This book is intended to introduce and impart a preliminary knowledge of Bengali grammar to the English-knowing language learners in India and abroad. Bengali grammars hitherto written by scholars are many in number and are of good quality. But grammar books, specifically for the use of Bengali language learners are only a few. None of these grammars is of much help towards understanding and use of the colloquial form of Bengali as spoken today. This book will prove to be useful to the students, either Indians or foreigners.
Dr. Alibha Oakshi, an eminent linguist of the present time, teaches in Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. Born in 1951 in Kolkata, she was graduated from Sanskrit College and did her M. A. in Comparative Philology and Linguistics from the University of Calcutta in 1971. She was awarded Ph.D degree from the same University in 1992. Dr. Alibha Oakshi was prompted to author this grammar for foreigner and non-Bengalee students learning Bengali to enable them to comprehend the language in totality.
Her other books are viz. 1) Learning Bengali - a Self-tutor on a Phonetic Basis, 1 st edition 1995, 2nd edition, kolkata, 2002. 2) Aspect in Bengali, Kolkata, 2000. 3) Bangia dhvanyatmak shabda, Kolkata, 2001. 4) Bangia bhasabijnan abhidhan, Kolkata, 2003.
This book is intended to introduce and impart a preliminary knowledge of Bengali grammar to the English-knowing language learners in India and abroad. I ventured to work on this grammar as I found, while teaching Bengali to dealing with practical uses of present day’s colloquial speech, the students face a serious problem. Bengali grammars hitherto written by scholars are many in number and are of good quality. But grammar books, specifically for the uses of Bengali language learners are only a few. None of these grammars is of much help towards understanding and use of the colloquial form of Bengali as spoken today. My first book was a primer titled ‘Learning Bengali- a Self-tutor on a phonetic Basis’ published in 1995. Since then my attempt has been to intrinsic And thorough understanding of its grammatical norms. I believe that this book will prove to be useful to the students, either Indians or foreigners.
In this book an effort has been made to present an empirical exposition in the field of grammatical norms of Bengali starting from its alphabet to sound system i.e. phonology, word formations along with pratyaya (affixes) and vibhakti (endings) i.e. morphology, the sentence patterns i.e. syntax, idioms, proverbs and, so on
This book comprises three parts. The Part I deals with Bengali scripts. The scripts are arranged into ninie groups according to there similarity in shape following the pattern of my earlier book ‘Learning Bengali …’. I find that such an arrangement to introduce the scripts to the foreigners is both convenient and easy to learn. A few words as examples are given along with each group. After the simple letters, conjucts letters have been introduced. For each group of conjucts examples have been given. At the end of part I euphonic combinations or sandhi have been explained.
In part II all parts of speech viz. nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and indeclinables (Auyaya) are discussed and exemplified in detail. In this part old liabrary variety of Bengali i.e. sadhu Bengali has also been taken into consideration. Verbal conjugations both colloquial and old literary Bengali have been shown. Compounds (samasa), primary and secondary affixes (krit and taddhita pratyaya), repetitive words, onomatopoeic words have been illustrated in detail.
In Part III various sentence, use of clauses, idioms and proverbs are introduced. Prosody, the most difficult and technical subject has not touched in this grammar. After each lesson some exercises have been appended for the purpose of practice. In writing this grammar I have consulted many Bengali grammar books viz., ‘Sabdatatva’ by Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Bhashabodh Bangla Grammar’ by W.S. Milne,’ Origin and Development of the Bengali language’, ‘A Bengali Phonetic Reader’ and ‘Bhashaprakash Bangala Vyakaran by Suniti Kumar Chatterji, ‘Uccatara Bangla Vyakaran’ by Vamandev Chakrabarty, ‘Aspect in Bengali’ written by me and, so on. Above all, I have inserted some relevant portions taken from my book ‘Learning Bengali …’.
This book is based on my research project titled ‘A Practical Grammar of Bengali in the perpective of Language Pedagogy’ approved by my University – visva-Bharati. I am grateful to professor Sujit Kumar Basu, the Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati, for their support and cooperation.
I am indebted to Quondam Professor Satya Ranjan Banerjee of the Calcutta University for his constant encouragement and also to Professor Sutapa Bhattacharya, my colleague for her valuable suggestions. My thanks go to the Librarian of Central Liberary, Visva-Bharati. Sri debashis Bhattacharya of Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, Kolkata has taken all the trouble in publishing this book and the staff of Abhinava Mudrani have made it possible to print this difficult piece of work. They deserve my heartfelt thanks.
Last but not least, my gratitude goes to Ardhendu, my husband, Aryan, my son and Aritra, my daughter-in-law for their inspiration and support.
Finally, I admit many a shortcomings in this book. I shall heartily welcome suggestions, corrections and opinions to improve upon this works in the next edition. Our total endeavour shall be as foreigners to learn the Bengali speaking students as well as foreingners to learn the Bengali language and grammar in larger numbers.
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