Bengali

Bengali (also known as Bangla) is the principal language of the Bengal region in eastern South Asia, encompassing the sovereign nation of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, and the Barak Valley in Assam. It holds official or state language status in these areas and is also recognized in Jharkhand. Furthermore, Bengali-speaking communities are significant in parts of Bihar, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Uttarakhand, and in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Beyond South Asia, Bengali is spoken widely by diaspora communities across Europe, North America, and the Middle East

Language overview and writing system

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language within the Indo-European family, closely related to Assamese and Oriya. As of 2025, it is spoken by well over 200 million people—around 100 million in Bangladesh, approximately 85 million in India, and many more globally. It is one of the most widely used languages worldwide, ranking among the top five by native speakers.

Its literary tradition spans over a millennium, with roots in early Buddhist mystic poetry and a flourishing renaissance in modern times, producing luminaries such as Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-Western Nobel laureate in Literature (1913). Bengali’s development was also shaped by the Bengali Language Movement (1948–1956), which ultimately contributed to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 and inspired UNESCO’s recognition of 21 February as International Mother Language Day.

Writing system

Bengali is written using the Bengali (Bangla) script, an abugida derived from the Brahmi script. It is written left to right, features complex conjuncts and a prominent horizontal “matra” that links characters. It is unicameral (no upper/lowercase distinction) and is among the five most widely used writing systems globally, used by an estimated 300 million people. The script is also used for other regional languages such as Meitei, making it an officially recognized script in parts of India.

Asterix in Bengali

Asterix comics have been translated into Bengali and published in India by Ananda Publishers Pvt. Ltd., located in Calcutta (Kolkata). The translations began in 1995 with titles such as গ্ল্যাদিয়েটর অ্যাসটেরিক্স (Gauljoddha Asteriks) and অ্যাস্টেরিক্স ও সোনার কাস্তে (Asterix o Shonar Kaste), followed by numerous others in subsequent years. Many of the albums can still be ordered directly from the publisher online.