Bengali Online Sounds

Romanized Bengali — Online Sounds

Teaching Truth in Bengali through English
The purpose of this file is for you to learn the principles of the Bengali alphabet and its pronunciation. Instead of you first learning the Bengali script and then starting on the language, the Bengali letters are replaced with Roman characters. This allows you to speak clearly from the very beginning. (1 Corinthians 14:8).

LIST OF CONTENTS

Click on the links:

Audio Files

General Notes

Pronunciation of Roman Characters

Romanized Script System

Phonetic Representation

Author’s Letter

GENERAL NOTES

1. Many methods have been created for writing Bengali using Latin (or Roman) characters. Some methods focus on representing Bengali written text, while others try to represent Bengali sounds.

2. The charts below show the main form we are working with as well as other forms you may find in older Jaspell files our elsewhere.

3. Roman letters that represent the ‘cerebral’ Bengali sounds have a dot below (like “ḍ”) or are underlined (like “d”) to distinguish them from the ‘dental’ family (like “d”).

4. The shape of Bengali characters may change according to context: independent, initial, medial, or final. In contrast, the Romanized characters do not change at all, whatever their context.

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AUDIO FILES TO GUIDE PRONUNCIATION

1. Sounds can be played by clicking on the hyperlinks in the table. These call audio files on the website.

2. The sounds can be all be downloaded. If necessary, follow the instructions given at this link, downloadsounds.htm.

3. When you want to learn the Bengali script, other helps are provided using audio files, such as the sound charts and other pronunciation routines.

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PRONUNCIATION OF ROMANIZED CHARACTERS

Vowels

To avoid confusion, “ai” represents a diphthong (like a long ê), but “a’i” is used where “-a” ends one syllable and “i-” begins the next syllable. Thus, “kai” differs from “ka’i”.

To avoid confusion, “au” represents a diphthong (like a long ô), but “a’u” is used where “-a” ends one syllable and “u-” begins the next syllable. Thus, “kau” differs from “ka’u”.

PRONUNCIATION OF VOWELS
ROMAN- IZED CHARAC- TERS	ENGLISH SOUND	AS IN THE ENGLISH WORD	AFTER A CONSO- NANT (e.g. “k ”)
(no vowel) [“ ` ”]	(no vowel)	(no sound after ‘k’ in “black__”)	k` [ k` ]
a / å (inherent vowel) [ a ]	inherent “a” short “a” (/ very short “o”) (hint: ~“å”)	(inherent “a”) “wander”, “Washington” (/ “off”)	ka / kå [ ka ]
ā/aa [aa]	long “a”	“aardvaak”, “far”	kā / kaa [kaa]
yā /yaa/ ӑ [ ӑ ],	flat “a”	“apple”	kyā /kyaa/ kӑ [ kӑ ]
i [ i ]	short “i”	“pill”	ki [ ki ]
ī / ii [ii]	long “i”, (/ long “ee”)	“pizza” ( / “peel”)	kī / kii [kii]
u [ u ]	short “u”	“pull”	ku [ ku ]
ū /uu [uu]	long “u” (/ long “oo”)	“pollution” ( / “pool”)	kū / kuu [kuu]
r̥ / r̄r̅ī [rri]	short “ri”	“dribble”	kr̥ / kr̄r̅ī [krri]
e / ē [ e ]	short “e”	“ever”	ke / kē [ ke ]
ai/ ee /ê [ee]	long “oi” (diphthong for long “ee”)	“point”	kai/ kee /kê [kee]
o / ō [ o ]	medium “o”	“pond”	ko / kō [ ko ]
au/ oo /ô [oo]	long “au”/“ou”	“jaundice” “shoulder”	kau / koo / kô [koo]
n̊ / n° [n° ]	nasal “ng”, but no “g”	“sing”	kan̊ / kan° [kan°(“ka^ng”)]
ḥ / hh [hh]	abrupt “h”	“Judah had”	kaḥ / kahh [kahh (~“kåhh”)]
^ / ͂ n̐ ou m̐ [ ^ ]	faint nasal “n” (~ as in French)a	sing-along, conquer (~“Non, ton son est bon”)	ka^ / kã [ka^ (~“kaⁿ”)]

Consonants

Note that the sounds whose Romanization contains “-h” must be breathed. So, “kh” is like “ka” but breathed—like “kh” in “rockhead”. (There is nothing similar in native English words.) Imagine “kh” as “kḫ”, and so on.

PRONUNCIATION OF CONSONANTS
PHYSICAL CLASS	ROMAN- IZED CHARAC- TERS	ENGLISH SOUND	AS IN THE ENGLISH WORD
Guttural —in the throat	ka	k	keen
	kha	kh	rockhead
	ga	g	got
	gha	gh	slagheap
	ṅa / n¹a	n	donkey
Palatal —on the palate	ca (hint: “tcha”)	c, tch	cello, match
	cha (hint: ~“tchha”)	tchh	matchhead
	ja	j	Jehovah, joy
	jha	dgeh	hedgehog
	ña / n²a	n	enjoy, pinch
Cerebral or Retro- flexive —with the tongue bent back on the roof of the mouth	ṭa / ṯa	t	alter
	ṭha / ṯha	th	malthouse
	ḍa / ḏa	d	holder
	ṛa / ṟa	r , rr	millrun, barrel
	ḍha / ḏha	dh	goldhammer
	ṛha / ṟha	rrh	myrrh lump
	ṇa / ṉa / n³a	n	filename
Dental —on the teeth	ta	t	panting
	tha	th	anthill
	da	d	beds
	dha	dh	bedheads
	na	n	bending
Labial —on the lips	pa	p	peace
	pha	ph	uphold
	ba (or va)	b (or v )	bob (or advise)
	oyaa (or waa) (a special compound)	oua (wa)	qualms, (How are you?)
	bha	bh	nibholder
	ma	m	mop
Forward Semi- Vowels	ȳa / ya (hint: ~“ja”)	j	Jehovah, joy
	ẏa / ya	y	yes
	ra	r	red
	la	l	led
Sibilants	śa / sha	sh	dishes
	ṣa / s̱a (hint: ~“sha”)	sh	rashly
	sa (hint: ~“sha”)	sh s	ensure washroom
	s before ta, tha, pa, pha	s	stop
Semi- guttural Semi-Vowel	ha (breathed, not silent)	h	happy

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ROMANIZED SCRIPT SYSTEMS

Among the many methods that have been created for writing Bengali using Latin (or Roman) characters, some common methods are used by Google Translate, JW Language, and the Library of Congress. They all vary. The pattern we will be using has many of the same Romanized characters, but not all. We seek to avoid internal conflicts, incompleteness, and use of characters that are hard to relate to the sounds represented.

The Romanized pattern we are working with is a script system in which each Bengali letter is matched accurately and uniquely by a character (or a group) taken from the Roman alphabet. Many of these sound nearly the same as the normal sound of the Bengali character. However, some Bengali characters are sometimes pronounced differently from their normal sound. For example, when two consonants are combined, the first consonant will be strengthened and the second consonant suppressed. In these cases we provide phonetic hints like “(~shaak’kå)”.

A further great benefit of this Romanization method is its conformity of use in all the aids that we provide for other Sanskrit-based languages. So, you can easily adapt to these scripts and languages. Some students have learned the Bengali script with the intermediate help of the Romanized script in less than two days.

It also conforms with the Romanized typing method available with Jaspell's free Jaldi Multilingual Word Processor Software Package.

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PHONETIC REPRESENTATION

To begin with you may feel that you would prefer to read the simplest representation of the approximate sound of the Bengali. That is fine, if we are only learning some set phrases off by heart. However, a language like Bengali is more complicated because of its numerous, variable sounds and letters.

If you become accustomed to using Romanized spelling inconsistently, you’ll have great difficulty in writing Bengali text later and to progress and to recognize or construct new sentences in different, unexpected circumstances.

In essence, the Bengali alphabet has far more sounds than the number of characters in the Roman alphabet. The language cannot be written sufficiently accurately purely in a phonetic form, because more than one Bengali letter can have the same sound. You cannot tell consistently what letters are being represented. Some beginner students might write the example of “witness” approximately as “shako”. However, there are three different letters that can be pronounced like (~“sha”), and several letters or groups of letters can be pronounced like (~“ka” or ~“kka”). If the pronunciation differs greatly from the normal way, we show more exact phonetic suggestions, such as (~“shaak’kå”).

Instead of attempting to replace the Bengali script merely with an approximate—and potentially confusing—phonetic representation, we use a well-established alternative Romanized system accompanied by audio files. These will help you learn the relationship between the sounds, the Bengali characters, and their equivalent Romanized characters.

If you wish, you can adapt better to the Romanization of the Bengali sounds by reading the letter below from the author. Also, you can click on [Contact Us!].

[Pronunciation] [Contents]

LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

Dear Student of Bengali,

You may be puzzled about how we have used Roman characters to represent Bengali sounds.

The number of Roman characters is far less than the number of characters in the Bengali alphabet. Therefore, some of these are represented by a combination of Roman characters.

European languages pronounce some of the Roman characters in a variety of ways. Our Romanized Bengali may use them in yet another way.

Note that in French you may write the sound of “verre” also as “ver”, “vers”, “vert”, “verts”, or “vair”. Moreover, “v” is pronounced differently in German than these other languages. In English, a letter may be pronounced in numerous ways.

In Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish “c” is pronounced differently in “ca” than in “ce”. When we learn Mandarin Chinese using its Romanized form, Pinyin, we find that “c” sounds like “ts”. Enjoy reading Zulu, in which “c” is clicked on the palate! So, we just try to adapt to any new ways of pronouncing these Roman characters.

Anyhow, any mysteries here should not inhibit you for very long, if you use the sound files and other pronunciation aids we have provided you. Some have used this method and learned to read Bengali within two days. The same representation of the Classification of Sounds can be applied equally to many related languages from North India and Nepal.

With best wishes,

The Author

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