Bengali–Assamese script
The Bengali–Assamese script, sometimes also known as Eastern Nagari, is an eastern Brahmic script, primarily used today for the Bengali and Assamese language spoken in eastern South Asia. It evolved from Gaudi script, also the common ancestor of the Odia and Tirhuta scripts. It is commonly referred to as the Bengali script by Bengalis and the Assamese script by the Assamese, while in academic discourse it is sometimes called Eastern-Nāgarī. Three of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic—Bengali, Assamese, and Meitei—commonly use this script in writing; Bengali is also the official and national language of Bangladesh.
| Bengali–Assamese বাংলা-অসমীয়া | |
|---|---|
Image 1: The text, from the 18th-century Hastividyārnava, commissioned by Ahom king Siva Singha, reads: sri sri mot xivo xingha moharaja. The modern Bengali glyph "র" currently used for ra is used in this pre-modern Assamese/Sanskrit manuscript for va, the modern form of which is "ৱ". Though the modern Assamese alphabet does not use this glyph for any letter, modern Tirhuta continues to use this for va. Image 2: The native names, in Bengali–Assamese, of the three scheduled languages of India that commonly use this script, followed by their standard English names and a Latin transliteration of the native name in parentheses. | |
| Script type | |
Time period | c. 1100–present |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| Official script | for Assamese language, Bengali language and Meitei language (constitutionally termed as Manipuri) |
| Languages | Assamese, Bengali, Bishnupriya, Meitei, Sylheti, Santali, Kokborok, Garo, Hajong, Chakma, Chittagonian, Kudmali Maithili, Kamtapuri, Urdu and others. |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Proto-Sinaitic script
|
Child systems | Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Beng (325), Bengali (Bangla) |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Bengali |
Unicode range | U+0980–U+09FF (Bengali), U+011480–U+0114DF (Tirhuta) |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
Besides Bengali and Assamese languages, it is also used to write Bishnupriya Manipuri, Meitei, Chakma, Santali and numerous other smaller languages spoken in eastern South Asia. Historically, it was used to write various Old and Middle Indo-Aryan languages, and, like many other Brahmic scripts, is still used for writing Sanskrit. Other languages, such as Bodo, Karbi, Maithili and Mising were once written in this script. The two major alphabets in this script – Assamese and Bengali – are virtually identical, except for two characters — Assamese differs from Bengali in one letter for the /r/ sound, and an extra letter for the /w/ or /v/ sound.