The Bengali or Gaoŕiiya style of vowel pronunciation differs from the other three accepted styles of pronunciation in India. It has some deviations from the rules of Sanskrit but they are accepted. It is also not contrary to phonetics if there are difficulties in elision or spelling. In Laokika Sanskrit there are four accepted original styles of pronunciation – Káshiká, Maháráśt́rii, Dravidian and Bengali.

A is pronounced in three ways: saḿvrta, vivrta, and tiryaka. Bengali pronunciation is saḿvrta. The Káshiká style is vivrta pronunciation. The pronunciation of the remaining two is so lengthened or extended that the pronunciation of ka sounds like ká, kha like khá, and ga like gá. For example, Pát́ná is written “Patna” in English, Pat́ná in Hindi, Pat́ńá in Marathii and Pát́ná in Bengali. Each spelling is correct according to its own style of pronunciation. Moreover, all aspects of these spellings follow some particular accepted style.

Now the pronunciation of the letter á in the Gaoŕiiya style is simply á. In the remaining styles it is long á – like the pronunciation of the French letter “a”. For example, cheval (meaning “horse”), hopital (“hospital” in English). In both of these the pronunciation of the letter “a” is long á. In eastern India it is simple á. Jamalpur is written Jámálpur in eastern India while in the rest of India it is written and pronounced Jamálpur.

There is a great deal of similarity between the Arabic and Hebrew languages. For example, the Arabic álif is alif [eyálif] in Hebrew. In Greek it is alpha; however the Greek style of pronunciation differs somewhat because in Greek there is a limited pronunciation of the ta varga. The pronunciation of the t́a varga is more extensive. I noticed this especially when I was in Greece.

Both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages and for this reason the relationship between them is extremely close. Here are a few examples of this closeness:

Hebrew	Arabic
Joseph	Yusuf
Jacob	Yakub
Solomon	Suleman

The Sanskrit letter a, like the Roman letter “a” also has various pronunciations. Although the letter e in Sanskrit is pronounced nearly the same everywhere, it is not exactly the same. In Vedic long e is pronounced but there is no practice of writing it.

Ae comes after e. In Sanskrit it is pronounced ayáy. For this reason “bank” can be written vaeḿk in Sanskrit and in Hindi as well. Only in Bengali style is it written byáḿk. In Sanskrit this pronunciation would become biáḿk. Sanskrit and Bengali differ just as tál [palm] and gol do. If someone mistakes a tál tree for a gol tree or vice versa then we say that they have twisted things around.

In the Calcutta pronunciation of pet́, tel, bel, etc. the e is not pronounced eyá, that is, they are not pronounced pyát́, tyál, byál. In some areas they are pronounced pyát́, tyál, byál. This kind of pronunciation runs contrary to Sanskrit style. It happens due to the influence of Indo-Burmese pronunciation. In Rarh the village folk pronounce e as e, not as eyá. They do not say eyákádash for ekádash. This kind of pronunciation such as eyágára, eyákádash etc. does not concord with Aryan styles of pronunciation. The pronunciation of Rarh concords with the Aryan styles.

The pronunciation of the letter o is correct, but according to the Sanskrit style of pronunciation the letter ao (ঔ) is pronounced a-o. In Hindi the word aośadh is pronounced aośadh. Other examples are mahaośadh, akśaohińii, daolat and so on. The pronunciation of ae and ao in Sanskrit should be maintained according to Sanskrit style, otherwise it will create difficulties with vowel elision.

Ninety-three percent of the Bengali vocabulary comes from Sanskrit. There is no need for those Sanskrit words to be pronounced in Sanskrit style if they are to be used in Bengali because there is a difference of four generations between Sanskrit and Bengali – Sanskrit → Prákrta → Demi-Prákrta → old Bengali → modern Bengali. Ámra → ámba → ámbá → ánbaa → ánb [mango]. Many Bengalees say ám but from the standpoint of linguistic derivation, ánb is much more correct. Two and a half of the three letters that make up the Prákrta word ámba remain in the word ánb – the letter á, the full ba, and a half in the candrabindu form of the letter ma. In ám, however, only two letters remain. Similar is the case with tánbá and nábá. For example, in Panjabi one says ámb-dá-acár. It is incorrect.

Prákrta pronunciation differs from Sanskrit pronunciation. Furthermore, there are differences in pronunciation from one Prákrta to another. Take, for example, Mágadhii Prákrta: in Sanskrit, puśpa; in Mágadhii Prákrta, puśpala; in Demi-Mágadhii, puphphala; in the old form of modern Bengali, pupphul; and in modern Bengali phul. In Páshcáttya Prákrta, puśpa becomes pośp. For example, the Sanskrit padmapuśpa will be padampośp in Páshcáttya Prákrta. In Demi-Prákrta it is paampośp, and in modern Kashmirii it is pampoś. Kashmirii, Pashto, Tazaki, and Uzbeki, and so on, that is, the languages of southern Russia, have evolved from Páshcáttya Prákrta. The Russian language is a descendant of Vedic, thus there is some similarity between Russian and the language of the Rgveda. For example, the Vedic words nah, vah, etc. are used in Russian. We can see that there is a close connection between the Vedic and Russian languages. The study of philology and phonetics will do a lot to close the distances and eliminate inequalities between people, and it will also help to establish Neohumanism. Is there any wonder then that there is some difference between the Sanskrit pronunciation of eastern India and that of the rest of India!

The pronunciation of vowels in Oriya is similar to Bengali. However, in Oriya, if a word borrowed from Sanskrit or half-borrowed does not have a hasanta then it is fully pronounced while in Bengali such words are not always fully pronounced.⁽¹⁾ Oriya is influenced by the pronunciation of the Atharvaveda and Bengali is not. Bengali is influenced by the Yajurvedic style of pronunciation because the pandits used to follow the pronunciation style of whatever Veda they followed and ultimately that influence made itself felt in the spoken language. It is to some extent for this reason that Bengali is influenced by Yajurvedic pronunciation while Oriya is influenced by Atharvavedic pronunciation.

Most of those Bengali Brahmans who have a large number of Rarhi Brahmans among them follow the Sámaveda but the Sámaveda does not have any pronunciation style of its own. This has resulted in a disorderly situation as regards pronunciation. The majority of the Barendra Brahmans follow the Yajurveda and a small number follow the Rgveda. As one of a number of educated communities, the Káyasthas follow the Yajurveda, thus the social life of Bengal as well as its language is more influenced by the Yajurveda. However in the local life of Bengal, especially in the outlying areas, there is some Indo-Burmese and Indo-Tibetan influence, both in the racial makeup as well as in the language. There is no escaping this; it is simply not possible. The ancient Bengali poet, Vijaygupta, has heaped his abuse in this way:

Sarvemáḿsaratáh múd́háh mleccháh gobrahmaghátakáh
Kuvacakáh pare múd́háh ete kút́ayonayah
Teśáḿ paeshácikii bháśá lokácáro na vidyate

That is: “These people are addicted to all kinds of meat. They are fools who refuse to follow the scriptural injunctions of the Vedas. They do not venerate cows and Vipras [priestly caste]. They speak a non-Vedic language, a barbarian language which is very distant from the Vedic language.”

However he himself was not able to keep aloof from its influence. The suffix śak has been used in the word kuvacakáh. Generally, when the word formed from the verbal root can be either nominative or accusative then the suffix śak is fixed for the nominative and the suffix ńak for the accusative. For example, ranj + śak = rajaka. It means “one who colours”. And ranj + ńak = raiṋjaka which means “that by which something is coloured”, for example, “raiṋjaka soap”. The Indo-Burmese and Indo-Tibetan influence on the local life of Bengal has been unobstructed because they are Bengal’s neighbours. Thus in the Northeast their influence is greater and in the Southwest it is less.

There is some idea that activates the verb and there is another faculty that qualifies it. The first we can call the “activating idea” and the second the “activated faculty”. In the first it should be understood that the verb is separate from the idea and in the second what is implied is that this faculty is linked to the verb. For example, sam – ci + al = saiṋcaya. Here sam is the activating idea, thus ci is subtracted from it. This is indicated by the minus sign (-). In Sanskrit grammatical subtraction is called púrvaka. Al (ac in some people’s opinion) is the activated faculty. Ci links the activated faculty to the original verbal root. The word káya is formed by adding ghaiṋ to ci as the verbal root (ci + ghaiṋ = káya). Here the ca varga has been changed to ka varga. The meaning of ci is “to collect”. The body, that is, káya, is created by collecting water, blood and other substances. Thus ghaiṋ is the activated faculty. In Sanskrit this is referred to as pratyaya [suffix]. The word upasarga [prefix] is used in Sanskrit to refer to the activating idea. In Sanskrit there are twenty upasargas or activating ideas. For example:

Pra-parápa-samanvava-nirdurabhi-vyadhi-súdati-ni-prati-paryapayah.
Upáungiti viḿshati reśa sakhe upasargavidhih kathitah kaviná.

That is, pra, pará, apa, sam, anu, ava, nir, dur, abhi, vi, adhi, su, ut, ati, ni, prati, pari, api, upa, á – these are the twenty Sanskrit upasargas. In English and the Latin family languages upasarga is called “prefix” and pratyaya is called “suffix”.

The Latin family of languages has three branches: Continental Latin, Occido-Demi-Latin, and Oriento-Demi-Latin. Continental Latin includes German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Finnish, and so on. Occido-Demi-Latin includes two and a half – Spanish, Portuguese and Basque. Basque can be called a half-language because it is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. Oriento-Demi-Latin includes French and Italian. The Occido-Demi-Latin languages have retained all of the Latin prefixes. There are two pairs of languages on this earth which are very similar to one another: Spanish and Portuguese, and Bengali and Oriya.

There are two principal styles of pronunciation in English – Anglo-Saxon and Norman. In the Anglo-Saxon style the English “d” is pronounced like “j” while in the Norman style it is pronounced like a hard “d”. For example:

Anglo-Saxon style	Norman style
immediate	immejiate
education	ejucation
budget	bujet

These branches of the Latin language are prevalent in South America, thus South America is called Latin America.

When the Portuguese came to this country we absorbed many words from their language, for example cábi [key]. “Ch” is pronounced like sha in Portuguese, for example, shábi. In Spanish it is also shábi; in Bengali, cábi; in Hindi, cábhi (kuiṋjii). Of course, Bengali also has its own word for cábi – kát́hi – kulupkát́hi (cábikát́hi is also said). The word kháŕá is also used to refer to kát́hi. Kháŕá is a native Bengali word. In Rarhi Bengali deshalái kát́hi [match] is called deshalái kháŕá. At one time the place which is now called Chandannagar was the home of the Bengali Suvarnabaniks [a caste] called Chandra, thus its name became Chandranagar. Its French pronunciation was Chandernagore, which in Bengali became Chandannagar. There is no connection between the city’s name and the word candan [sandalwood]. The French word paiṋ, which means bread, is páoṋ in the Iberian language. It is supposed that when the Portuguese brought their kind of bread to this country they used to call it páoṋ and thus this particular type of bread became páoṋrut́i in Bengali.

Latin has both prefixes and suffixes. In fact, most of the world’s languages use prefixes and suffixes. Even those languages which are undeveloped but which have come from developed languages also use prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes and suffixes carry the specialities of a language. During the time of Vaŕu Cańd́iidás, about six to seven hundred years ago, Bengali was not a developed language but it still used prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes and suffixes are needed for the formation of new words. For example, by adding the suffix “ing” to the root word “fight” in English, the verbal adjective “fighting” is created. When confronted with developed languages people cannot remain satisfied with an undeveloped language so they enrich their own language by picking up like-meaning words from those other languages. It is due to this that a learned person prefers the Latin word “belligerent” to the ordinary English word “fighting”.

In Bengali we say: ámi áshávádii chilum [I was hopeful]. Many learned people write the Latin word “sanguine” instead of “hopeful” for the word áshávádii. This tendency to use developed words in good language can be seen in people of all countries and all epochs, and it will remain so. For example, in Birbhum someone may ask someone else in Bengali: hyánre barkat, tor bet́á-bit́i kát́á? [Hey, Barkat, how many children do you have?] Often it is seen that instead of replying with bet́á-bit́i, one says ámár tint́i putra áche [I have three sons].⁽²⁾ A prefix is used before a word. It signifies that a certain part has been separated from a greater idea. Along with it a suffix is added, that is, a firm suffix or trust is placed that corresponds to exactly the way I would like it to be.

The corresponding Sanskrit suffix for the English “er” is d́a. Both perform the same function; they are both activated faculties. For example: In English, “go + er = goer”; “see + er = seer”; and “do + er = doer”, while in Sanskrit trae + d́a = tra and gam + d́a = ga. Gae + shatr + trae + d́a = gáyattra. By adding the feminine iip we get gáyattrii. (Since the verbal root contains a truncated consonant [halanta] then the truncated consonant also crops up in the derivation of the suffix. For example, gam + d́a = ga. If another vowel is present instead of a then that vowel is changed into a, for example, trae + d́a = tra. This is the speciality of the suffix d́a.)

The word ga has two meanings. The first is “far-off country” or “vast land”. The other meaning is “goer” (masculine). Thus the meaning of the word gauṋgá is “that river which flows through a vast land”.

Bengali is a living language so it has not stopped at only the twenty Sanskrit prefixes. It has borrowed many Farsi words and Farsi prefixes as well. For example, “one who does not have faith [imán]” is beimán; “one who does not have an heir [wárish]” is bewárish; “one who has no sense [ákkel]” is be-ákkile. Similar is the case with behudá [unjust, unnecessary], nástánábud [ruined], and so on. In Farsi “work” is kár. “One who does not have work” is be-kár. “A place where there is work” is kárkháná [factory]. “One who is skilful in work” is kárigar. In this way innumerable Farsi words have filtered into Bengali.

The corresponding Arabic prefix for the Farsi be is lá. There are few Arabic prefixes in Bengali. The Farsi word be-wárish is lá-wárish in Arabic. It should be mentioned here that while Arabic words have entered the Bengali language for religious and commercial reasons, they have not been incorporated naturally into Bengali. So although Arabic words are used to some extent, there is less use of Arabic prefixes and suffixes. A few examples of such words in use are: musáphir [traveller], mosáheb [flatterer], muyájjin [muezzin], etc.

If we say betár [radio] in Farsi, then in Arabic we say lásilki. Silik in Arabic means “fine fibre”. The fine fibres that came to Bengal from China were given the Sanskrit name ciináḿshuka. This ciináḿshuká was given the Farsi name resham and the Arabic name silik. Arab merchants used to export this ciináḿshuka to the markets of Europe. When they were heard saying the Arabic word in Europe, ciináḿshuka became “silk” with the help of a little faulty pronunciation.

Bengali also has its own prefixes. Há, á, ni, etc. are Bengali prefixes. For example, há-bháte, á-dekhle, ni-khágii, and so on. Há – bhátiyá has become há-bháte: há – bháta + iyá. Here iyá is a suffix. Similarly á-dekhle comes from á-dekhilá. The Rarhi Bengali sopare comes from ságara-páriyá. It means “chilli pepper” [lauṋká]. Chilli peppers came from overseas, thus their old Bengali name was lauṋkámaric, that is, “that pepper which comes from overseas”.

“Iran” is another name for Persia. When the Aryans came to India they passed through Persia. When they arrived in Persia they liked it very much. Previously they were only familiar with barley and oats. They discovered wheat for the first time when they came to this country. Wheat is called godhúma in Sanskrit. Go means “tongue” and dhúma means “festival”. When they ate wheat they realized how tasty it was, that is, it was like a festival for the tongue so they called it godhúma. In Hindi it is gehún and in Bihar, gohúm; in Oriya and Rarhi Bengali, gaham; and in Calcutta Bengali, gam. They all come from the word godhúma. In Panjabi wheat is called kanak because at harvest time its colour turns golden.⁽³⁾

When the Aryans arrived in Persia they also came into contact with paddy. They saw that many different things could be made from paddy such as beaten rice, puffed rice, khai [a soft variety of puffed rice], muŕki [parched paddy soaked in molasses], and so on. For this reason they gave paddy the name vriihi which means “that in which a great deal of capacity is hidden”. For example, bahuvriihi samása means “that samása [compound word] which contains the opportunity for pervasive expression”. Thus with yasya [of which] and yasmin [in which] at the end, vyásavákya of bahuvriihi is created.⁽⁴⁾ The old Latin and old French word rihi comes from the Vedic word vriihi; its altered form became risi from which comes the modern English “rice”.

The Vedic word dhánya does not mean “paddy”. It means “green vegetation”. Harita dhánya → haria háńńa → hariháná → hariyáńá.

The Aryans accepted Persia as their proper homeland. Happily they stayed there and wandered through it. Thus they gave it the Vedic name “Áryańyavraja” whose altered form became the modern “Iráńaveja”. In Arabic the country’s name is Pháras. The name Pháras continued to be used for a long time and in English it became “Persia”. Nowadays the country has been given the name “Iran” from the old word “Iráńaveja”.

In the course of different discussions we have seen that since its very birth the Bengali language has been inseparably bound to the Sanskrit language. Not only should the people of Bengal consider Sanskrit to be their religious language or spiritual language, similar to Arabic or Pali, but it should also be accepted as their original language. Sanskrit has been joined to the pulse of the Bengalees for generation after generation; it cannot be rejected because of changing events. If they try to distance themselves from it, thinking it to be the religious language of the Hindus and the Maháyána Buddhists, they will not cause the Sanskrit language any harm but they will cause harm to the Bengali-speaking people. The Bengali language stands upon the firm foundation of Sanskrit. If a blow is struck to that firm foundation then the infrastructure of the Bengali language will find itself tottering. The study of Sanskrit should be made compulsory at the university level. In advanced fields Sanskrit should be retained as a separate paper included in the study of Bengali, whether or not it is studied as a separate language. This will be a strong and well-merited step.

Footnotes

(1) A mark signalling that the final implied vowel is not pronounced, for example, sa with a hasanta (স্) becomes s. –Trans.

(2) Putra [son] is a more refined word than bet́á. –Trans.

(3) From the Sanskrit for “gold”. –Trans.

(4) Formal words used in expressing a compound word. –Trans.