Bengali-Assamese
বাংলা লিপি
Abugida · 59 letters
Each consonant carries an implied vowel — ka, not k — and marks hung above, below or around it change that vowel. You learn the consonants, then the vowel marks, then the combinations: three steps instead of one. Every script of India, plus Thai and Khmer.
What pays off on the road
- A bar along the top and letters that lean: eastern India, or Bangladesh. The drawer tells it from Devanagari and Gurmukhi — and a single ৰ says Assam.
- দেশ, “country”, closes বাংলাদেশ; জেলা district, নগর city and গ্রাম village cut up the rest of the sign.
- Reading a name: the ten vowel signs first — nearly one sign in four of our names, and া is the commonest.
How it works
The same bar, rounder shapes
Bengali carries the same top bar as Devanagari and comes from the same table. What changes is the stroke: rounder, with loops where Devanagari makes angles.
Whoever reads one reads the other in a week. It serves Bengali — the world's seventh language by number of speakers — and Assamese, so Bangladesh and eastern India.
Assamese is the same script, give or take two signs
People speak of the "Assamese script" as a script of its own: it is the same table, with two letters more. Whoever reads Bengali reads Assamese, and there is nothing else to learn but those two.
ৰ replaces র everywhere: the same body, a small diagonal instead of the dot. And ৱ writes the w sound, where Bengali reuses ব. The other fifty-five signs are identical.
The point is geographic, and it is a large one: these two signs are written only in Assam. A sign you take for Bengali that carries a ৰ is neither in Bangladesh nor in West Bengal — it is on the other side, in the Brahmaputra valley.
A consonant carries its vowel
This is what separates these scripts from an alphabet. ক does not read "k" but "ka": the consonant arrives with an "a", and a sign is needed to change it or silence it.
The vowel signs sit around the consonant — above, below, after, and some to the left — and replace the "a". The virama silences it without putting anything in its place: that is how two consonants in a row get written.
The final "a" is not pronounced: বাংলাদেশ reads "bangladesh", not "bangladesha". The rule has mid-word exceptions no table renders, and that is why this section has no place-name quiz.
The consonant order is a classification, not an alphabet
The thirty-three consonants are not arranged at random but by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips: velars, palatals, retroflexes, dentals, labials, then semivowels and sibilants.
It is a phonetic classification two and a half thousand years old, and it holds for every script of India. Learning the first makes the next ones twice as fast: you already know where you are going, only the shapes remain.
Retroflexes, a sound Europe does not have
A whole series is pronounced with the tongue curled back to the palate. A European does not hear the difference from the dental series, and that is fine: both transliterate the same way on signs and maps.
What matters is knowing they exist — otherwise you wonder why two different signs give the same sound.
Cheat sheet
The consonants
Thirty-three signs arranged by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips. Each carries an "a" that only a vowel sign or the virama replaces.
| ক | ka | k | the sound k, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| খ | kha | kh | the sound kh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| গ | ga | g | the sound g, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঘ | gha | gh | the sound gh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঙ | nga | ng | the sound ng, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| চ | cha | ch | the sound ch, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ছ | chha | chh | the sound chh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| জ | ja | j | the sound j, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঝ | jha | jh | the sound jh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঞ | nya | ny | the sound ny, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ট | ta | t | the sound t, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঠ | tha | th | the sound th, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ড | da | d | the sound d, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ঢ | dha | dh | the sound dh, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ণ | na | n | the sound n, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ত | ta | t | the sound t, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| থ | tha | th | the sound th, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| দ | da | d | the sound d, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ধ | dha | dh | the sound dh, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ন | na | n | the sound n, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| প | pa | p | the sound p, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ফ | pha | ph | the sound ph, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ব | ba | b | the sound b, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ভ | bha | bh | the sound bh, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ম | ma | m | the sound m, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| য | ya | y | the sound y, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| র | ra | r | the sound r, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ল | la | l | the sound l, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ব | va | v | the sound v, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| শ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ষ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| স | sa | s | the sound s, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| হ | ha | h | the sound h, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
The full vowels
Eleven signs, used when the vowel has no consonant to carry it — at the start of a word, most often. Everywhere else the vowel sign does the work.
| অ | a plein | a | the sound a, when no consonant carries it |
| আ | a plein longue | a | the sound a long, when no consonant carries it |
| ই | i plein | i | the sound i, when no consonant carries it |
| ঈ | i plein longue | i | the sound i long, when no consonant carries it |
| উ | u plein | u | the sound u, when no consonant carries it |
| ঊ | u plein longue | u | the sound u long, when no consonant carries it |
| ঋ | ri plein | ri | the sound ri, when no consonant carries it |
| এ | e plein | e | the sound e, when no consonant carries it |
| ঐ | ai plein | ai | the sound ai, when no consonant carries it |
| ও | o plein | o | the sound o, when no consonant carries it |
| ঔ | au plein | au | the sound au, when no consonant carries it |
The vowel signs
Ten signs that sit around the consonant and replace its "a". Some are drawn to its left but read after it: it is the rendering that moves them, not the reading.
| া | signe a long | a | the sound a long, set on the consonant |
| ি | signe i | i | the sound i, set on the consonant |
| ী | signe i long | i | the sound i long, set on the consonant |
| ু | signe u | u | the sound u, set on the consonant |
| ূ | signe u long | u | the sound u long, set on the consonant |
| ৃ | signe ri | ri | the sound ri, set on the consonant |
| ে | signe e | e | the sound e, set on the consonant |
| ৈ | signe ai | ai | the sound ai, set on the consonant |
| ো | signe o | o | the sound o, set on the consonant |
| ৌ | signe au | au | the sound au, set on the consonant |
The two Assamese signs
Two, and they are worth a border: they are written only in Assam. The rest of the table is the same as in Bangladesh.
| ৰ | ro | r | the sound r, with an "a" if nothing follows — the same as র |
| ৱ | wo | w | the sound w, with an "a" if nothing follows |
The marks
Three, and the last is the most useful: the virama silences the inherent vowel, which is how a lone consonant or two consonants in a row get written.
| ং | anusvara | ng | nasalises the vowel before it |
| ঃ | visarga | h | a breath at the end of a syllable |
| ্ | hasanta | silences the inherent vowel: ক্ is "k", not "ka" |
The words on signs
| বাংলাদেশ | bangladesh | Bangladesh |
| ঢাকা | dhaka | Dhaka |
| কলকাতা | kolkata | Kolkata |
| দেশ | desh | country |
| নগর | nagar | town |
| পুর | pur | city |
| গ্রাম | gram | village |
| জেলা | jela | district |
| উত্তর | uttar | north |
| দক্ষিণ | dakshin | south |
| পূর্ব | purba | east |
| পশ্চিম | paschim | west |
| রাস্তা | rasta | street |
| স্টেশন | steshan | station |
| নদী | nadi | river |
| বাজার | bajar | bazaar |
| হাসপাতাল | haspatal | hospital |
| মন্দির | mandir | temple |