On the Process of Creation of Proto-Bangla (Bengali): The Case of Language Contact
Abstract
Traditional Indo-Aryan linguistics has long assumed that Bengali developed linearly from Magadhi Prakrit over the span of a millennium. Yet this assumption overlooks the multilingual realities of Bengal and the disappearance of transitional varieties.
I re-examine the origin of Proto-Bangla, through a framework of language contact, by drawing on historical, sociolinguistic, and anthropological work. Using a qualitative approach, and historical inscriptions, colonial administrative records, and linguistic research, I present evidence that Proto-Bangla arose through sustained contact between Indo-Aryan superstrate and non-Aryan substrate languages (Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, and Dravidian) across Banglavarta from the 5th century BCE onwards. I derive my central argument from my earlier monograph ভাষা-সংসর্গ বিদ্যার নিরিখে বাংলা ভাষার সৃজন, উন্নয়ন ও অবনমন পরিক্রমা (Faquire 2022). Here, political assimilation policies, Aryanization, Buddhicization, Hinduization, and Islamization, created multilingual environments with pidginization and creolization processes. Ultimately, I identify three key language contact phenomena: language maintenance through borrowing and structural convergence, creation of contact languages through pidginization-creolization cycles, and language shift resulting in substrate influence on Indo-Aryan varieties.
Keywords: Bangla, Indo-Aryan linguistics, language contact, pidginization, creolization, language shift, linguistic anthropology