Talk:Bengali language

Requesting wider attention

I felt article Islamic_literature is in bit of neglect so I added my note on talk page there, requesting to take note of Talk:Islamic_literature#Article_review. If possible requesting copy edit support. Suggestions for suitable reference sources at Talk:Islamic_literature is also welcome.

Posting message here too for neutrality sake

Thanks and greetings

Bookku (talk) 08:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aurat (word)

The terms "Aurat", "Arvad", "Avret", and "Awrath" may refer to: Women of Asian religious or cultural descent and identity.

Self nomination for AFD since article copy pasted to Draft:Aurat for incubation because IMHO current article title Aurat (word) is misleading and confusing leading to western systemic bias and stifling the article growth. Please find Detail reason at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aurat (word)

I invite project members to review current and potential sourcing and weigh in on the AfD discussion. Thanks!

Bookku (talk) 03:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Requesting small help

Hello many greetings,

Requesting your proactive contribution and support in updating Draft:Aurats (word) in relation to the related languages you know well.

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Sierra Leone

@Za-ari-masen: While there are several sources repeating the claim that Bengali is an "honorary offcial" language of Sierra Leone, this source in the Bangladeshi newspaper The Independent explicitly debunks the myth. This means we have conflicting information from sources of an equal degree of reliabilty (newspapers). But NB, we do not have sources from offical Sierra Leone government sites which confirm the official status of Bengali in Sierra Leone. And this is the kind of source we need to back up the statement per WP:V. –Austronesier (talk) 11:01, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier, the edit I made included Sierra Leone under minority language status, with "honorary" written inside the parenthesis, it didn't claim Bengali as an official language. And the source you have shown doesn't really debunk the claim of honorary status. The source states However, the inhabitants of the nation do not use the Bengali language in their daily life, as it is just an honorary status for the Bengali language in Sierra Leone. Therefore, it is not true that the Bengali language is declared as an official language in Sierra Leone It just opposes the claim of official language and states Bengali doesn't have any daily use, but the claim of honorary status is re-established by your source. Za-ari-masen (talk) 09:12, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Za-ari-masen: The infobox has no parameter for "honorary status", it only has room for official status. Another problem comes with the sources: all news reports go back to one single source from 2002, and there simply is no other source which independently corroborates that narrative. Since it concerns Sierra Leone, Sierra Leonean sources are definitely needed here. –Austronesier (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier There is a parameter called "minority" in infobox which displays "Recognised minority language in". Sierra Leone was added under this parameter with "honorary" written in parenthesis. There is nothing misleading here. And I think sources from Sierra Leone are generally difficult to come by. We need to rely on the reliable sources we have so far. Za-ari-masen (talk) 10:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Za-ari-masen: I consider a chain of transmission from a single source too weak per WP:V and WP:N. Given the weakness of the information, it is definitely out of place in the infobox, which serves to give a bird's-eye view of the hard facts. As for Sierra Leonean sources, they may be hard to come by from 2002 when Sierra Leone had to recover from the scars of the civil war. But present-day Sierra Leone has a public voice (including gov't and independent press websites), so if the "honorary status" narrative was anything more than a sweet momentary rhetoric gesture of gratitude, there should be more about it than just the Daily Times report and its multiple citations in other news sites. –Austronesier (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I think it is important to mention that the ruler of Sierra Leone actually said this. So this is something which is reliable. Whether or not Bengali is or is no longer the honorary language, it definitely was in 2002. UserNumber (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

If we accept the information (which according to the Daily Times was based on AFP) as valid, then in 2002, the president held a speech making a charming gesture towards the Bangla blue helmets for their ernormous contribution to Sierra Leone. Is this gesture sufficiently notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia? Maybe; I say no, but that's what we need a consensus for. –Austronesier (talk) 20:21, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier, I think you are indulging in WP:OR with your over-analysis. You can claim the information of honorary status to be false only if you can show a WP:RS that explicitly states it to be false or contradicts the information. I don't see any such source. Za-ari-masen (talk) 09:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

It is not "OR" nor an over-analysis to expect that information about an "official", "honorary" or whatever kind of language status in a given country should come from a source from the very country that is concerned. Unless you want to insinuate that the country in incapable of producing RS—and such a claim would need a good explanation. –Austronesier (talk) 15:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

We still should find a consensus version of the text that mentions the Sierra Leone events of 2002 in the main part of the article.

As for the recent addition of Chicago, a cross check does not confirm the "official status". Luckily, no-one can say that sources about the US are "hard to come by". The report is based this brochure by the Cook county treasurer. I can't read here that Bengali is an official languages (or any other of the 103 languages mentioned there). –Austronesier (talk) 14:17, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Bengali is not an "honorary" language in Sierra Leone. It is a hoax. Have you ever wondered why no source from Sierra Leone ever supported that information? Because it is a Pakistani hoax lapped by Bangladeshi media, and eventually loved by Bangladeshi people. And that Bangladeshi media includes mostly gossip papers and portals with little respect. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 09:07, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier has made a compelling argument for excluding Sierra Leone from the list of countries where Bengali is an official language. Multiple earlier discussions also concluded that Bengali is not an official language of Sierra Leone: Talk:Sierra Leone#Bangla language, Talk:Sierra Leone/Archive 1#Official Language, Talk:Sierra Leone/Archive 1#Bengali/Bangla.

Although AFP reported in 2002 that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah named Bengali an official language of Sierra Leone during a speech at the inauguration of a road built by Bangladeshi UN peace keepers,[1] there is no independent contemporaneous confirmation of what Kabbah said. Over the years, many second-tier newspapers have repeated the AFP story, usually around Language Movement Day, when editors need a fresh feel-good angle for their paper's annual coverage, but none has done fresh, independent reporting to substantiate that Bengali is an official language there.

President Kabbah may have said something like that, but there's no evidence that his office gave him the power to make it so. Furthermore, politician's rhetoric shouldn't be taken literally. President John F. Kennedy famously said "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin", but that is symbolic, not literal truth. There is no record of any bill passed by the Sierra Leone government to adopt Bengali as an official language, no record of any actions to implement such an adoption, no evidence that it is used within the government, nor any official government document stating that it is an official language.

The claim is not repeated in scholarly works or encyclopedias, and should not be repeated in this Wikipedia article. Doing so would be a disservice to our readers. It would give undue weight to what is, in the long history of the Bengali language, a trivial remark. President Kabbah's speech is more appropriately covered in United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), where it is not trivial, but (true or not) captures the country's gratitude towards the Bangladeshi peace keepers. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

proto-Bengali and Pala

The current citation ([2]) is extremely poor. This reference has no information at all about what the form of the language was. Probal Dasguta mentions here that the language in the "early" phase has not been worked out completely. Should we keep this hanging here? Chaipau (talk) 12:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Indo-Aryan or Eastern Indo-Aryan as the category in introduction?

No edit war please. Some people want the mention of Indo-Aryan as it is the overarching category and contributes to the feeling of unity with the rest of India while others want to be more specific and want it to be Eastern Indo-Aryan and also because mentioning Indo-Aryan and Bengali-Assamese without mentioning the intermediate category makes the introduction look inconsistent. I have an idea. Lets keep both so everyone is happy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.147.206.115 (talk) 21:47, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

If you have an idea, you should check first whether "everyone is happy" per disucssion. I have reverted it as lead clutter. I repeat my edit summary here:

• We could also mention Indo-European and Indo-Iranian here. Indo-Aryan and Bengali-Assamese are sufficiently defining and also well-defined entities (unlike "Eastern IA", the scope of which is controversial).

To mention "Bengali-Assamese" in the opening sentence of the lead is fine, but actually not really necessary, either. –Austronesier (talk) 12:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

We don't mention Indo-European or Indo-Iranian for the same reason we are trying to put Eastern Indo-Aryan here, because that is more specific. For example we say Japan is a nation in Asia (similar to saying Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language), or better, Japan is a nation in East Asia (similar to saying Bengali is a Indo-Aryan language of the Eastern Indo-Aryan group). But we never try the reverse of being more specific by introducing more overarching categories like saying Japan is a country in Asia, which is in Eurasia, which is in the World. I do not support your logic by which you have undone my edit which was to make all sides happy :( — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.147.206.115 (talk) 13:15, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

This about the opening sentence of the lede. It should be concise. For a language, one classificatory level is actually enough. Arguably, "Indo-Aryan" is the best one to give an idea where Bengali stands ("Indo-European" is to wide, and "Bengali-Assamese" is too narrow). Eastern Indo-Aryan is the least optimal choice, because, again, it is a subgroup of controversial scope. –Austronesier (talk) 13:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how my edit, which had one extra subcategory, made much difference to the conciseness. But it sure made the intro more informative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.147.206.115 (talk) 14:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Confusion of terms

At the top of the "sadhu bhasha article it says: "For the Standard register of the language, known as Shuddho bhasha, see Bengali language." But here in this page, it only mentions Cholitobhasha, not Shuddho bhasha. Some clarification on that would be nice ? I also recently corrected the "Bengali dialects" page which conflated (or mistranslated) sadhu/shuddho in one place. Shahin911 (talk) 07:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Requesting additional citations on "origins of Bengalis"

In the "History" > "Medieval" section it currently says "In the 13th century, the subsequent Muslim expeditions to Bengal greatly encouraged the migratory movements of Arab Muslims and Turco-Persians(who later became one of the origins of Bengalis)" which is mostly true except for the Arab Muslims and Turco-Persians becoming one of the origins of Bengalis (the only citation is the Encyclopedia Britannica). Almost all genetic studies show that Bengalis are a mixture of indigenous South Asian hunter gatherers, Harappan people, Indo-Aryans, and East Asians with any oft-claimed west Asian, Arab, or Persian ancestry being negligible, if not non-existent (the Harappan civilization included farmers from the Zagros mountains but this doesn't correlate with modern Persian people). This also seems to be not necessarily relevant to a discussion of Bengali as a language.

Sources:

HarappaWorld table of genetic makeups of different South Asian groups

Geneticist Raziv Khan on East Asian ancestry in Bengalis and their genetic makeup

Communistjinn (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)