The present study provides an overview of the origin of the language and its development throughout these eleven centuries. If we accept Chatterji’s remark, as about a hundred year has passed since the book was published, Bengali, as an independent language, has been in existence for about eleven centuries now. 1) notes, ‘t has been in existence as an independent and characterized language, or, rather, as a distinct dialect group, for nearly ten centuries’. According to the language family, Bengali is categorised as a Modern or New Indo-Aryan (NIA) language of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
As a language of more than two hundred million people around the world, it is spoken, apart from bangladesh, in the West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Bihar in India, and by sizable immigrant communities in Eorupe, USA and the Middle-East. The six languages that come before it are Chinese, English, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese. It is the second official language in India, and seventh in the list of most spoken languages in the world. Bengali or Bangla (বাংলা) is the national language of Bangladesh.
