Bangladesh Studies Lecture: 1-2

Chapter-1
Development trend of the name of Bangladesh: Anthropologists agree that Bangladesh has historically been a land of many races. Long before the arrival of the Aryans in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., the Bangalees were already racially mixed. It is said that the origin of human beings is Africa, but that some of them at first moved into the northern part of the Middle East and then dispersed across the world. The main reasons for coming to Bengal were first the zeal to conquer and occupy a new region, and the second was to do business in the wealthy and prosperous Bengal and third was environmental. The groups of the people who went to South-East Asia had crossed the land of Bangladesh more than fifty thousand years ago. These people developed languages, known as Austric Languages with their name Austric or AustroAsiatic people. These people entered Bangladesh several thousand years ago from South-East Asia. Near about the same time or later some other people, whom we now classify as Mongoloid also entered the territories of Bangladesh from the East and spread mainly into the uplands and hilly areas.

Name of Bangladesh in Pre-Muslim Era (Up to 1203 A.D.): Before the coming of Aryans peoples the name our country was Bang. Bang was the name of tribal peoples of Dravidian those who came from the
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Southern and western parts of South-Asia. During the Aryans era, especially the era of Janapada, it was recognized as Banga/Vanga. The location of Banga was in the east and southeast portion of the present day of Bangladesh there grew a Janapada called Banga. It is supposed that a race called Banga used to live there. Hence the region was called Banga after their name. From the old stone inscription, we learn about two parts of Bengal. One of them is Vikrampura and the other is Navya. It is supposed that the low -lying areas of the Faridpur, Bakergang and Patuakhali were included in the Navya region. The ancient Banga Janapada was a powerful region. It has been learnt from the stone inscription that the reputed Banga Raj and the Banga soldiers took part in many formidable battles. After the Aryans people up to Sena regime that means from 756 A.D. up to 1203 A.D. it was recognized as Bengal.

Name of Bangladesh in Muslim Era (1203-1757 A.D):

I. Sultani Era:

Bangalah as a territorial name came to be used from the 14th century onwards, more specifically from the time of Sultan Shamsuddin
SHAH, ILIYAS

denoting the territory which now comprises the modern independent

state of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Ziauddin Barani was the first Muslim historian who used the terms iqlim-i-bangalah or diyari-bangalah (by which he meant eastern Bengal). Shams-i-Siraj Afif (1357 AD) mentioned Iliyas Shah as 'Shah-i-Bangalah', 'Sultan-i-Bangalah' and 'Shah-i-Bangaliyan' after he had consolidated his power over whole of Bengal by bringing control.
LAKHNAUTI, SATGAON

and

SONARGAON

under his sole

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II. Mughal regime:

The Mughals after establishing their supremacy over the region included Bangalah as a subah (province) which came to be known as Subah-iBangalah. Abul Fazl, the Mughal historian explained the origin of the name thus: The original name of Bangalah was Bang. Its former rulers raised mounds measuring ten yards in height and twenty in breadth throughout the province, which were called al. From the suffix, this name Bangalah took its rise and currency. One may not agree with the explanation of Abul Fazl, but it is obvious that he meant that 'Bangalah' originated from 'Bang', ie 'Vanga' of the pre-Muslim period.

Name of Bangladesh in Post Muslim Era (up to 1971 A.D.): The same name appeared in the Portuguese records as 'Bengala' and the English made it firstly Bengal and in 1905 A.D. on the basis of Rizli Plan, on the 16th October 1905, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India by a declaration divided the province of Bengal into two parts. This event is known as the Partition of Bengal. According to the Partition of Bengal, the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam was formed, consisting of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi Divisions and Assam, Dhaka became the capital of the new province. On the other hand, the province of West Bengal was formed, consisting of West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and Kolkata was made its capital. Although the proposal for the Partition of Bengal came into effect in 1905, it was officially made in the middle of the nineteenth century. After
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1947, on the basis of the Two Nation Theory it was recognized in the world as East Pakistan up to 1971 A. D. in the record of Pakistan Government. During the Pakistan period firstly, the people as well as politicians of East Pakistan decided to use the name of our country as Bangladesh on 5th Dec 1969. On the other hand on 10th April-1971, we declared the Government of Bangladesh and seven days later this Government took its oath as The Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. Finally the day of Victory and on 16th Dec1972, constitutionally we established the name of our country as Bangladesh.

#History of the Bangla 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. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages (ranking 4th) in the world where in 1993 it was 5th. Chronological development trend of Bangla Language:
1. Before the Indo-Aryan language:

Austro-Asiatic Languages like Santali (abola, acir-pacir, ador, alga etc), Mundari (akal, akhir, amdani) and Khasi (ator, ain, babo, biskit) b) SinoTibeten like Kachhari (akaj,ajala means foolish), Garo, Tripuri etc. c) Dravidian and Kol

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2. Indo-Aryan Language (kentum#Europe & satam#Indo-Iranni):

Like other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali arose from the eastern Middle Indic languages of the Indian subcontinent. Magadhi Prakrit (200 BC) and Pali, the earliest recorded spoken languages in the region and the language of the Buddha, evolved into Ardhamagadhi. Ardhamagadhi, as with all of the Prakrits of North India, began to give way to what are called Apabhramsa languages .The local Apabhramsa language of the eastern subcontinent, Purvi Apabhramsa or Apabhramsa Abahatta, eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups: the Bihari languages, the Oriya languages, and the Bengali-Assamese languages

Usually three periods are identified in the history of Bengali:

Old Bengali (650/900-1200)texts include Charyapada, devotional songs; emergence of pronouns Ami, tumi, etc.; verb inflections -ila, -iba, etc. Assamese branch out in this period and Oriya just before this period (8th century-1300). Middle Bengali (13511800) major texts of the period, Krittivas' Ramayan has been credited to be a classic. Other narrative poems include Srikrishnavijaya by Maladhar Vasu and Srikrishnakirttan by Baru Chandidas which Spread of compound verbs; Persian influence. New Bengali (since 1801)shortening of verbs and pronouns, among other changes (e.g. tahar tar "his"/"her"; koriyachhil korechhilo he/she had done).
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Historically closer to Pali, Bengali saw an increase in Sanskrit influence during the Middle Bengali (Chaitanya era), and also during the Bengal Renaissance. Of the modern Indo-European languages in South Asia, Bengali and Marathi maintain a largely Pali/Sanskrit vocabulary base (use of Sanskrit words by some Bengali poets such as Jaydev, Umapatidhara and Govardhan Acharya) while Hindi and others such as Punjabi, Sindhi and Gujarati are more influenced by Arabic and Persian.

3. Contribution of Muslim people:

From the 13th century to 15th century (Arabic words like Okil, Kalam, Dalal, Loksan, Khajna, Haloa, Masla etc. Persian words- Ain, Ajad, Abdar, Romal, Bagan, Goanda and some Turkish words like Toshak, Galicha, Daroga, Bibi, Lash, Chakor).
4. Contribution of Portuguese:

During the 16th Century Portuguese people came in our region and contributed for the development of our language. At present some Portuguese words used in our language like- Almary, Alkathra, Alpin, Saban, Gosal, Balti, Nilam etc.

5. Dutch, French and English:

In the Dutch, French and English started arriving in Bengal. As a result, words from these languages started entering Bangla vocabulary; for

example, from the French: cartouche, coupon, caf, restora; Dutch: hartan, iskaban, iskurup; English: table, chair, lord/lat, general/jadrel, etc.

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Chronological development trend of Bangla Language:

Indo-European

Kentum Iranni Aryan

Satam
Indian Aryan

Vedic

Prakrit Sanskrit

Pali

Apabramsa

Bihari

Old Oriya

Ahania

Kamrupi Bangla

Assamese

Bangla

6. Contribution of William Carey:

With the start of British rule in the 18th century and the spread of English education, Bangla started absorbing increasing numbers of English words. In
CALCUTTA

in 1801, the efforts of its head,

WILLIAM CAREY,

and his

associate Bengali scholars, made Bangla department.

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7. Role of some key persons:

During the 19th century, the efforts of Bengali writers contributed to the further growth of the language. Among them were
BHABANICHARAN BANDYOPADHYAY, ISWAR RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY, VIDYASAGAR,

CHANDRA

BANKIMCHANDRA CHATTOPADHYAY, MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT MOSHARRAF HOSSAIN.

and

MIR

The 20th century witnessed the elevation of colloquial

Bangla to a written literary medium through the work of many talented writers such as RABINDRANATH TAGORE and PRAMATHA CHOWDHURY.

Finally, through the study of a particular dictionary, Sunitikumar Chatterji, taking

JNANEDRA MOHAN DAS's

Bangala Bhashar Abhidhan into account,

showed that Bangla has 51.45 per cent tadbhava words, 44.00 per cent tatsama words, 3.30 per cent Perso-Arabic words and 1.25 per cent from English, Portuguese and other languages where Jnanendra Mohan Das's lexicon has around 150,000 words.

Origin and Identity of the People of Bangladesh: Anthropologists agree that Bangladesh has historically been a land of many races. Long before the arrival of the Aryans in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., the Bangalees were already racially mixed. It is said that the origin of human beings is Africa, but that some of them at first moved into the northern part of the Middle East and then dispersed across the world. The groups of the people who went to South-East Asia had crossed the land of Bangladesh

Bangladesh Studies Lecture: 1-2

more than fifty thousand years ago. These people developed languages, known as Austric Languages with their name Austric or Austro-Asiatic people. These people entered Bangladesh several thousand years ago from South-East Asia. Near about the same time or later some other people, whom we now classify as Mongoloid also entered the territories of Bangladesh from the East and spread mainly into the uplands and hilly areas. Bangladesh is a melting-pot of ancient peoples. Different races and immigrants gradually added to the earlier stocks. The main peopling of this land was by those who came from the Southern and western parts of SouthAsia and they are known as Dravidians. They were a physically diverse people speaking different languages, known as Dravidian family of languages. It is to be noted that the Dravidian language speakers were a mostly a Caucasoid people, which means in hair form and other physical features they resemble the people of the Middle-East more than they resemble the people of East-Asia. However they are generally darker than the different peoples to the East and West of South-Asia. The latest arrivals were a people well known as the Aryans. They spoke a language of the Indo-European family of languages and they are said to have originated from the Northern parts of the Middle East and the Eastern parts of Europe. Over the centuries they mixed with the Dravidians and moved into the Bengal Basin sometimes after 600 B. C. They in turn mixed with the Austric and Mongoloid peoples already in Bangladesh and produced the physical types which are so common nowadays. Later other immigrantsArabs, Turks and Pathans also came to this land. These people too added their physical stock to the melting-pot, so that today we have in Bangladesh a great variety of physical features. The Bengali ancestry, therefore, includes
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the Austric-speakers the Mongoloids, the Dravidians, the Aryans, the Arabs and the Turks and Pathans. Within the polity of Bangladesh there are also some groups of people, known as tribal people, who retain their distinct cultural entities and have not merged into the mainstream of BanglaSpeaking group.

At a Glance Origin & Identity of the people of Bangladesh:

According to the Anthropologist

According to Prof. Humayum Azad

1. Austro-Asiatic from south east 1.Vaddara from Sri-Lanka Asia 2. Mongoloid from east part of Asia 3. Dravidian from the Southern and western parts of SouthAsia 4. Indo-Aryan people from the Northern parts of the middleeast and the eastern parts of Europe. 5. Arabs, Turks and Pathan Finally, in the poem of Bharat Tirtha Rabindranath Tagore articulated that the origin and identity of the people of Bangladesh is a mixed one. According to him, the blood which one contains in our body, its circulated from various groups of people like Hun, pathan, Mughal etc.
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2.Mongoloid from east part of Asia 3. Indo-Aryan people from the Northern parts of the middle-east and the Eastern parts of Europe. 4.Shak people from Turkistan 5.Persian, Arab, Pathan and Mughal

[Source: Lal Nil Dipabali ba Bangla Shahityer Jibani; page no-12-16.]

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Chapter Related Questions: 1. Discuss the development trend of the name of Bangladesh. 2. What was the name of Bangladesh during the Pre-Muslim era? 3. What was the name of Bangladesh during the Muslim era? 4. What was the name of Bangladesh during the Post-Muslim era? 5. Discuss the origin and identity of the people of Bangladesh. 6. What was historical background of Bangla language? 7. Discuss the role of various groups of people for developing Bangla Language. 8. Bangla Language is a melting pot-explain this statement.

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