Bengali Alphabet in English

The Bengali alphabet has a long history, dating back to the 16th century when Portuguese missionaries first employed the Latin script to write Bengali books. Despite this early attempt at Romanization, the Bengali script remained unique and distinct from other languages.

Romanization of Bengali involves representing written Bengali language in the Latin script. This is achieved by using vowels and consonants as both alphabets and diacritical marks. The Bengali script can be divided into various components, including vowels and vowel diacritics, consonants and consonant conjuncts, diacritical symbols, digits, and punctuation marks.

One distinctive feature of the Bengali script is its horizontal line, known as মাত্রা (matra), which runs along the tops of letters and links them together. This unique characteristic makes the script recognizable and sets it apart from other Brahmic scripts.

Today, the Bengali script holds official status in both Bangladesh and India, and is an integral part of daily life for Bengalis. From a classificatory perspective, the Bengali script is considered an abugida, where vowel graphemes are mainly realized as diacritics modifying the inherent vowel in the base letter.

The Bengali script is written from left to right and does not have distinct letter cases. It has been used in various regions of India, including the Middle kingdoms and the Pala Empire. The script consists of a total of 50 letters, 11 vowels, and 39 consonants.

Interestingly, the Bengali script is also used to write other languages, such as Bishnupriya Manipuri. Historically, it has been used to write Sanskrit within Bengal. With over 100 million speakers worldwide, the Bengali alphabet or Bengali script is the sixth most widely used writing system in the world, making it an important part of global linguistic diversity.

Bengali alphabet in english