Bengali language

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, presently divided between Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam's Barak Valley (lower Assam). It is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India, behind Hindi.

With approximately 230 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers, Bengali is the fifth most-spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world. Standard Bengali and English are used for educated classes in Calcutta and Dhaka. Modern Standard Bengali is confined mostly to formal situations, existing in a divergent relationship with vernacular Bengali varieties, which are commonly used for everyday speech in different geographic regions. The language is the quintessential element of Bengali identity and binds together a culturally diverse region.