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    "source_key": "britannica_1911",
    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:bengali:6b769d564c41",
    "title": "BENGALI",
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    "verified_text": "bengali, with oriya and assamese, three of the four forms of speech which compose the eastern group of the indo-aryan languages (q.v.). this group includes all the aryan languages spoken in india east of the longitude of benares, and its members are the following:-- number of speakers in british india, 1901. bengali 44,624,048 oriya 9,687,429 assamese 1,350,846 bihari 34,579,844 ---------- total 90,242,167 of these bihari is treated separately. in the present article we shall devote ourselves to the examination of bengali together with the two other closely connected languages. the reader is throughout assumed to be in possession of the facts described under the heads indo-aryan languages and prakrit. language. bengali is spoken in the province of bengal proper, i.e. in, and on both sides of the delta of the ganges, and also in the eastern bengal portion of the province of eastern bengal and assam. the name \"bengali\" is an english word, derived from the english word \"bengal.\" natives call the language _banga-bhasa_, or the language of banga, i.e. \"bengal.\" \"oriya\" is the native name for the language of odra or orissa. assamese, again an english word, is spoken in the assam valley. its native name is _asamiya_, pronounced _ohamiya_. all these languages have alphabets derived from early forms of the well-known nagari character of northern india. that of bengali dates from about the 11th century a.d. it is a cursive script which admits of considerable speed in writing. the assamese alphabet is the same as that of bengali, but has one additional character to represent the sound of _w_, which has to be expressed in the former language in a very awkward fashion. in orissa, till lately, writing was done on a talipot palm-leaf, on which the letters were scratched with an iron stylus. in such circumstances straight lines would tend to split the leaf, and accordingly the alphabet received a peculiar curved appearance typical of it and of one or two other south indian methods of writing. the three languages are all the immediate descendants of magadhi prakrit (see prakrit), the headquarters of which were in south behar, near the modern city of patna. from here it spread in three lines--southwards, where it developed into oriya; south-eastwards into bengal proper, where it became bengali; and eastwards, through northern bengal, into assam, where it became assamese. it thus appears that the language of northern bengal, though usually and conveniently treated as a dialect of bengali, is not so in reality, but is a connecting link between assamese and bihari, the language of behar. it is noteworthy that northern bengali and assamese often agree in their grammar with oriya, as against standard bengali. omitting border forms of speech, bengali, as a vernacular, has two main dialects, a western and an eastern, the former being the standard. the boundary-line between the two may be roughly put at the 89th degree of east longitude. the eastern dialect has many marked peculiarities, amongst which we may mention a tendency to disaspiration, the pronunciation of _c_ as _ts_, of _ch_ as _s_, and of _j_ as _z_. in the northern part of the tract a medial _r_ is often elided, and in the extreme east there is a broader pronunciation of the vowel _a_, like that in the english word \"ball,\" _k_ is sounded like the _ch_ in \"loch,\" and both _c_ and _ch_ are pronounced like _s_. the letter _p_ is often sounded like _w_, and _s_ like _h_, which again, when initial, is dropped. the distinction between cerebral and dental letters is lost, so that the words _ath_ and _sat_ are both pronounced _'at_. in the south-east, near chittagong, corruption has gone even further, and the local dialect, which is practically a new language, is unintelligible to a man from western bengal. throughout the eastern districts there is a strong tendency to epenthesis, e.g. _kali_ is pronounced _kail_. a more important dialectic difference in bengali is that between the literary speech and the vernacular. the literary vocabulary is highly sanskritized, so much so that it is not understood by any native of bengal who has not received special instruction in it. its grammar preserves numerous archaic or pseudo-archaic forms, which are invariably contracted in the colloquial speech of even the most highly educated. for instance, \"i do\" is expressed in the literary dialect by _karitechi_, but in the vernacular by _korcci_ or _kocci_. oriya and assamese may be said to have no dialects. there are a few local variations, but the standard form of speech, as a whole, is used everywhere in the respective tracts where the languages are spoken. the three languages, being all children of a common parent, present many similar features. oriya on the whole preserves the usual accentuation of the indo-aryan languages (q.v.), seldom having the stress syllable farther back than the antepenultimate. bengali, on the other hand, throws the accent as far back as possible, and this produces the contracted forms which we observe in the colloquial language, the first syllable of a word being strongly accented, and the rest being hurried over. literary bengali preserves the full form of the word, and in reading aloud this full form is adhered to. assamese follows bengali in its accentuation, but the language has never been the toy of euphuism. in its literature colloquial words are employed, and are written as they are pronounced colloquially. in the following account of the three languages, bengali, literary and colloquial, will be primarily dealt with, and then the points of difference between it and the other two will be described. abbreviations used: a. = assamese, bg. = bengali, o. = oriya, pr. = prakrit, mg. pr. = magadhi prakrit, skr. = sanskrit. _vocabulary._--as already said, literary bengali abounds in _tatsamas_, or words borrowed in modern times from sanskrit (see indo-aryan languages), and these have also intruded themselves into the speech of the educated. so much has the false taste for these learned words obtained the mastery that, in the literary language, when a genuine bengali or _tadbhava_ word is used in literature it is frequently not put into writing, but the corresponding learned _tatsama_ is written in its place, although the _tadbhava_ is read. it is as though a french writer wrote _sicca_ when he wished the word _seche_ to be pronounced. similarly, the bengali word for the goddess of fortune is _lakkhi_, but in books this is always written in the skr. form _laksmi_, although no bengali would dream of saying anything but _lakkhi_, even when reciting a purple passage _ore rotunda_. in fact, the vocal organs of most bengalis are incapable of uttering the sound connoted by the letters _laksmi_. the result is that the spelling of a bengali word rarely represents its pronunciation. oriya also borrows freely from sanskrit, but there is no confusion between _tatsamas_ and _tadbhavas_, as in bengali. assamese, on the other hand, is remarkably free from these parasites, its vocabulary being mainly _tadbhava_. in eastern bengal, where mussulmans predominate, there is a free use of words borrowed from arabic and persian. owing to geographical and historical circumstances, oriya is to some extent infected by telugu and marathi idioms, while the tibeto-burman dialects and ahom have left their marks upon assamese. _phonetics._--the three forms of speech agree in sounding the vowel _a_ like the _o_ in \"hot.\" when writing phonetically, this sound is represented in the present article by _o_. the pronunciation of this frequently recurring vowel gives a tone to the general sound of the languages which at once strikes a foreigner. in bg. and a. a final vowel preceded by a single consonant is generally not pronounced. in bg. this is only true for nouns, a final _a_ being freely sounded in adjectives and verbs. in o., on the other hand, a final _a_ is always pronounced. the sound of such a final _a_ is in all three languages the same as that of the second _o_ in \"promote\"; thus, the bg. _bara_ is pronounced _boro_. in bg. a medial _a_ sometimes has the sound of the first _o_ in \"promote,\" as, for instance, in the word _ban_ (_bon_), a forest. in a. and eastern bg. a medial _a_ is often sounded like the _a_ in \"ball,\" and is then transliterated _a_. _a_ has preserved as a rule its proper sound of _a_ in \"father.\" the distinction between _i_ and _i_ and between _u_ and _u_ is everywhere lost in pronunciation, although in _tatsama_ words the sanskrit spelling is followed in literature. thus, in bg., the skr. _vyatita_ is pronounced _betito_, with the accent on the first syllable. in a. the distinction between these long and short vowels is obliterated more than elsewhere, the reason being, as in bg., the changes of pronunciation due to the shifting back of the accent. in o., the skr. vowel _r_ is pronounced _ru_. elsewhere it is _ri_. in o. the vowel _e_ is always long, but in bg. it may be long or short, and in a. it is always short. the syllable _ya_ preceded by a consonant has in bg. the sound of a short _e_, so that _vyakti_ is pronounced _bekti_. moreover, in the same language the letter _e_ is often pronounced like the _a_ in the german _mann_, a sound here phonetically represented by _a_; thus, _dekha_ is sometimes pronounced _dekho_, and sometimes _dakho_ or even _dako_. the syllable _ya_, when following a consonant, also has this _a_-sound, so that the english word \"bank\" is written _byank_ in bengali characters. _o_ in o. is always long. in bg., when it has not got the accent it is shortened to the sound of the first _o_ in \"promote,\" a sound which, as we have seen, is also sometimes taken by a medial _a_. in a. _o_ approaches the sound of _u_, and it actually becomes _u_ when followed by _i_ in the next syllable. the diphthongs _ai_ (in _tatsamas_, i.e. the skr. _ai_) and _ai_ (in _tadbhavas_) are sounded like _oi_ in \"oil\" in bg. and o., while in a. they have the sound of _oi_ in \"going.\" similarly, in bg. and o. the diphthongs _au_ and _au_ are sounded like the _au_ in the german _haus_, but in a. like _au_ in the french _jaune_, or the second _o_ in \"promote.\" in colloquial bg. the two syllables _ai_ often have the sound of _e_, as in _khaite_ (_khete_), to eat. in eastern bengal _k_ has often the sound of _ch_ in \"loch.\" in a. the consonants _c_ and _ch_ are both pronounced like _s_, and _j_ and _jh_ become _zh_ (i.e. the _s_ in \"pleasure\") or (when final) _z_. the same tendency is observable in bg., though it is usually considered vulgar. in parts of eastern bengal _c_ is pronounced like _ts_. o. as a rule has the proper sound of these letters, but towards the south _c_ and _ch_ become _ts_ and _tsh_ when not followed by a palatal letter. the letters _d_ and _dh_, when medial, are pronounced as a strongly burred _r_, and are then transliterated _r_ and _rh_ respectively. in a. and eastern bg. there is a strong tendency to pronounce both dentals and cerebrals as semi-cerebrals, as is done by the neighbouring tibeto-burmans. in a. _r_ and _rh_ become _r_ and _rh_ respectively. in bg. and a. _n_ has universally become _n_, but is properly pronounced in o. _y_ is usually pronounced as _j_, unless it is a merely euphonic bridge to avoid a hiatus between two vowels, as in _kariya_ for _kari-a_. in a. the resultant _j_ has the usual _z_-sound. when _y_ is the final element of a conjunct consonant, in bg. (except in the south-east) it is very faintly pronounced. in compensation the preceding member of the conjunct is doubled and the preceding vowel is shortened if possible, thus _vakya_ becomes _bakk^yo_. in a., while the _y_ is usually preserved, an _i_ is inserted before the conjunct, so that we have _baikyo_. _m_ and _v_ when similarly situated are altogether elided in bg., and this is also the case with _v_ in a., in which language _m_ under these circumstances becomes _w_; thus, _smarana_ becomes bg. _ssoron_, a. _sworon_, and _dvara_ becomes bg. and a. _ddara_. _r_ is generally pronounced correctly, except that when a member of a compound it is often not pronounced in colloquial bg.; thus _karma_ (_kommo_). in north-eastern bengali and in a. a medial _r_ is commonly dropped; thus, bg. _karilam_ (_kailam_), a. _kari_ (_kai_).[1] the vulgar commonly confound _n_ and _l_. o. has retained the old cerebral _l_ of pr., which has disappeared in bg. and a. the semi-vowel _v_ (_w_) becomes _b_ in bg. and o., but retains its proper sound when medial in a. when bg. wishes to represent a _w_, it has to write _oya_; thus, for _chawa_ it writes _chaoya_. similarly _baro_, twelve, +_yari_, friendship, when compounded together to mean \"a collection of twelve friends,\" is pronounced _barwari_. bg. pronounces all uncompounded sibilants as if they were _s_, like the english _sh_ in \"shin.\" this was already the case in mg. pr. (see prakrit). o., on the contrary, pronounces all three like the dental _s_ in \"sin,\" while a. sounds them like a rough _h_, almost like the _ch_ in \"loch.\" in eastern bg. _s_ becomes frankly _h_, and is then often dropped. the compound _ks_ is everywhere treated as if it were _khy_, in colloquial bg. there is a tendency to disaspiration; thus _dekha_ is pronounced _dako_ and the pr. _hattha-_, a hand, becomes _hat_, not _hath_. in eastern bg. there is a cockney tendency to drop _h_, so that we have _'at_, a hand, and _kailam_ for _kahilam_, i said. the above remarks show that o. has, on the whole, preserved the original sounds of the various letters better than bg. or a. _declension._--the distinction of gender has disappeared from all three languages. sex is distinguished either by the use of qualifying terms, such as \"male\" or \"female,\" or by the employment of different words, as in the case of our \"bull\" and \"cow.\" the plural number is almost always denoted by the addition of some word meaning \"many\" or \"collection\" to the singular, although we sometimes find a true plural used in the case of nouns denoting human beings. case was originally indicated by postpositions (see indo-aryan languages), but in many instances these have been joined to the noun, so that they form one word with it. the following is the full declension of the singular of the word _ghora_, a horse, in the three languages:-- +-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+ | | oriya. | bengali. | assamese. | +-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+ | nom. | ghora | ghora | ghora | | acc.-dat. | ghoraku | ghorake | ghorak | | instr. | ghorare | ghorate | ghorare | | abl. | ghoraru | ghora-haite | ghoraye | | gen. | ghorara | ghorar | ghorar | | loc. | ghorare | ghorate or ghoray | ghorat | +-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+ in bg. and a. a noun often takes _e_ (_e_) in the nominative singular, when it is the subject of a transitive verb; thus bg. _bedee_ (from _bed_) _bale_, the veda says. in bg. the nominative plural may, in the case of human beings, be formed by adding _a_ to the genitive singular; thus, _santan_, a son; gen. sing., _santaner_; nom. plur., _santanera_. the same is the case with the pronouns; thus _amar_, of me; _amara_, we; _tahar_, his; _tahara_, they. in bihari (q.v.) the pronouns follow the same rule, and, as is explained under that head, the nominative plural is really an oblique form of the genitive. with this exception, the plural in all our three languages is either the same as the singular, or (when the idea of plurality has to be emphasized) is formed by the addition of nouns of multitude, such as _gan_ in bg., _mana_ in o., or _bilak_ in a. we shall see that pronominal suffixes are freely used in all three languages in the conjugation of verbs. in the outer languages of the north-west of india (for the list of these, see indo-aryan languages) pronominal suffixes are also commonly added to nouns to signify possession. in most of the languages of the eastern group such pronominal suffixes added to nouns have fallen into disuse, but in a. they are still commonly employed with nouns of relationship; thus, _bap_, a father; _bopai_, my father; _baper_, your father; _bapek_, his father. their retention in a. is no doubt due to the example of the neighbouring tibeto-burman languages, in which such pronominal _prefixes_ are a common feature. in all three languages the adjective does not change for gender, for number or for case. the personal pronouns have at the present day lost their old nominatives, and have new nominatives formed from the oblique base. in the first and second persons the singulars have fallen into disuse in polite conversation, and the plurals are used honorifically for the singular, as in the case of the english \"you\" for \"thou.\" for the plural, new plurals are formed from the new singular (old plural) bases. in a., however, the old singular of the first person is retained, and the old plural plays its proper function. the bg. pronouns are, _mui_ (old), i; _ami_ (modern), i; _tui_ (old), thou; _tumi_ (modern), thou; _se_, _tini_, he; _e_, _ini_, this; _o_, _uni_, that; _je_, _jini_, who; _ke_, who?; _ki_, what?; _kon_, what (adjective)?; _keha_, anyone; _kichu_, anything; _kona_, any. most of the forms in the other languages closely follow these. the words in o. for \"i\" and \"thou\" are _ambhe_ and _tumbhe_ respectively. all these pronouns have plurals and oblique forms to which the case suffixes are added. these must be learnt from the grammars. _conjugation._--it is in the conjugation of the verb that colloquial bg. differs most from the literary dialect. there is no distinction in any of the three languages between singular and plural. most of the old singular forms have survived in a non-honorific sense, but they are rarely employed in polite language except in the third person. the old plural forms are generally employed for the singular also. the usual base for the verb substantive, when employed as an auxiliary, is _ach_, be, derived from the skr. _rcchati_. o., however, forms its past from the base _tha_ (skr. _sthita-_), and in south-western bengal the base _tha_, derived from the same original, is used for both present and past time. only two of the old skr.-pr. tenses have survived in the finite verb, the simple present and the imperative. thus, bg. _kari_, i do; _kar_, do thou. the past is formed by adding pronominal suffixes to the old past participle in _il_ (skr. _-illa-_, a pleonastic suffix, see prakrit), and the future by adding them to the old future participle in _b_ (skr. _-tavya-_, pr. _-avva-_). thus, bg. _karil-am_, done + by-me, i did; _karib-a_, it-is-to-be-done + by-me, i shall do. in bg. there are two modern participles, a present (_kar-ite_) and a past (_kar-iya_), and from these there are formed periphrastic tenses by suffixing auxiliary verbs. thus, _karite-chi_ (colloquial, _korci_ or _kocci_), i am doing; _karite-chilam_ (coll. _korcilum_ or _koccilum_), i was doing; _kariya-chi_ (coll., _korsi_), i have done; _kariya-chilam_ (coll., _korsilum_), i had done. a past conditional is formed by adding pronominal suffixes to the present participle; thus, _karitam_ (coll., _kortum_ or _kottum_), (if) i had done. similar tenses are formed in o. and a., but the periphrastic tenses are formed with verbal nouns and not with participles. thus, o. _karu-achi_, a. _kari-cho_, i am a-doing, i am doing. o. and a. have each a very complete series of gerunds or verbal nouns which are fully declined. in bg. only one gerund, that of the genitive, is in common use. in order to illustrate the conjugation of the verb, we here give that of the root _kar_, do, in its present, past and future tenses. +----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+ | | | literary | colloquial | | | | oriya. | bengali. | bengali. | assamese.| +----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+ | i do | karn | kari | kori | karo | | thou doest | kara | kara | koro | kara | | he (non-honorific) does | kare | kare | kore | kare | | he (honorific) does | karanti | karen | koren | kare | | i did | karilu | karilam | kollum, korlum | karilo | | thou didst | karila | karile | kolle, korle | karila | | he (non-honorific) did | karila | karila | kollo, korlo | karile | | he (honorific) did | karile | karilen | kollen, korlen | karile | | i shall do | karibu | kariba | korbo | karim | | thou wilt do | kariba | karibe | korbe | kariba | | he (non-honorific) will do | kariba | karibe | korbe | kariba | | he (honorific) will do | karibe | kariben | korben | kariba | +----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+ all the three languages have negative forms of the verb substantive, and a. has a complete negative conjugation for all verbs, made by prefixing the negative syllable _na_ under certain euphonic rules. literature. _bengali literature._--the oldest recognized writer in bengali is the vaishnava poet candi das, who flourished about the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century. his language does not differ much from the bengali of to-day. he founded a school of poets who wrote hymns in honour of krishna, many of whom, in later times, became connected with the religious revival instituted by caitanya in the early part of the 16th century. in the 15th century kasi ram translated the _mahabharata_, and krttibas ojha the _ramayana_ into the vernacular. the principal figure of the 17th century was mukunda ram who has left us two really admirable poems entitled _candi_ and _srimanta saudagar_. parts of the former have been translated by professor cowell into english verse, and both well deserve putting into an english dress. with bharat candra, whose much admired but artificial bidya sundar appeared in the 18th century, the list of old bengali authors may be considered as closed. they wrote in genuine nervous bengali, and the conspicuous success of many of them shows how baseless is the contention of some native writers of the present day that modern literary bengali needs the help of its huge imported sanskrit vocabulary to express anything but the simplest ideas. this modern literary bengali arose early in the 19th century, as a child of the revival of sanskrit learning in calcutta, under the influence of the college founded by the english in fort william. each decade it has become more and more the slave of sanskrit. it has had some excellent writers, notably the late bankim candra, whose novels have received the honour of being translated into several languages, including english. even he, however, sometimes laboured under the fetters imposed upon him by a strange vocabulary, and all competent european scholars are agreed that no work of first-class originality has much chance of arising in bengal till some great genius purges the language of its pseudo-classical element. _oriya literature_ does not go back beyond the 16th century, though examples of the language are found in inscriptions of the 13th century. nearly all the works are connected with the history of krishna, and the translation of the _bhagavata purana_ into oriya in the first half of the 16th century still exercises great influence on the masses. dina krsna das (17th century) was the author of another popular work entitled _rasa kallola_, or \"the waves of sentiment,\" which deals with the early life of krishna. every verse in it begins with the letter k. it is not always decent, but is immensely popular. upendra bhanja, raja of gumsur, a petty hill state, is the most famous of oriya poets, and was the most prolific. his work is insipid to a european taste, and when not unintelligible is often obscene. oriya poetry, from first to last, has been an artificial production, the work of _pandits_, who clung to the rules of sanskrit rhetoric, and loaded their verses with so many ideas and words borrowed from that language that it is rarely understood, except by the learned. the whole literature is, in fact, overshadowed by the great temple of jagannath (a name of krishna) at puri in orissa. _assamese literature._--the assamese are justly proud of their national literature. it has an independent growth, and its strength lies in history, a branch of letters in which other indian languages are almost entirely wanting. they have chronicles going back for the past 600 years, and a knowledge of their contents is a necessary part of the education of the upper classes of the country. in poetry, the vaishnava reformer, sankar deb, who flourished some 450 years ago, was a voluminous writer. his best known work is a translation of the _bhagavata purana_. about the same time ananta kandali translated the _mahabharata_ and the _ramayana_ into his native tongue. medicine was a science much studied, and there are translations of all the principal sanskrit works on the subject. forty or fifty dramatic works in the vernacular are known and are still acted. some of them date back to the time of sankar deb. authorities.--there is no work dealing with the three languages as a group. both the _comparative grammars_ of beames and hoernle (see indo-aryan languages) are silent about assamese. the fullest details concerning them all will be found in vol. v. of the _linguistic survey of india_, parts i. and ii. (calcutta, 1903). in this each dialect and subdialect is treated with great minuteness and with copious examples. the first bengali grammar and dictionary in a european language was the _vocabulario em idioma bengalla e portuguez_ of manoel da assumpcam (lisbon, 1743). n.b. halhed wrote the first bengali grammar in the english language (hooghly, 1778), but the real father of bengali philology was the great missionary, william carey (_grammar_, serampore, 1801; _dictionary, ib_., 1825). w. yates's _grammar_, as edited and improved by t. wenger (calcutta, 1847) and others, is still on sale. it is entirely confined to the literary bengali of the pandits. its great rival has been syama caran sarkar's _grammar_ (calcutta, 1850), of which there have been numerous reprints. in 1894 j. beames published his _grammar_ (oxford), now the standard work on the subject. it is largely based on syama caran's work, but with much new material, especially that dealing with the colloquial side of the language. g.f. nicholl's _grammar_ (london, 1885) is an independent study of the language, in which the vernacular works of the best native grammarians have been freely utilized. there is no good bengali dictionary. g.c. haughton's _dictionary_ (london, 1833) is perhaps still the best, but j. mendies' (calcutta, about 1870) is also well known, and is the parent of countless others which have issued from the calcutta presses. _a small dictionary of colloquial bengali words_, by j. m. c. and g. a. c. (calcutta, 1904), may also be studied with advantage. cf. also syama-caran ganguli, _bengali spoken and written_ (calcutta, 1906). for bengali literature, see r.c. dutt, _the literature of bengal_ (calcutta and london, 1895), and hara prasad sastri, _the vernacular literature of bengal before the introduction of english education_ (calcutta, n.d.). the most complete work is _bangabhasa o sahitya_ by dines candra sen (2nd ed., calcutta, 1901) in the bengali language. for oriya there are e. hallam's (calcutta, 1874), t. maltby's (calcutta, 1874) and j. browne's (london, 1882) _grammars_. the last two are in the roman character. they are all mere sketches of the language. sutton's (cuttack, 1841) is still the only _dictionary_ which the present writer has found of any practical use. for oriya literature, see app. ix. of hunter's _orissa_ (london, 1872), and monmohan chakravarti's \"notes on the language and literature of orissa\" in the _journal of the asiatic society of bengal_, vol. lxvi. (1897), part i. pp. 317 ff., and vol. lxvii. (1898), part i. pp. 332 ff. the first assamese _grammar_ was nathan brown's (sibsagar, 1848, 3rd ed. 1893), and it is still the one usually studied. g.f. nicholl gives an assamese grammar as a supplement to his bengali _grammar_ already quoted. like that work, it is quite independent, and is not a revised edition of brown. m. bronson's _dictionary_ (sibsagar, 1867) was for long the only vocabulary available, and a very useful and practical work it was. it is now superseded by hem candra barua's _hema-kosa_ (shillong, 1900). for assamese literature, see ananda ram dhekial phukan's _a few remarks on the assamese language_ (sibsagar, 1855), partly reprinted in the _indian antiquary_, vol. xxv. (1896), pp. 57 ff. (g. a. gr.) footnote: [1] in mg. pr. every _r_ becomes _l_. for an explanation of the apparent non-observance of this rule in languages of the eastern group, see bihari. bengazi (anc. _hesperides-berenice_), a seaport on the north coast of africa, capital of the sanjak of bengazi or barca, formerly in the vilayet of tripoli, but, since 1875, dependent directly on the ministry of the interior at constantinople. it is situated on a narrow strip of land between the gulf of sidra and a salt marsh, in 30 deg. 7' n. lat. and 20 deg. 3' e. long. though for the most part poorly built, it has one or two buildings of some pretension--an ancient castle, a mosque, a franciscan monastery, government buildings and barracks. senussi influence is strong and there is a large _zawia_ (convent). the harbour is half silted up with sand and the ruins of fortifications and is accessible only to vessels of light draught. a lighthouse has been erected at the entrance, but reefs render approach difficult, and the outer anchorage is fully exposed to west and north and not good holding. the export trade is largely in barley, shipped to british and other maltsters. the sudan produce (ivory, ostrich feathers, &c.) formerly brought to bengazi by caravan, has now been almost wholly diverted to tripoli, the eastern tracks from wadai and borku by way of kufra to aujila having become so unsafe that their natural difficulties are no longer worth braving. consular vigilance has also killed the once considerable slave trade. trade in other commodities, however, is on the increase, exports now amounting to nearly half a million sterling and imports to half that figure. the neighbouring coast is frequented by greek and italian sponge-fishers, the industry being a valuable one. the province of bengazi, being still without telegraphs or roads, is one of the most backward in the ottoman empire. founded by the greeks of cyrenaica under the name hesperides, the town received from ptolemy iii. the name of berenice in compliment to his wife. the ruins of the ancient town, which superseded cyrene and barca as chief place in the province after the 3rd century a.d., are now nearly buried in the sand. the modern town lies south-west of the original site. certain large natural pits which are found in the plain behind, and have luxuriant gardens at the bottom, are supposed to have originated the myth of the gardens of the hesperides. ancient tombs are found, which in 1882 yielded fine greek vases to g. dennis, then british vice-consul. the present name is derived from that of a moslem saint whose tomb, near the sea-coast, is an object of veneration. the population, amounting to about 25,000, is greatly mixed. levantines, maltese, greeks and jews form the trading community, but since 1895, when a branch of the agenzia italiana commerciale was established at bengazi, italians have exercised an increasing influence on cyrenaic commerce. turks, arabs and berbers are the ruling castes, and negroes act as labourers and domestics. many of these found their way to crete, and becoming porters, &c. in canea and candia, were notorious for turbulence and fanaticism. in 1897 and 1898 the european admirals forcibly deported consignments of the worst characters back to bengazi. in 1858 and again in 1874 the town was devastated by plague (see also tripoli and cyrenaica). 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