Letter conjuncts -

The following, rather exhaustive table of conjuncts appears in Teach Yourself Bengali by William Radice (pp. 265-270), derived from Bamla Bananer Niyam by Mahabubul Hag (Jatiya Sahitya Prakashini, Dhaka, 1991). Click on the images to see the original, full-size picture.

Oh yes, of course I should start this wiht the regular alphabet:

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Download the conjuncts below in a single zip file: [attachmentid=1681]

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Attachment: conjuncts.zip

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The following, rather exhaustive table of conjuncts appears in Teach Yourself Bengali by William Radice (pp. 265-270), derived from Bamla Bananer Niyam by Mahabubul Hag (Jatiya Sahitya Prakashini, Dhaka, 1991). Click on the images to see the original, full-size picture.

Oh yes, of course I should start this wiht the regular alphabet:

[attachmentid=1682]

Download the conjuncts below in a single zip file: [attachmentid=1681]

[attachmentid=1671]

Attachment:

Attachment: conjuncts.zip

Attachment:

The following, rather exhaustive table of conjuncts appears in Teach Yourself Bengali by William Radice (pp. 265-270), derived from Bamla Bananer Niyam by Mahabubul Hag (Jatiya Sahitya Prakashini, Dhaka, 1991). Click on the images to see the original, full-size picture.

Oh yes, of course I should start this wiht the regular alphabet:

[attachmentid=1682]

Download the conjuncts below in a single zip file: [attachmentid=1681]

[attachmentid=1671]

Attachment:

Attachment: conjuncts.zip

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ahh.. simple

Curious.. is it neccessary to use these when writing bengali? Do most authors use them?

All conjuncts are used - by authors, kids, grandparents, rikshaw drivers, whoever can read or write.........

QUOTE(DharmaChakra @ Jun 27 2005, 09:22 PM)

ahh.. simple

Curious.. is it neccessary to use these when writing bengali? Do most authors use them?

Some of them do follow a certain logic, and more easily recognizable and writable forms for hand-written text are there for some of them. But that's the printed text you're looking at. However, nce you get a grip of the basic alphabet, you'll learn to recognize the partial shapes in the conjuncts - they are there in most of the cases.

Yes, you do need to use a good many among them, some are very rare but there are dozens that are very common. The learning curve is a bit steeper than with Roman alphabet.

What I find bizarre in the Bengali alphabet in comparison to Devanagari is the fact that some letters and conjuncts that have very little to do with each other resemble each other to a substantial extent. Examples:

E / tra and o / tta (এ ত্র ও ত্ত) are identical with the exception of the latter having a horizontal line above it. i / ha and u / Da (ই হ উ ড) are identical with the exception of the curved line above. Jca bears a great resemblance to tha (ঞ্চ থ). Some of my long-time favorites are kSa, NDa, STa, hu, Jja, and Jcha (ক্ষ ণ্ড ষ্ট হু ঞ্জ ঞ্ছ) (not all of them came out as neat as the originals you find in the chart). In the word kRSNa, the SNa (ষ্ণ) for some peculiar reason takes on the reversed 3-looking characteristic of Ja (ঞ), that actually looks in itself like a merger of e and o.

QUOTE(Madhava @ Jun 27 2005, 04:13 PM)

QUOTE(DharmaChakra @ Jun 27 2005, 09:22 PM)

ahh.. simple

Curious.. is it neccessary to use these when writing bengali? Do most authors use them?

Some of them do follow a certain logic, and more easily recognizable and writable forms for hand-written text are there for some of them. But that's the printed text you're looking at. However, nce you get a grip of the basic alphabet, you'll learn to recognize the partial shapes in the conjuncts - they are there in most of the cases.

Yes, you do need to use a good many among them, some are very rare but there are dozens that are very common. The learning curve is a bit steeper than with Roman alphabet.

What I find bizarre in the Bengali alphabet in comparison to Devanagari is the fact that some letters and conjuncts that have very little to do with each other resemble each other to a substantial extent. Examples:

E / tra and o / tta (এ ত্র ও ত্ত) are identical with the exception of the latter having a horizontal line above it. i / ha and u / Da (ই হ উ ড) are identical with the exception of the curved line above. Jca bears a great resemblance to tha (ঞ্চ থ). Some of my long-time favorites are kSa, NDa, STa, hu, Jja, and Jcha (ক্ষ ণ্ড ষ্ট হু ঞ্জ ঞ্ছ) (not all of them came out as neat as the originals you find in the chart). In the word kRSNa, the SNa (ষ্ণ) for some peculiar reason takes on the reversed 3-looking characteristic of Ja (ঞ), that actually looks in itself like a merger of e and o.

E / tra -> E is one letter ( called E) and tra a conjugant letter made of bengali Ta and Ra fola( tay ra fala) becomes Tra i.e t +ra =tra

Similarly o is single letter 0 and tta means congugant letter Ta + Ta = tta

Once we come to pronunciation that is a whole different can of worms - many components of the conjuncts are simply swallowed and that is confusing for the outsider. The triple conjunct ksm, from Laksmi, is pronounced as kh, for instance. The double conjunct tm, as in atma, is often pronounced as just t. So pronuciation-wise there arent so many conjuncts as spelling-wise, but this makes matters more complicated instead of more simple because of the confusion caused by different conjuncts being pronounced in the same way...

The problem for me isn't learning or remembering all those conjuncts, that comes with analysis and practice -- my problem is that in the printed texts (including and sometimes especially dictionaries) the printed letters aren't nearly as big or as clear as Madhava-ji's beautiful blowups of Radice's lists. When I was a kid I had better than perfect eyesight, but as I get older, my arms seem to get shorter. When I translate Bengali into English, I need a magnifying glass handy to look up words in Samsad. Very annoying.

Dandvats,
Lancer

Yes, and when the books are printed in small typeface with sumptuous ink, what some of the tighter conjuncts are is anyone's guess. Some of them are practically impossible to decipher, you just have to guess them from the surrounding syllables, which practically means you have to have a good vocabulary from which to pick guesses appropriate for the context.

QUOTE(Madhava @ Jun 28 2005, 01:34 AM)

Yes, and when the books are printed in small typeface with sumptuous ink, what some of the tighter conjuncts are is anyone's guess. Some of them are practically impossible to decipher, you just have to guess them from the surrounding syllables, which practically means you have to have a good vocabulary from which to pick guesses appropriate for the context.

"Sumptuous ink" is a perfect description of those little blobs of black on the page. The whole situation is compounded by being scanned in, especially if the conjunct in question is near the gutter (center of the book) and the binding is tight enough that the page bends away from the glass and the conjunct is further distorted.

Not that I'm complaining, this is just an observation -- I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and until I can travel to India and pick up copies of certain books for myself, I truly love the scanned versions and really appreciate the efforts of those disciples who make such things possible.

I just wish my own Bengali were better, so I didn't have to guess the way you describe. "Hmmm, maybe that first bit is an m" (flips through Samsad looking at words where conjunct starts with m). "No, I guess not, maybe an n" (flip flip flip). "OK, how about an s?" (flip flip) et cetera. I guess different people have different hobbies.

Dandavats,
Lancer

QUOTE

All conjuncts are used - by authors, kids, grandparents, rikshaw drivers, whoever can read or write.........

See, what happens if you just happen to know the letters and you don't know any vowel and consonent combinations or conjunct consonants how you would write a letter to your Baba (father, of course) in case of emergency!

babara caraNa namasa karaNa | Taka paThata paThata na paThata bhatabhaba maraNa |

ববর চরণ নমস করণ । টক পঠত পঠত ন পঠত ভতভব মরণ ।

I pay my respect to Baba's (father's) feet. Send me money. If you don't I'll die for the lack of rice (food).

(This is a common joke from our time during our student life).