বাংলা ভাষায় মগধী প্রাকৃতের প্রভাব: একটি ভাষাতাত্ত্বিক বিশ্লেষণ
Volume-XIV, Issue-IV, JULY 2026
Volume-XIV, Issue-IV, July 2026 | ||
Received: 20.07.2026 | Accepted: 26.07.2026 | |||
Published Online: 31.07.2026 | Page No: 73-82 | |||
DOI: 10.64031/pratidhwanitheecho.vol.14.issue.04W.119 | ||||
বাংলা ভাষায় মগধী প্রাকৃতের প্রভাব: একটি ভাষাতাত্ত্বিক বিশ্লেষণ অনম্যা রায়, গবেষক, গৌহাটি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, বাংলা বিভাগ, গুয়াহাটি, অসম, ভারত | |
The Influence of Magadhi Prakrit on the Bengali Language: A Linguistic Analysis Anamya Roy, Research Scholar, Department of Bengali, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India | |
The Bengali language, an Eastern Indo-Aryan tongue, traces its genealogical ancestry back to the Old Indo-Aryan Sanskrit through intermediate Middle Indo-Aryan stages. Among these, Magadhi Prakrit—and its derivative Magadhi Apabhramsha—served as the primary linguistic substrate that shaped the phonological, morphological, and syntactic foundations of Proto-Bengali. This research article examines the historical and structural impact of Magadhi Prakrit on the evolution of modern Bengali. Through a comparative diachronic analysis, this paper investigates key phonological shifts, such as the sibilant merger (where Sanskrit’s three sibilants /s/, /ṣ/, /ś/ collapsed into a predominant palatal /ś/ in Magadhi and Bengali) and the retention of unvoiced stops. Morphologically, the study explores how Magadhi Apabhramsha’s inflectional simplification facilitated Bengali’s transition toward an analytic structure, influencing its case-endings, verbal conjugations, and pronominal systems. Additionally, the paper analyzes lexical inheritances (tadbhava words) that survived through the Magadhi lineage to form the core vocabulary of daily Bengali communication. By synthesizing historical linguistics, epigraphic evidence, and comparative grammar, this article demonstrates that Magadhi Prakrit provided the foundational blueprint for Bengali's unique identity within the Eastern Indo-Aryan language family. The findings offer clearer insights into the dialectal continuum of Eastern India and underscore the enduring heritage of Middle Indo-Aryan vernaculars in contemporary regional languages. | |
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