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With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, [1] Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. [7] [8] It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language. [9]
With about 226 million native and about 300 million total speakers worldwide, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages, ranked sixth in the world, [141] [142] and is also used a lingua franca among other ethnic groups and tribes living within and around the Bengal region.
Bengali is the 5th most spoken language in the world. It is an eastern Indo-Aryan language and one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. It is part of the Bengali-Assamese languages. Bengali has greatly influenced other languages in the region, including Odia, Assamese, Chakma, Nepali and Rohingya.
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world. This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect.
It became an official language of the Sultanate of Bengal, where it was spoken as the main vernacular language. It absorbed vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. Bengali is the 6th most spoken language in the world. The language was modernized during the Bengali Renaissance in the 19th century.
The term Bangla is a major name for both the Bengal region and the Bengali language. The origins of the term Bangla are unclear, with theories pointing to a Bronze Age proto-Dravidian tribe, [29] and the Iron Age Vanga Kingdom. [30] The earliest known usage of the term is the Nesari plate in 805 AD.
Spoken Bengali exhibits far more variation than written Bengali. Formal spoken Bengali, including what is heard in news reports, speeches, announcements, and lectures, is modelled on Choltibhasha. This form of spoken Bengali stands alongside other spoken dialects, or Ancholik Bangla (আঞ্চলিক বাংলা) (i.e. 'regional Bengali').
One of the world's least motorized cities, [189] the three-wheeled cycle rickshaw is the most popular and ubiquitous mode of transport, which accounted for 54 per cent of vehicle trips in 2011. [190] Dhaka is among the most congested cities in the world, and traffic was estimated to cost the local economy US$6.5 billion per year in 2020. [191]