বাংলা Thoughts

i made a flashcards app

it was not that hard

although it does seem like there is some underspecificity in the bangla digitalization space

e.g. william radice, ios, chrome (chromium? i'm on linux), and neovim/gnome all seem to disagree about whether certain ligatures are automatic, optional, or invalid/impossible

while occasionally unsettling, this has overall been a positive thing as i am forced to Not Worry About It

there seems to be some organization to the gnome keyboard but it seems only incidentally related to the latin characters, e.g. m is ম, but shift-m is শ

i'm glad i did it both per se and because as a Person Who Types it's important to me to work on typing bengali

i'm glad it seems like the script isn't a problem for computers, i was really worried about having to slap a lot of escaped nonsense in here

otoh there are so many characters and they're all very small and hard to read in my default ide font

shout-outs to gedit and Show keyboard layout

this book is organized into Sections, the first of which is Very Introductory in a way i find unsettling

we are outside the ivory tower and my poor fragile body is exposed to the buffettings of Phrases and Vocabulary

lacking the comfort of certainty, i am forced to clothe myself in supposition and inference

there is something called the "inherent vowel"

actually bengali uses an abugida and not an alphabet stricto sensu and thus every consonant is followed by an implicit /ɔ/ unless there is a different vowel sign attached:

due to what i can only suspect to be the vicissitudes of diachrony, this neat algorithm is troubled by edge cases

particularly vexatious to me as of march 17 2025 are

• ends of words: it's pronounced at the end of খব (/kʰa.bɔ/) but not at the end of খুব (/kʰyb/); it's pronounced at the end of বস (/bɔ.lɔ) but not at the end of দস (/dɔʃ/)
• consonant clusters: মাংস is pronounced /maŋ.ʃɔ/ and not /ma.ŋɔʃ/, গরম is pronounced /gɔ.rɔm/ and not /grɔm/ or /gɔrm

i suspect at least a partial explanation lies in Bengali phonotactics and which kinds of syllables are licit and which aren't

Good Mr Rice deigns not trouble our little brains with such matters, of course, writing Again, when to pronounce the inherent vowel and when to drop it is something that one can learn only with practice. ^{p. 8}

🙎

there are so many 3rd-person pronouns

• ও (/o/)
• এ (/e/)
• উসি (/y.ni/)
• ইসি (/i.ni/)
• সে (/ʃe/)
• ওঁ (/õ/)
• এঁ (/ẽ/)

Our Friend once more refrains from directly commenting on similarities between the first and last pairs, writing only The nasalized vowels are important if you want to indicate that certain pronouns are polite. If you fail to nasalize, you may sound more 'familiar' than you intend. ^{p. 22} (emphasis and scare quotes his)

i am left to suspect that এর (/er/) is somehow "more 'familiar'" than এঁর (/ẽr/) but the specifics remain elusive

(relatedly, my theory is that -র is a? the? possessive marker or case ending: এ vs এর, আমি (/a.mi/, "i") vs আমার (/a.mar/, "my"), উনি উমার বাবা (/y.ni y.mar ba.ba/ "is he uma's father?"^{p. 6}) but this is officially unconfirmed by Rice, so far)

Ol' Billy just throws these pronouns at us nudely, without nuance or overt usage guidance

is anyone else cold?

so in latin and greek (and english kinda) there is something called the sequence of tenses which is a set of rules that govern interactions among verb tenses in indirect speech

afaict this isn't a thing in bengali and isn't actually relevant

however

Bill gives us sentences like

what are we to make of these? i have given my tentative glosses, hesitantly warmed on a flickering pile of inferences

it seems to me that in these sentences there are two verbish things, one of which determines the primary tense and the other seems participly

William gives us এনে (/e.ne/, having brought ^{p. 16}) and এসে (/e.ʃe/, having brought ^{p. 16})

earlier we got

from this i propose theories

it seems likely that all/some roots are more complex than this

to me this suggests that আন means "bring," while "take" is possbly just ন

are there actually two separate "words" (howsoever defined) for "come" or could it be suppletion?

through the first 5 chapters, most of the instances of "come" with স are non-past

• রবিবার আসুন come (on) sunday ^{p. 11}
• সোমবার আসবো shall i/we come (on) monday ^{p. 11}
• আমি শনিবার আসবোনা"i won't come (on) saturday ^{p. 11}
• আমার সঙ্গে আসুন come with me ^{p. 16}
• সে মঙ্গলবার আসবেনা"he/she will not come (on) tuesday ^{p. 16}

while those with ল are past

• আমি খেয়ে এলাম i came after eating ^{p. 16}
• ও এলে খাবে? will he/she eat when he/she comes? ^{p. 16}

but also উনি আসেননি? না"hasn't he/she come? no" ^{p. 16}

hopefully Mr Rice eventually provides us some clarity