Bengali (Bangla) Concise Dictionary

With nearly 2090 million native speakers, Bengali (or Bangla) is the fourth most widely spoken language in the world; it is also the national language of Bangladesh and that of 14 Indian provinces. The people, language and culture were once united in a single territory, Bengal, a region in Northeast South Asia. Attracted by Bengal's trade and wealth, Buddhists, Hindus, Afghans, Turks and Moghuls fought for and took turns ruling the region for over two millennia, and the British swept up Bengal into the colony known as India. After Independence, Bengal split into what are now West Bengal, in India, and the separate independent nation of Bangladesh. Rooted in Sanskrit and Pali, Bengali literature is considered to he among the richest in South Asia, and features such luminaries as Nobel-prize winning novelist, Rabindranath Tagore. With over 8,000 entries, this dictionary is a useful and handy tool for the English-speaking student, businessperson, or traveller. All Bengali words are provided both in Bangla script and romanised transliteration. The book also features useful notes on word usage, and an appendix of conversational phrases.