bengali lesson 5/5

Here is the Bengali Alphabet

The vowel marks

The compound letters
To follow
Comments on the above 

First of all, the letter that looks like a "y" in hindi is NOT a "z" in
bangla, it is a harder "j", a sound not found in Hindi.  there is no real "z"
sound in bangla, the first "j" is used for a "z".

Also, the "s" letter is pronounced like a softer "sh", though in a few words
it is pronounced as an "s".  I would recommend that you (if u don't mind my
saying) write "s, sh" under that letter.

And the vowels are different from Hindi to Bangla:
   the vowels are:

aw    (NOT the same sound as in Hindi, it is the sound in "hot" or "lot")
aa    (similar to Hindi)
i       (similar to Hindi)
ee    (similar to Hindi)
u      (similar to Hindi)
oo    (similar to Hindi)
ri      (similar to Hindi)
e      (similar to Hindi)
oi    (NOT the same as in Hindi, it is the sound in "loin" or "join")
o     (similar to Hindi)
ou   (NOT the same as in Hindi, no similar letter, it's just an "o" that
becomes a "u"      making an "ou" sound)

bengali lesson 4/5

There are many compound letters in Bengali made up of two or more letters . Its not possible to list them all here. You will find it easier to read them from a book like Learn Bengali in 30 days. However lets attempt a few of these.
The next figure contains double letters - ie each sounds the same eg kk in chiKKen ( chicken) , LL in Jill etc. See if you can identify each doubled letter. The last three are not so obvious and so their corresponding letter is written as half size to help you identify them . The answer are at the bottom of the figure.

See if you can read these words using the above doubled letters .

The answers are A . Apple B . Jill C Anna D Chicken E Egg F Yddi ( If - Hindi) G Hajj H Abbot I Eddie J Atta ( flour - Hindi ) K Abrit't'i ( Recitation )
Note how the soft T' as in the word K- Aabrit't'i and the hard T as in Tom in the word J - Atta are made up from the single letters.

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Lets look at numbers from 1 to 10 . These are used less and less being replaced by English numbers.

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Here are compound letters made of two letters . Note the name of the compound is derived from the half letter at the top and half letter at the bottom - ulkaa meansa a meteor.

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Here are some half letters which are often used to form compound letters of two or even three half letters. See if you can identify them . Some blanks have been filled . We need help in identifying and completing the compound letters below. If you can help please send an email to Ukindia for eg in fig 49h below the first letter would be 1. Short u , look , mulk etc. Please send the answers to all three figures 49h with its 50 letters , 49ia with 20 lettters and 49ja with 33 letters ( some eg 1 and 2 in the first figure, may be repeated) in the next three figures -in each case identifying the letter , then a short English word in which it might occur and a short Bengali word in which it is used. The answers should all be in English letters and should not take an expeienced Bengali reader more than 10 minutes to do. Your help will be acknowledged. With many thanks.

Answers are here given by Sameer (thank you very much Sameer ! ) . Note that some letters above are duplicated but for the moment we will leave it as is and you can use them as practice. Later on we will make some words using these half letters and vowel marks .

#  sound             location           bangla word         english

1-  u                 underneath         alu                       potato
2-  u                 underneath         same as above
3-  u (after r)    to the right           rush                     Russia
4-  uu               underneath         puurbaw               east
5-  uu               underneath         same as above
6-  uu (after r) to the right            duruuhaw             difficult
     or ri (after h) to the right         hridoy                  heart
7-  ri                underneath          mrittu                   death
8-  ri                underneath          same as above
9-  e                 to the left            desh                    nation
10- e                to the left            same as above
11- oi               to the left            moitraw                friendship 
12- oi               to the left            same as above
13- ou              to the right          moushumi            monsoon
14- k (before t/r) to the right        bækti (bekti)         person
15- g                on top                rarely used
16- ng              on top                rarely used
17- ch              on top                achchha               O.K.
18- j                on top                 rarely used
19- n'             to the right            ushn'aw                warm
20- n'             on top                  kawn't'awk             thorn
21- t               underneath          bæstaw                 busy
22- tu             underneath          kintu                      but
23- tr              underneath         strii                        woman
24- d              underneath         rarely used
25- dh            underneath          bouddhaw              Buddhist
26- n              on top                 jawnmaw                birth
27- n (before # 21)  on top        antawrjatik              international
28- n              underneath         prawshnaw             question
29- n              underneath         same as above
30- p              on top                 rarely used
31- b              underneath         ddiip (spelled dbiip) island
32- b              underneath         same as above
33- b              underneath         same as above
34- m             on top                 lawmba                   long
35- m             underneath         atta (spelled atma)   soul
36- æ             to the right          bæbawhar               use
37- r              underneath          gram                       village
38- r              underneath          same as above
39- r              underneath          same as above
40- r              underneath          same as above
41- r              on top                 dhawrmaw               religion
42- l              on top                  kawlpawna              imagination
43- l              underneath          plabawn                  flood
44- l              underneath          same as above
45- sh           on top                  rarely used
46- sh           on top                  srisht'i                    creation
47- sh           on top                  same as above
48- s             on top                  sthan                     place
49- s             on top                  same as above
50- punctuation mark that prevents the "aw" sound from coming after a
consonant

The next compound letters next can be used to form more words .

Answers
2 kt 15 tt ( atta)
Here are some more compound letters , see if you can identify them

Answers 10 nn 12 pp( apple) 24 LL More to follow

bengali lesson 3/5

Revise the vowel marks

And how these vowel marks modify the letter M

Lets look at five more letters. See if you can read the five words below them -some bits have been filled in
S as in Sum
THE as in THUs
T as in musT
TTH as in TThanda (cold in Hindi)
T' as in roTa ( crying in Hindi)

Here are the answers

Six more constants

GH as in GHee ( clarified butter) , a deep G sounded from the chest
D- hard D as in Dog
SHH- a deeper SH
AD- the tongue is rolled right back and then rolled rapidly forwards to just strike the tip of the hard palate
KH as in loCH THHE - a deeper THE from the chest
Here are the answers

Lets look at the final five consonants - there are examples of the way they sound in a mixture of English , Hindi and Benggali words after the letters. See if you can read them

The JH is a deep J from the chest
This n is exactly like the N in lunch
The Z as in English
The aDH is the tongue rolled right back as in aD and then rolled forwards except that the sound is made from the chest.
Finally the DDH which is D as in Dog but sounded from the chest
Here are the answers

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Here are the detached vowels written on their own.
See if you can read these mixture of Bengali , Hindi and English words where each vowel is used once. The answers are at the bottom of the figure.

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Apart from the 'AN' sound as in the English word cANt there are three other vowel marks.
The first is an NG sound as in the rUNg of a ladder .

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The next one is an accent mark - sort of h sound .

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The third one is a soft T

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In the next lesson we will look at compound letters.

Bengali lesson 2/5

In the last lesson we looked at the letters B , Ng , L , M and N . These are shown in the first line below together with another five new letters. See if you can read the two letter words formed by joining these letters.

Here are the answers

Lets look at ten more letters. They are given below. Underneath them are words in which the letters are used. To help you the new letters are written and the English translation of the word they mean. See if you can work them out .

Here are the answers. Bengali is not an exact phonetic language. In fact the Bengalis tend to make use of a lot of the vowel mark O without writing it down . So this is how the words are pronounced in fact. For eg town ( ngr) is written as ngr but pronounced nogor.

Note as in Hindi there are quite a few different forms of N. Revise this lesson many times. If you can recognise all the letters , you have done half the Bengali letters already.

Bengali lesson 1/5

Here are the letter B , NG , L and the vowel mark for AA and EE . See if you can read your first word in Bengali underneath the letters.

Answer
.
Of course its Baangaali ( Bengali) ! - bAAngAALEE is how the Bengalis say the word for their own tongue.

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अ	आ	इ	ई	उ	ऊ	ए
অ	আ	ই	ঈ	উ	ঊ	এ
ऐ	ओ	औ	अं	अः		ऋ
ঐ	ও	ঔ	অং	অঃ		ঋ

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Lets look at the vowel marks - the English pronounciation is given as an example in a word, eg the short i is as in the English word Miss
Lets take the letters M and N and add these vowel marks after the M . Note that although the AE and AAE sounds follow after the letter M , they are put before it .Note also that for the O and Au sounds to mark M there are two components of the vowel mark -one which is put before the letter and the other after. These are marked below.

Revise the vowel marks again

And how they modify M

It is important to go over the previous figures again and again until they are imprinted on your mind. Reading the vowel marks correctly is half the battle.

comments on the vowels

The  vowels are different from Hindi to Bangla:
 

aw    (NOT the same sound as in Hindi, it is the sound in "hot" or "lot")
aa    (similar to Hindi)
i       (similar to Hindi)
ee    (similar to Hindi)
u      (similar to Hindi)
oo    (similar to Hindi)
ri      (similar to Hindi)
e      (similar to Hindi)
oi    (NOT the same as in Hindi, it is the sound in "loin" or "join")
o     (similar to Hindi)
ou   (NOT the same as in Hindi, no similar letter, it's just an "o" that
becomes a "u"      making an "ou" sound)

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