Bengalis

The Bengali people are the main ethnic group in the region of Bengal (now divided between Bangladesh and the Republic of India) in the Indian subcontinent. They speak Bengali (বাংলা Bangla), a language of the eastern branch of the Indo-Aryan languages.

They are natively concentrated in the nation of Bangladesh and in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. Some of the most well established Bengali communities are in the Middle East, Japan, Malaysia, United Kingdom and United States.

Remnants of civilisation in the greater Bengal region date back 4,000 years, when the region was settled by Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic peoples. The origin of the word Bangla ~ Bengal is unknown, but it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BC.

After the arrival of Indo-Aryans, the kingdoms around Bengal were first described in the Atharvaveda about 1000 BC. From the 6th century BC, Magadha expanded to include most of the Bihar and Bengal regions. It was one of the four main kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha. Magadha extended over nearly all of South Asia, including parts of Persia and Afghanistan, reaching its greatest extent under the Buddhist emperor Ashoka the Great in the 3rd century BC. One of the earliest foreign references to Bengal is the mention of a land ruled by the king Xandrammes named Gangaridai by the Greeks around 100 BC. The word is speculated to have come from Gangahrd (Land with the Ganges in its heart) in reference to an area in Bengal. Later from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD, the kingdom of Magadha served as the seat of the Gupta Empire.

Bengalis Media

• Geographical distribution of the Bengali/Bangla language in the world.*  Primary language*

• Ptolemy Asia detail.jpg

  Depiction of Gangaridai on a map by 11th-century polymath Ptolemy.

• Atisha.jpg

  Atiśa is recognised as one of the greatest figures of classical Buddhism, having inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra.

• Pir Gazi and his tiger in Sundarbans.jpg

  Ghazi Pir is thought to have lived in the Sundarbans some time between the 12th to 13th century.

• Codice Casanatense Bengalis.jpg

  16th-century Portuguese painting of "Bengalis".

• A Syce (Groom) Holding Two Carriage Horses MET DT3717.jpg

  A painting by Shaikh Muhammad Amir of Karraya displaying a syce of Bengal holding two carriage horses.

• A Bengali woman in Dhaka clad in fine Bengali muslin, 18th century.

• I'tisam-ud-Din.png

  I'tisam-ud-Din was the first educated Bengali and South Asian to have travelled to Europe.