Written Bengali is something called Bhodroloker Bhasha. This is what we are taught in the schools, This language is certainly not based on Sanskrit alone. It is mixed with also Pali and Prakrit with deep root. Pali and Prakrit are another form of Sanskrit, but more broken.
After the arrival of Muslim immigrants from west of Hindustan, Bengali started to be mixed with Persian, Turkic and Sanskrit words.
The oldest Bengali can be found in the Buddhist Podaboli/ Chorjapod written by the Buddhist Priests.?The Padabali slokes and were used to spread Buddhism among the common people of Bengal, Bihar and part of Magadh.
Written Bengali poems are very old. But can one say so also for Bengali prose? As far as I know, it started after Bengali grammar was composed by five Sanskrit Hindu Pundits of the Fort William College in Kolkata. Before this period, there was no novels written Bengali.
Pali and Prakrit are full of Todvob words unfit to create prose sentences or literature.?Here comes Arabic, Persian and Turkic words that were introduced gradually in the spoken Bengali. Hindus and Muslims both use these words without knowing their origin.
Migrants became locals but a part of their vocabulary mixed up with the local spoken Bengali language that finally created Bengali we know today. Hindus try to discard many such words, but the spoken Bengali is a mix of these languages.
I would recommend a dictionary called, Arbic-Persian influence in Bengali. I cannot recall the writer’s name.
Ahaha, what an elegant upbringing!! So brilliant choice of beautiful words.
