Language Information

· The Bengali alphabet is a syllabic alphabet in which consonants all have an inherent vowel which has two different pronunciations, the choice of which is not always easy to determine and which is sometimes not pronounced at all.

· Vowels can be written as independent letters, or by using a variety of diacritical marks which are written above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to.

· When consonants occur together in clusters, special conjunct letters are used. The letters for the consonants other than the final one in the group are reduced. The inherent vowel only applies to the final consonant.

Bengali has a Subject Object Verb word order. It makes use of postpositions, instead of prepositions as found in English. There is no grammatical gender in Bengali. Adjectival and nominal morphology is light, while verbs are highly inflected. Verbs are inflected for person, tense, and honorific - but not for number.

The spelling system is based on an older version on the language and thus does not take into account some vowel mergers that have taken place in the spoken language; thus it cannot be described as a completely phonemic orthography.

Vowels and vowel diacritics

Consonants

A selection of conjunct consonants

Additional symbols

Numerals

Bengali Input

To input some characters of the Bengali alphabet, which are not present on the KBD, you have to enter a sequence of two or three Bengali symbols. These symbols, entered from the KBD, will then be combined together to constitute the requisite character.

Use the following chart to input Bengali correctly:

□ = হ + ্ + য

≥ = জ + ্ + ঞ

∙ = ন + ্ + ন

∑ = ফ + ্ + র

⅞ = দ + ্ + ব

⅝ = ক + ্ + ন

⅜ = ন + ্ + র

⅛ = ্ + য

℮ = ঙ + ্ + গ

℅ = ক + ্ + ষ

₧ = দ + ্ + ধ

₤ = দ + ্ + দ

₣ = দ + ্ + য

ⁿ = শ + ্ + র

⁄ = ল + ্ + র

‼ = ট + ্

″ = হ + ্ + র

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