Indo-European · ISO 639-3 ben · bn
Bengali Language বাংলা
Bengali is an Indo-European language spoken by about 300 million people in 6 countries. It is an official language of Bangladesh. It is written in the Bangla and Latin scripts.
Where Bengali is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Bengali
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Indo-Iranian
- Indo-Aryan
- Middle-Modern Indo-Aryan
- Continental Indo-Aryan
- Indo-Aryan Eastern zone
- Oriya-Gauda-Kamrupa
- Gauda-Kamrupa
- Gauda-Banga
- Bengali
Writing system
Bangla and Latin scripts
Related languages
About the Bengali language
Bengali (বাংলা) is spoken by about 300 million people, which makes it the 6th most spoken language in the world — just behind Standard Arabic (335 million) and ahead of Urdu (288 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Gauda-Banga group within the Indo-Iranian branch.
Where is Bengali spoken?
Bengali is used in 6 countries. The largest communities live in Bangladesh (165 million), India (114 million), United Kingdom (273,836), Canada (128,022) and Singapore (78,369). More than half of the population speaks it in Bangladesh — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Bengali: Bangladesh 98% (165 million), India 8.1% (114 million), United Kingdom 0.4% (273,836), Canada 0.3% (128,022), Singapore 1.3% (78,369) and Nepal <0.1% (29,255).
Bengali is an official language in 1 country: Bangladesh. It also has regional official status in India.
Writing system and status
Bengali is written in the Bangla and Latin scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Sylheti, Chittagonian, Rohingya, Assamese, Rangpuri, Surjapuri and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 bn, ISO 639-3 ben.
Frequently asked questions about Bengali
How many people speak Bengali?
Where is Bengali spoken?
In which countries is Bengali an official language?
What language family does Bengali belong to?
What is Bengali called in Bengali?
Is Bengali an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.