Bengali vocabulary

Bengali is typically thought to have around 100,000 separate words, of which 16,000 (16%) are considered to be তদ্ভব tôdbhôbô, or Tadbhava (inherited Indo-Aryan vocabulary), 40,000 (40%) are তৎসম tôtśômô or Tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit), and borrowings from দেশী deśi, or "indigenous" words, which are at around 16,000 (16%) of the Bengali vocabulary. The rest are বিদেশী bideśi or "foreign" sources, including Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and English among others, accounting for around 28,000 (28%) of all Bengali words, highlighting the significant influence that foreign languages and cultures have had on the Bengali language throughout Bengal's long history of contact with different peoples and the cultural exchanges that came with such interactions.{{Cite book |last=Dash |first=Niladri Sekhar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rk_zCQAAQBAJ&dq=tatsama+bengali+percent&pg=PA255 |title=A Descriptive Study of Bengali Words |date=2015-01-15 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-22268-3 |language=en}}

Persian had one of the most significant influence in terms of foreign loanwords, and numerous sources put this figure at around 10,000 words at a minimum, which includes words that were borrowed directly from Persian and words influenced by it.{{Cite journal |last=Nur |first=Tanjina Binte |title=Teaching and Learning Persian in Bangladesh: Relevance and Applicability |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372221414 |journal=Sankalp Research Journal |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=January–June 2023 |pages=9–19}} However, these figures do not reflect the average Bengali speaker's vocabulary, as this will vary greatly by dialect. For example, Muslims and Bangladeshis typically lean on more Persian and Arabic words in their Bengali than their Hindu and Indian Bengali counterparts.{{Cite web |title=Persian in Bengali. : languagehat.com |url=https://languagehat.com/persian-in-bengali/#:~:text=Some%2010,000%20Bengali%20words%20came,it%20to%20English%20around%201836. |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=languagehat.com}} Persian influence was so significant throughout Bengal's history, and was the official language of the region for 600 years, until the British arrived and changed it to English in 1836.{{Cite web |last=Bari |first=Sarah Anjum |date=2019-04-12 |title=A Tale of Two Languages: How the Persian language seeped into Bengali |url=https://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/longform/news/tale-two-languages-how-the-persian-language-seeped-bengali-1728421 |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The Daily Star |language=en}} Persian influence was so extensive that during the medieval Bengal period, a register of highly Persianized Bengali formed, known as Dobhashi, which was used by administrative officials and for literary purposes.

This table below compares the differences of spoken and used Bengali vocabularies in Dhaka (Bangladesh) & Shantipur (West Bengal, India).

Due to centuries of contact with Mughals, Arabs, Persians, Central Asians, and Europeans the Bengali language 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. After centuries of contact from Persia and the Middle East, followed by the invasions of the Mughal Empire, numerous Turkic, Arabic, and Persian words were absorbed and fully integrated into the lexicon.{{Cite web |url=https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/key2mideast/chapter/languages/ |title=Languages – Keys to Understanding the Middle East |website=ohiostate.pressbooks.pub |access-date=2019-02-18}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/mughalempire_1.shtml |title=BBC - Religions - Islam: Mughal Empire (1500s, 1600s) |website=www.bbc.co.uk |language=en-GB |access-date=2019-02-18}} Later, European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English. Some very common borrowings are shown below.

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Category:History of the Bengali language

Category:Languages of India

Category:Languages of Bangladesh