From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Romanization of Bengali, or the representation of the Bengali language in the Latin script, is hardly as uniform as the Romanizations of many other languages such as Japanese, Sanskrit, or Chinese.

In the context of Bengali Romanization, it is important to distinguish between transliteration from transcription. Transliteration is orthographically accurate (i.e. the original spelling can be recovered), whereas transcription is phonemically or phonetically accurate (the pronunciation can be reproduced). Several conventions exist for writing Indic languages including Bengali in the Latin script, including the diacritic-based IAST, ISO 15919, and the National Library at Calcutta romanization, as well the non-diacritic-based ITRANS which uses upper case alphabets suited for ASCII keyboards.

Romanization Choices

	transcription (in IPA)	transcription (on Wikipedia)	transliteration (ITRANS)	transliteration (diacritics)
সাপ "snake"	[ʃap]	shap	sApa	sāpa
শাপ	[ʃap]	shap	shApa	śāpa
গামলা "basket"	[gamla]	gamla	gAmalA	gāmalā
বই/বৈ "book"	[boi]	boi	bai	bai

Bengali, like most Indo-Aryan languages, has an Abugida orthography, i.e. a vowel is inherent in every non-conjunct consonant - either অ ô (e.g. ম in মরা môra) or ও o (e.g. ম in মরি mori), although many instances exhibit schwa-deletion (e.g. ম in গামলা gamla). Because of this ambiguity in the spelling system, the transliteration and transcription of a Bengali word can differ. A word like গামলা is correctly transliterated as gāmalā (gāmlā would correspond to the orthography গাম্লা) and transcribed gamla [gamla]. Transcription models would confuse homophonous words such as সাপ (sāpa) and শাপ (śāpa), which are both pronounced shap [ʃap].

On the other hand, correct transliterations are hard to pronounce for those who do not already speak Bengali, as the graphemic transliteration of Bengali can be misleading with respect to pronunciation.

Two standards are commonly used for transliteration of Indic languages including Bengali. The older diacritic approach, or ITRANS, is a transliteration scheme that uses upper- and lower-case letters contrastively and is more suited for ASCII-derivative keyboards. IAST uses diacritics instead of contrastive upper-case letters.

Diphthongs remain a problem for most transliteration schemes, as in the distinction between বই from বৈ; this is not resolved in standard IAST or ITRANS transliterations either. The XIAST (eXtended IAST) and XHK (eXtended Harvard-Kyoto) schemes promoted by Gaudiya Kutir provide a means for lossless transliteration of Bengali script.

Contents 1 Wikipedia Phonemic Romanization 2 IPA Phonetic Transcription 2.1 Diphthongs 3 See also

Bengali words are currently Romanized on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to the spelling. It is a variant of the basic transcription system (other than IPA) used by linguists specializing in Bengali. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, with IPA transcriptions following.

Vowels   Front Central Back High i   u High-mid e   o Low-mid ê   ô Low   a

Consonants   Labial Dental Apico- Alveolar Apico- Postalveolar Lamino- Postalveolar Velar Glottal Voiceless stops p t th   ţ ţh ch chh k kh   Voiced stops b bh d dh   đ đh j jh g gh   Voiceless fricatives f   s   sh   h Nasals m   n     ng   Liquids     l, r ŗ

These correspond to the IPA transcription of Bengali shown below.

Vowels   Front Central Back High i   u High-mid e   o Low-mid æ   ɔ Low   a

Consonants   Labial Dental Apico- Alveolar Apico- Postalveolar Lamino- Postalveolar Velar Glottal Voiceless stops p t̪ t̪ʰ   ʈ ʈʰ ʧ ʧʰ k kʰ   Voiced stops b bʰ d̪ d̪ʰ   ɖ ɖʰ ʤ ʤʰ ɡ ɡʰ   Voiceless fricatives f   s   ʃ   h Nasals m   n     ŋ   Liquids     l, r ɽ

Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable.^[1] Several vowel combinations can be considered true monosyllabic diphthongs, made up of the main vowel (the nucleus) and the trailing vowel (the off-glide). Almost all other vowel combinations are possible, but only across two adjacent syllables, such as the disyllabic vowel combination [u.a] in কুয়া kua "well". As many as 25 vowel combinations can be found, but some of the more recent combinations have not passed through the stage between two syllables and a diphthongal monosyllable.^[2]

Diphthongs

IPA Transcription	Wikipedia Romanization	Example
ij	ii	নিই nii "I take"
iw	iu	বিহ্বল biubhôl "upset"
ej	ei	নেই nei "there is not"
ee̯	ee	খেয়ে khee "having eaten"
ew	eu	ঢেউ đheu "wave"
eo̯	eo	খেওনা kheona "do not eat"
æe̯	êe	নেয় nêe "she takes"
æo̯	êo	নেও nêo "you take"
aj	ai	পাই pai "I find"
ae̯	ae	পায় pae "she finds"
aw	au	পাউ pau "sliced bread"
ao̯	ao	পাও pao "you find"
ɔe̯	ôe	নয় nôe "she is not"
ɔo̯	ôo	নও nôo "you are not"
oj	oi	নই noi "I am not"
oe̯	oe	ধোয় dhoe "she washes"
oo̯	oo	ধোও dhoo "you wash"
ow	ou	নৌকা nouka "boat"
uj	ui	ধুই dhui "I wash"

Topics related to the Bengali language

Grammar • Phonology • Vocabulary • Dialects • Consonant clusters • Script • Romanization • Literature • Language Movement • International Mother Language Day

v • d • e Indo-Iranian languages
Indic (Indo-Aryan)	Sanskrit: Vedic Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit · Prakrit: Pāli - Magadhi · Mitanni · Bengali (Dialects: Chittagonian, Sylheti) · Hindustani (Registers: Hindi, Urdu) · Angika · Assamese · Bhojpuri · Bishnupriya Manipuri · Dhivehi · Dogri · Gujarati · Konkani · Mahl · Maithili · Marathi · Nepali · Oriya · Punjabi · Romani · Sindhi · Sinhala
Iranian	Eastern: Avestan · Bactrian · Pamir (Shughni, Sarikoli, Wakhi) · Pashto · Scythian - Ossetic · Sogdian - Yaghnobi · Western: Persian: Old Persian - Middle Persian (Pahlavi) - Modern Persian (Varieties: Farsi, Dari, Tajik) · Bukhori · Balochi · Dari (Zoroastrianism) · Gilaki · Kurdish · Luri · Mazandarani · Talysh · Tat · Zazaki
Dardic	Dameli · Domaaki · Gawar-Bati · Kalash · Kashmiri · Khowar · Kohistani · Nangalami · Pashayi · Palula · Shina · Shumashti
Nuristani	Askunu · Kamkata-viri · Tregami · Vasi-vari · Waigali