How Did Our National Language Get the Name Bangla?

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How Did Our National Language Get the Name Bangla?Bangla, an Indic language belonging to the Eastern Indo-Aryan Branch of the Indo-European language family, is an Indo-Aryan (I-A) variety that has been in use as a vehicle for higher studies and official languages. It has been the national language and official language of Bangladesh and the state language of the Indian states of Assam, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Tripura, as well as the Union territory of Andaman and Nicobar. It has been the first language of 234 million people and the second, third, and heritage language of another 40 million.

It got a standard shape and grammar through the enthusiasm and efforts of Bengal Renaissance linguists and literary scholars, who were informed of the contemporary development of linguistics in Europe. The linguists, including Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1926), Sukumar Sen (1970–76), and Muhammad Shahidullah (1959), formulated a history of Bangla enriched by the contemporary development of historical-comparative philology in Europe. They sought to write the history of the Bangla language with the historical-comparative method on the premise of historical I-A linguistics, which posits that the Bangla language arose from vernacular Prakrit through chronological transformation. Accordingly, Bangla and other Eastern I-A languages gradually evolved out of Magadhi Prakrit, one of the Eastern and Middle I-A varieties, for over 1000 years. The Apabhramsha is the later variety that emerged from Magadhi Prakrit in the early 10th Century AD and received the name Abahattha as it gradually transformed into the regional vernacular language, from which Bangla and other Eastern I-A varieties, like Assamese, Oriya, and Bihari languages were born.

The prevalent history of the Bangla language has been formulated through the historical-comparative philological approach, bringing forth some essential points that must be addressed.
i) That the Language gradually evolved out of the Prakrit (vernacular of Sanskrit) over about 1000 years,
ii) That one of the varieties, known as Magadhi Prakrit, has gradually evolved into Modern Bangla, while the series of transitional varieties gradually disappeared,
iii) That a specific I-A variety gradually, evenly, and systematically evolved in all the regions of Banglavarta (Banglasphere covering the regions of Bangladesh and Indian States of Assam, Jharkhand, Tripura, and West Bengal), which developed into the current standard variety of Bangla language, and
iv) That the linguistic data used in the formulation of history are the sporadic collection of literary works language; for example, the linguistic data used in writing the book Origing and Development of Bangla are the treaties, including the verses from the Charyapada (8-12th Century), the Shreekrishna Kirtana Kabya (14-15th CE) and articles on the scriptures published in Calcutta in the newspapers during 20th CE.

To review the main points of the above-described history, I must recall that I-A vernacular, known as Prakrit, was originally the spoken language of the Aryan immigrant people. At the immigration of the Aryans during the early centuries of the 1st millennium in the Banglavarta, some of their speech varieties were introduced as a common means of social transaction among the diverse speech communities belonging to non-Aryan tribes, including Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, and Dravidian ethnicities. As these Prakrit varieties were being used as a means of communication among the non-Aryan speech communities, those Prakrits continued to receive specific changes in their structure. They received different patterns of changes depending on the types of social spheres, e.g., in religious institutions, administrative institutions, and social settings in non-Aryan societies. As these emergent varieties were being kept in use, they brought forth a series of I-A varieties in transition over time. By the 13th Century, a few of these I-A varieties started to be used as a vehicle for popular religious and cultural activities under the patronage of political authorities. Throughout history, the speech varieties were in use for popular poetic literary practices that received the name Bangla after the name of the regime, i.e., Bangla Sultanate (1352-1576), and later standardized during the British colonial regime.

Hence, the standard Bangla is a decreolized variety created out of an Eastern I-A variety (i.e., Magadha variety) posited in the post-Creole continuum extended toward North-South from the Khyber Pass of Afghanistan to Arakan (Rakhaine) state of Burma (in Myanmar) and toward East-West from Bombay of Maharashtra to Sivasagar of Assam. The Eastern I-A varieties have derived out of language contact between the speech variety of non-Aryan indigenous people and that of immigrants from Central Asia and West Asia, who immigrated in two different weaves (1st-12th Century and 13th-18th Century) of immigration. A variety of it has been decreolized at the center of power, Gauda (now situated in Malda district), during the regime of Bangla Sultanate (1342-1539), since when it has been in use as a vehicle of literary and cultural activities. Later, it was standardized during the British regime at the event of the Bengal Renaissance (a period of intellectual and cultural awakening in Bengal, India, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) in Calcutta, then the capital of British India, since when it has been in use as a vehicle of higher studies and official languages.

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