bengali

Bengali, also Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Bengalis of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, with significant communities in several other Indian states and around the world. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by number of native speakers and is the official language of Bangladesh and a major language in India, where it is used in education, media, and government.

Bengali is written in the Bengali script, an abugida descended from the Brahmi script. The script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of letters and is used for many languages in the region. Standard Bengali is based on the language of Kolkata and Dhaka, but numerous regional varieties exist.

The language has a long literary tradition dating back to medieval texts and religious poetry. Modern standard Bengali emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries under colonial influence. The literature includes prolific authors such as Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and others.

In addition to Bangladesh and West Bengal, Bengali is widely taught as a second language and used in media, film, music, and digital communication; there is a large Bengali-speaking diaspora in the United Kingdom, United States, the Middle East, and other regions.