The Bengali Alphabet

The Bengali alphabet (বর্ণমালা, barnamala) is a Brahmic abugida used to write the Bengali language (ISO 639-3: ben). It consists of 50 letters: 11 independent vowels (স্বরবর্ণ) and 39 consonants (ব্যঞ্জনবর্ণ), plus a set of vowel diacritical signs (কার, kar), the hasanta/virama, and Bengali-specific digits (০–৯). The script falls within Unicode Block U+0980–U+09FF and is written left to right.

Bengali is the official script of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, and is used by approximately 228–265 million people worldwide. The same script (with minor modifications) is used to write the closely related Assamese language, as well as Sylheti, Meitei (Manipuri), and Maithili, making it one of the most widely used scripts in South Asia.

The Bengali alphabet has 50 letters in its standard form: 11 vowels (স্বরবর্ণ — অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও, ঔ) and 39 consonants (ব্যঞ্জনবর্ণ — ক through হ, plus additional consonants). The traditional listing includes 50 letters, though some older grammars list 52 or more by including the now-rare letters ঌ (lri vowel) and ৡ.

In addition to the main 50 letters, Bengali writing uses vowel signs (কার) written around consonants, the hasanta/virama (্) to suppress the inherent vowel, the anusvara (ং) for nasal sounds, the visarga (ঃ) for aspiration, and Bengali digits (০–৯). Conjunct consonants (যুক্তবর্ণ, juktabarno) — formed by combining two or more consonants — are a prominent feature of Bengali orthography, with hundreds of conjunct forms in common use.

Yes — "Bengali" and "Bangla" refer to the same language and script. "Bangla" (বাংলা) is the name used within the language itself, while "Bengali" is the anglicised version used in English. In Bangladesh, the language is officially called Bangla; in India, it is commonly called Bengali in English contexts. The script is sometimes called the Bengali-Assamese script because the same Unicode block (U+0980–U+09FF) covers both Bengali and Assamese, with only minor letter differences between them.

The Bengali script is one of the most widely used scripts in the world, used across Bangladesh, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, and by diaspora communities globally. The language achieved international attention when Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, the first non-European to do so — writing entirely in Bengali.

Bengali is spoken primarily in two main territories. In Bangladesh, it is the sole official language, spoken by the vast majority of the country's ~170 million population. In India, Bengali is the official language of West Bengal state and is widely spoken in Tripura, Assam (particularly the Barak Valley), and by Bengali communities across India. Total speaker counts range from 228 to 265 million depending on the counting methodology.

A significant Bengali diaspora exists globally. Large communities are found in the United Kingdom (particularly in London's Tower Hamlets and Birmingham), the United States (New York, New Jersey), the Middle East (particularly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where many Bangladeshis work), and Malaysia. The Bengali diaspora maintains the language and script in community settings, religious institutions, and increasingly in digital media.

The ISO 639-3 code for Bengali is ben. The two-letter ISO 639-1 code is bn. Bengali is classified within the Bengali-Assamese branch of the Eastern Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-Iranian language family. Related languages sharing this branch include Assamese (asm), Sylheti (syl), Chittagonian (ctg), and Rohingya (rhg). Glottolog classifies Bengali under the identifier "beng1280".

Bengali holds significant constitutional and statutory recognition. In Bangladesh, it is enshrined in the constitution as the state language, and International Mother Language Day (21 February) was established by UNESCO in recognition of the 1952 Language Movement (ভাষা আন্দোলন, Bhasha Andolon) in which Bengalis in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) died defending their right to use their language.