Bengali alphabet
| Bengali abugida Bangla abugida |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | |
| Languages | Bengali, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Kokborok |
|
Time period
|
11th century to the present |
|
Parent systems
|
Brahmi
|
|
Child systems
|
Tirhuta |
|
Sister systems
|
Assamese, Tibetan |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Beng, 325 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Bengali |
| U+0980–U+09FF | |
The Bengali alphabet or Bangla alphabet (Bengali: বাংলা লিপি Bangla lipi) is the writing system for the Bengali language and is the 6th most widely used writing system in the world due to its population. The script is somewhat similar to Assamese with minor variations, and is the basis for the other writing systems like Meithei and Bishnupriya Manipuri. Historically, the script has also been used to write Sanskrit in the region of Bengal.
From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali script is an abugida, i.e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realized not as independent letters, but as diacritics attached to its consonant letters. It is written from left to right and lacks distinct letter cases. It is recognizable, as are other Brahmic scripts, by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together which is known as মাত্রা matra. The Bengali script is however less blocky and presents a more sinuous shape.
The Bengali script evolved from the Kamarupi script, which belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts. In addition to differences in how the letters are pronounced in the different languages, there are some typographical differences between the version of the script used for Assamese language and that used for Bengali language:
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Wikipedia