This evening I went hunting for a word that would knock your socks off and wow the natives in the lesser explored world of Bangladesh, but the results weren't so fruitful. In fact I think I'm even a little bit more confused about certain rules the native tongue possesses than before I embarked on this linguistic journey. So to save myself from any type of embarrassment in this lesson I'll throw the word at you, but I'll leave it to you to really further your research and make sure the word flies in the south Asian land.

Today's word is a Bangla (Bengali) word used in Bangladesh:

bhromon - travel

If I'm not mistaken the word above is not a pure Bangla word, but one that was borrowed into the language from Sanskrit. The Bengali Wiki explains that native Bangla words do not allow initial consonant clusters and the syllabic structure is CVC. Do you follow? Whatever the case this word may not be a true Bangla word, but chances are you'll certainly hear it once or twice in Bangladesh. What will probably impress the locals more is your extensive knowledge of where the word does come from, but are we really concerned with wooing people with our language skills or just trying to get by?

Web resources for Bangla are few, but you can pick up quite a few words reading (not skimming) through the Wiki and from this Bangalinet site which has a small tutorial on how to write in the script. Beyond those two I'm sure there are others, but as I mentioned above it was like pulling teeth to get this word. With that being said class is dismissed.

Filed under: Learning, Asia, Bangladesh