Meaning & use
Bengali
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A person from Bangladesh or from the Bengali-speaking region of eastern India.
Grammar: Countable: one Bengali, two Bengalis. The plural is usually 'Bengalis', not 'Bengali'.
Patterns
- a Bengali from Dhaka
- the Bengalis of West Bengal
My neighbor is a Bengali from Dhaka who moved here ten years ago.
Many Bengalis celebrate the new year with a large street festival.
noununcountable
The language spoken in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, written in its own script.
Grammar: Uncountable: say 'She speaks Bengali', not 'a Bengali' or 'Bengalis' for the language.
Patterns
- speak Bengali
- translate something into Bengali
She grew up speaking Bengali at home and English at school.
The sign was written in Bengali, so I asked a passerby to read it.
adjectivebefore a noun
Relating to Bangladesh, West Bengal, its people, or their language.
Grammar: Used before a noun: Bengali food, Bengali literature. It is not usually used after 'be'.
Patterns
- Bengali culture
- Bengali literature
- a Bengali speaker
We had a Bengali meal of rice, fish, and lentils.
Rabindranath Tagore is one of the best-known Bengali writers.
Word forms
| plural | Bengalis |
|---|
Common combinations
- Bengali language
- The Bengali language has a rich tradition of poetry.
- Bengali literature
- She studies Bengali literature at university.
- Bengali-speaking
- He comes from a Bengali-speaking family in London.
- speak Bengali
- Do you speak Bengali or Hindi?
- Bengali script
- The Bengali script looks quite different from the Latin alphabet.
Synonyms and how they differ
- Bangla
- The everyday native name for the language and often preferred in Bangladesh; in English 'Bengali' is the more common word.
- Bangladeshi
- Refers only to a citizen of Bangladesh, so it is narrower than 'Bengali', which also covers people in India.
Word family
- Bengal proper noun
- The historical region now divided between Bangladesh and eastern India.
- Bangladesh proper noun
- The country in South Asia where Bengali is the main language.
Commonly confused: Bengali or Bangladeshi?
Bengali vs Bangladeshi
'Bangladeshi' means a citizen of Bangladesh, while 'Bengali' refers to the language or to an ethnic group living in both Bangladesh and India.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'Bengali' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Bengali' as a language name is uncountable and takes no article, so 'She speaks Bengali very well' is correct. 'A Bengali' or 'the Bengali' would wrongly treat it as a countable thing, and 'Bengalis' means the people, not the language.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Bengali”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.