Introduction to Bengali, Part I

R E F O R T R E S U M E S ED 012 811 48 AA 000 171 INTRODUCTION TO BENGALI, PART I. BY- DIMOCK, EDWARD, JR. AND OTHERS CHICAGO UNIV., ILL., SOUTH ASIALANG. AND AREA CTR REPORT NUMBER NDEA.--VI--153 PUB DATE 64 EDRS PRICE MF -$1.50 HC$16.04 401P. DESCRIPTORS-- *BENGALI, GRAMMAR, PHONOLOGY, *LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION, FHONOTAPE RECORDINGS, *PATTERN DRILLS (LANGUAGE), *LANGUAGE AIDS, *SPEECHINSTRUCTION, THE MATERIALS FOR A BASIC COURSE IN SPOKENBENGALI PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK WERE PREPARED BYREVISION OF AN EARLIER WORK DATED 1959. THE REVISIONWAS BASED ON EXPERIENCE GAINED FROM 2 YEARS OF CLASSROOMWORK WITH THE INITIAL COURSE MATERIALS AND ON ADVICE AND COMMENTS RECEIVEDFROM THOSE TO WHOM THE FIRST DRAFT WAS SENT FOR CRITICISM.THE AUTHORS OF THIS COURSE ACKNOWLEDGE THE BENEFITS THIS REVISIONHAS GAINED FROM ANOTHER COURSE, "SPOKEN BENGALI,"ALSO WRITTEN IN 1959, BY FERGUSON AND SATTERWAITE, BUT THEY POINTOUT THAT THE EMPHASIS OF THE OTHER COURSE IS DIFFERENTFROM THAT OF THE "INTRODUCTION TO BENGALI." FOR THIS COURSE, CONVERSATIONAND DRILLS ARE ORIENTED MORE TOWARDCULTURAL CONCEPTS THAN TOWARD PRACTICAL SITUATIONS. THIS APPROACHAIMS AT A COMPROMISE BETWEEN PURELY STRUCTURAL AND PURELYCULTURAL ORIENTATION. TAPE RECORDINGS HAVE BEEN PREPAREDOF THE MATERIALS IN THIS BOOK WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THEEXPLANATORY SECTIONS AND TRANSLATION DRILLS. THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PLANNEDTO BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THOSE RECORDINGS.EARLY LESSONS PLACE MUCH STRESS ON INTONATION WHIM: MUST BEHEARD TO BE UNDERSTOOD. PATTERN DRILLS OF ENGLISH TO BENGALIARE GIVEN IN THE TEXT, BUT BENGALI TO ENGLISH DRILLS WERE LEFTTO THE CLASSROOM INSTRUCTOR TO PREPARE. SUCH DRILLS WERE INCLUDED,HOWEVER, ON THE TAPES. (AL) by Edward C. Dimock, Jr., Somdev Bhattacharji, and Suhas Chatterjee A basic course in spoken Bengali, with emphasis upon speaking and understanding the language. Asian Language Series East-West Center PressHonolulu $5.00 INTRODUCTION TO BENGALI PART I Introduction to Bengali, Part I By EDWARD DIMOCK SOMDEV BHATTACHARJI SUHAS CHATTERJEE Published for the Sauth, AsiaLanguageand Area Center, University of Chicago byEASTu4 CENTER'' PRESS Honolulu This volume is one in a series of experimental language textbooks in South Asian Languages written and prepared in the the South Asia Language and Area Center at the University of Chicago under contract with the Office of Education* Depart- ment of Health, Education* and Welfare* Washington* D.C. The East -West Center Pressdistributes these volumes for the South Asia Language and Area Center. o Copyright by the East-West Center Press University of Hawaii Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-2725 Printed in the United States of America PREFACE The following materials fora basic course in spoken Bengali represent a revision of the work first producedby Edward Dimock and Somdev Bhattacharji and dated September, 1959. This revision has been made by Edward Dimock, Somdev Bhattacharji,and Suhas Chatterjee, on the basis of their experience with twoyears classroom work with the materials, and with the helpful adviceand comments of those to whom the first draft was sent for criticism. Since the first draft of these materia2 was finished in 1959, the first several units of Spoken Bengali, by Fergusonand Satterthwaite, as well as materials for other modern South Asianlanguages, have become available. While we have profited by these,our materials differ some- what in emphasis from them. As has often been pointed out,a language with the richness and breadth of Bengaliwarrants two, or even several, treatments in teaching materials. Our conversations and drillsare oriented less toward practical situations thantoward cultural concepts, facts of Bengali life and history, and selectedgrammatical points; to these considerations we have occasionally sacrificedthe illusion of reality. This does not mean thatwe neglect the structure of the language and do not attempt to train people to speak. On the contrary, the heavy emphasis of our basic course isupon speaking and understanding the language. But in our approach we have aimed ata compromise between purely structural and purely cultural orientation. Student aims, as well as teachers' interests and methods, differ. All except the explanatory materials and translationdrills have been taped. The use of this book, in fact,assumes the use of these tapes. Much stress is laid, for example,on intonation, in the early lessons. This obviously cannot be understood properlyunless it is neard. The work also assumes a certain amount of efforton the part of the instructor. For example, pattern drills, English to Bengali,are given in the text; Bengali to English drills of thesame type are not vi (although such drills are included onthe tapes). The preparation of additional types of drills wehave left, in this version at least, to the instructor. We are greatful to Mr.Richard B. Martin of the language laboratory, University of Chicago, for hisassistance in the preparation of the taped drills, to our students,for their patience while these materials were being developedand for their criticism, toMrs. Arati John, to Muzaffar Ahmed and Roushan Jahanof the University of Chicago South Asian Languages Program, fortheir help with the preparation of the tapes, to Professor Punya Sloka Rayof the University of Chicago for his direct help, advice, andconstant encouragement, and to various scholars who have given us theiradvice and criticism on previous ver- sions of this work. Our thanks also go to the FordFoundation and the United States Office of Education, towhom the second draft of this work was submitted inDecember, 1961, in fulfillment of contract. However, it goes without saying thatneither of these agencies is in any way re- sponsible for the materials in these pages orfor the manner of their preparation. Edward C. Dimock, Jr. Somdev Bhattacharji Suhas Chatterjee The University of Chicago May, 1964 CONTENTS Page Introduction ix Part I. Phonology 1 Lesson I 55 Lesson II 71 Lesson III 89 Review I 105 Lesson IV 111 Lesson V 130 Lessen VI 144 Review II 160 Lesion VII 169 Lesson VIII 185 Lesson IX 198 Lesson X 213 Lesson XI 228 Lesson XII 210 Lesson XIII 256 Lesson XIV 266 INTRODUCTION I. THE LANGUAGE The Bengali language is spokenby upwards of seventy millionsof people in the eastern part ofthe Indian sub-continent; itis a recog- nized language in both theRepublic of India and the Republicof Pakistan. Bengali is an Indo-European language,and therefore of the samelin- guistic lineage as English andthe other European languages,though of a different branch of the family. The branch of the family towhich Ben- gali belongs is calledIndo-Iranian; its sub-branch iscalled Indic In the Indic family among the modernlanguages (of which the direct ances- tor Is a form ofSanskrit) are Bengali, Hindi, Narathi,Gujarati, iindhi, Assamese, Oria, Punjabi,Nepali, Sinhalese, and Kashmiri. These languages are closelyrelated to one another, as are,for example, Italian and Spanish of theEuropean Romance branch of theIndo-European family There are three other major languagefamilies in the sub-continent,the Dravidian (including 'Paull, Yoluguliialtq;aam, and i,annada),11L0 ILLbeto Burman languages of the north-east,and the Austria or Mundafamily (tribal languages of central and easternIndia). The immediate origins of theBengali language are somewhatobscur The chances are taat it derivesdirectly from an .astern varietyof an Indic language closely relatedto Sanskrit, perhaps a"dialectical" var- iety of that language. In any case, in the stagesof Indic language development known as Prakritand Apabhramsa, it seemsclear that in the eastern areas of the Indiansub - continent -- those areas nowoccupied by the states of Bengal,Assam, Orissa, the easternparts of Bihar, and the Pakistani province of EastBengal -- divergent forms oflanguage were developing. The earliest work in Bengaliwhich has been so far discover Uri in 1. For an extensive study ofits history, see 8 K. Chatterji, and Development of theBengali Lanpmaga, Calcutta University,2 vo s*, 3426. x ed is that of the so-called carya-padas, late Buddhist religious verses.2 Some scholars date these songs as early as the 8th centruy, though the 10th century would perhaps be more accurate. Interestingly, these songs have been claimed by the Assamese to be in Old Assamese, by speakers of Oria to be Old Oria, by speakers of Hindi to be Maithali, and by Bengalis to be Old Bengali. Bengali has a very long and a very rich literary tradition. The high points of Bengali literary accomplishment have been in the periods of the 14th through the 17th centuries, when a great Vainava religious literature including lyrics, biographies, and theological treatiseswas written, and the 19th and 20th centuries, when Bengali literature under- went a renaissance in contact with Western literary forms. This is the period in connection with which such names as Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim-candra Chatterji are heard. That Bengali literature has had these peaks does not mean that between them things were stagnant. On the contrary, in other periods much literature of interest and often of outstanding quality was beingpro- duced: for example, the Carjal-mangal of Mukundaram and the Vidya-sundar of Bharatcandra. The Muslim rulers of Bengal, who held sway from the be- ginning of the 13th century until their defeat by the British in 1757, were in large part ardent patrons of Bengali literature. Under their patronage both Hindu and Muslim writers flourished.3 2. TYPE OF LANGUAGE The language which you are about to begin learning is called "stan- dard colloquial" Bengali. This is the form of the language which is spoken by a very large number of people throughout both West Bengal and East Pakistan today, though it includes elements peculiar to West Bengali speech, and originally was probably the language spoken in and around the city of Calcutta. This does notmean that it is the only form of the spoken language which exists. Dialectical varieties of Bengali occur, and the dialects of, say, Burdwan district in West Bengal, and Chittagong 2.

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