phonological variations
The phonological alternations of Bengali vary greatly due to the dialectal differences between the speech of Bengalis living on the পশ্চিম Poshchim (western) side and পূর্ব Purbo (eastern) side of the Padma RiverPadma River
The Padma is a major trans-boundary river in Bangladesh. It is the main distributary of the Ganges , which originates in the Himalayas. The Padma enters Bangladesh from India near Chapai Nababganj...
.
Fricatives
In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, ChittagongChittagong
Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
, Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
and Sylhet
Sylhet
Sylhet , is a major city in north-eastern Bangladesh. It is the main city of Sylhet Division and Sylhet District, and was granted metropolitan city status in March 2009. Sylhet is located on the banks of the Surma Valley and is surrounded by the Jaintia, Khasi and Tripura hills...
divisions), many of the stops and affricates heard in Kolkata Bengali are pronounced as fricatives
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
.
The aspirated velar stop খ [kʰ] and the aspirated labial stop ফ [pʰ] of Poshchim Bangla correspond to খ় [x] and ফ় [f] or [ɸ] in many dialects of Purbo Bangla. These pronunciations are most extreme in the Sylheti dialect
Sylheti language
Sylheti is the language of Sylhet, which is also known as the Surma Valley and is located in the north-eastern region of Bangladesh, and also spoken in parts of the Northeast Indian states of Assam and Tripura...
of far northeastern Bangladesh—the dialect of Bengali most common in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Many Purbo Bangla dialects share phonological features with Assamese, including the debuccalization of শ [ɕ] to হ }[h] or খ় [x].
Tibeto-Burman influence
The influence of Tibeto-Burman languagesTibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
on the phonology of Purbo Bangla (Bangladesh) is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels, a more fronted place of articulation for the retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
ট [ʈ], ঠ [ʈʰ], ড [ɖ], and ঢ [ɖʱ], resembling the equivalent phonemes in languages such as Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
and Lao
Lao language
Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...
and the lack of distinction between র [ɹ] and ড়/ঢ় [ɽ]. Unlike most languages of the region, some Purbo Bangla dialects do not include the breathy voiced stops ঘ [ɡʱ], ঝ [dʑʱ], ঢ [ɖʱ], ধ [d̪ʱ], and ভ [bʱ]. Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. In dialects such as Hajong
Hajong
The Hajong is a tribal ethnic group in the Indian Subcontinent & four major Tribe in Meghalaya. Hajong people are spread out across northeast India and Bangladesh. At present their population is more than 100,000 in India and 30,000 in Bangladesh. Hajongs are predominantly rice farmers although...
of northern Bangladesh, there is a distinction between উ and ঊ, the first corresponding exactly to its standard counterpart but the latter corresponding to the Japanese [ɯ] sound . There is also a distinction between ই and ঈ in many northern Bangladeshi dialects. ই representing the standard i sound where ঈ represents a much flatter i sound with the tongue much closer to the roof of the mouth.