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Why isn’t Bengali/Bangla more popular? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4547 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 17 of 35 23 May 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
In everyday speech, they're more like English and German when it comes to vocabulary, since colloquial Hindi has so many words from Urdu/Persian/Arabic which don't exist in Bengoli. In Hindi, many Sanskrit words sound formal (for example PUSTAK instead of KITAB for a ''book'') and can render a register 'formal, ceremonial, pompous, or even artificial.'' Edited by Camundonguinho on 23 May 2012 at 9:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 4814 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 35 23 May 2012 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Just wanted to add that 'pustak' is a too formal a word to be used in everyday conversation. In bengali, the colloquial word for book is 'boi,' pronounced bow-yee. Most books choose to teach one of the two formal registers, i.e., either Modern Standard Hindi or Modern Standard Urdu. Now, Standard Hindi and Standard Bengali have a lot of cognates. Someone who knows either of the two gets a huge discount in terms of vocabulary when learning the other language. The colloquial variety of any language that exhibits diglossia, by its very definition, is bound to be different from its standard variety. Edited by napoleon on 26 May 2012 at 6:44am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5758 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 19 of 35 23 May 2012 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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My lack of interest in Bengali stems mostly from the geography of the language. I'm sure
West Bengal and Bangladesh are interesting places, but they are rather tiny. Due to this, the language strikes me as provincial. I can only imagine learning Bengali if it had some kind of cultural explosion, like most recently Korean has had. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6247 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 35 25 May 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Tiny? West Bengal + Bangladesh are far bigger both geographically and demographically than the entire Korean peninsula - notwithstanding this alleged "cultural explosion" from Korean. And Bengali's contribution to culture (literature, cinema, philosophy, political theory, music etc...) is hardly "tiny". Edited by drfeelgood17 on 25 May 2012 at 3:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4505 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 21 of 35 25 May 2012 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The real problem is South Korea has a much better economy - and it's where the money is that people go to get it. :)
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| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6247 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 22 of 35 25 May 2012 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I am all for learning languages with no economic or financial considerations whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned there is so much more to language learning than using it as a tool to get a job, earn more money, rub shoulders with speakers of "economically powerful" countries. Let me emphasize that there is NOTHING WRONG with learning a language for this reason, just as there is nothing wrong with learning it for reasons other than money. Edited by drfeelgood17 on 25 May 2012 at 4:12pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6027 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 35 26 May 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I couldn't agree more - perhaps that's why there are so many Georgian learners on this Forum! As a side note there are a few good blog posts on the subject that were directed my way: http://mybangladiary.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/why-relatively -few-learners-of-bengali-in-the-uk/ http://tangleofwires.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/why-dont-more- people-learn-bengali-bangla/ I haven't started studying Bangla yet - but this discussion has inspired me to brush up a bit on my Hindi! Edited by liddytime on 26 May 2012 at 5:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Afgjasmine16 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5804 days ago 29 posts - 55 votes Speaks: Pashto*, English, Hindi Studies: Bengali, Tamil, Indonesian, Turkish | Message 24 of 35 02 July 2012 at 6:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello liddytime! I'm sorry for replying so late but I am an active learner of Bengali and other Indian languages, so I wanted to add my response. I have to say all Indian languages are widely unpopular, and I really don't know why. Even when I tell people I like Indian languages like Hindi and Bengali, people usually respond with one of the following, "why don't you learn Arabic or Chinese instead?" "You can't learn them because there's so many different dialects." "It's impossible" "You should learn Spanish!" and finally "What a useless language!". I've noticed for Bengali, many people don't even know it exists or think it is just a dialect of Hindi. A lot of people think Hindi or Bengali are way too hard learn, which isn't true at all, in my own opinion they are much easier than learning Arabic or Chinese and even some European Languages. But I really agree, I don't know why particularly Bengali is so unpopular. Bengali is pretty accessible, I've found more movies, music, books and newspapers for Bengali than I have for some other languages I study. There are tons of Indian shops around that sell so much in Bengali and any other Indian language. If you want to learn Bengali, learn it, but I have to be honest if you want to learn an Indian language just to have an Indian language, do Hindi! Firstly, it really is the lingua-franca of the subcontinent regardless of what people say. I have spoken in Hindi with almost every Nepali I met, Majority of Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada speakers I have met will speak to me in a little Hindi they know. Pretty much all Guajarati's, Punjabi's, and Marathi's will speak Hindi! The only regions I think that have zero tolerance for Hindi is Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Although in Bengali speaking parts some people are starting to understand Hindi because of the popularity of Hindi films. A very small minority of Marathi's too will refuse to speak Hindi and there are exceptions to the other groups as well but in my experience majority will speak Hindi. Also if you learn Hindi, it will give you Urdu pretty much for free :) But of course, learning a regional language will get you a lot of respect ;) Also learning Hindi will help you tremendously with Bengali and other regional languages. When I started Bengali, I had a good grasp on Hindi and picked up on Bengali pretty fast. Although I'm still working on my written and spoken Bengali, I can read it and understand it pretty well. But I think if you are interested in Bengali, you should go for it regardless of how popular it is. I can't stress enough how rewarding of a language it is too learn, when you meet a Bengali they get so excited you are learning their language (this probably can be said for any regional Indian language). One time I went into a Dunkin Donuts and the cashier was from Bangladesh, when I said a couple words in Bengali to him, he got excited he didn't charge me for a coffee :) Oh and I also wanted to point out, although it's true many Indians speak English, but sometimes their use is so different from the English used in America sometimes it is hard to understand. So in a job with translating or even in Business, knowing an Indian language would be very beneficial. I really wish Bengali was a more popular language because it is a great language to learn!
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