Examples of Borrowed Words
Due to centuries of contact with Europeans, Mughals, Arabs, Persians, and East Asians, Bengali has absorbed countless words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary. The most common borrowings from foreign languages come from three different kinds of contact. Close contact with neighboring peoples facilitated the borrowing of words from Hindi, Assamese, Chinese, Burmese, and several indigenous Austroasiatic languages of Bengal. After centuries of invasions from Persia and the Middle East, particularly under the Mughal Empire, numerous Turkish, Arabic, and Persian words were absorbed and fully integrated into the lexicon. Later, European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English. Some very common borrowings are shown below.
Read more about this topic: Bengali Vocabulary
Famous quotes containing the words examples of, examples, borrowed and/or words:
“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“There was an old woman and she lived in a shoe,
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
She crumm’d ‘em some porridge without any bread
And she borrowed a beetle, and she knocked ‘em all on the head.
Then out went the old woman to bespeak ‘em a coffin
And when she came back she found’ em all a-loffing.”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe (l. 1–6)
“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be
acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm XIX (l. XIX, 14)