This paper concerns itself with the study of the development of Bengali as a modern vehicle of oral and written communication. Various scholars have offered different frameworks and scales for the study and measurement of language development and other allied phenomena. Of these, those suggested by Vilem Mathesius and Bohuslav Hauranek (Vachek, 1966), the two Prague linguists who, in the thirties of this century, worked avowedly on language standardization, have influence to a great extent the formulations of the later band of scholars working in this field, Chief among these scholars are Paul L. Garvin (1959), the interpreter of the Prague school, Einar Haugen in his paper (1972) "Dialect, Language, Nation".

The four aspects of language development that Haugen isolates as crucial factors in taking the step from 'dialect' to language', from 'vernacular' to 'standard' are as follows: (s) selection of a norm, (b) codification of norm, (c) elaboration of function, and acceptance by the community. The first and the last are concerned with society, the second and third with language. They form a four-way matrix within which it should be possible to discuss the problems of language in the life of a nation:
Form Function
Society Selection Acceptance
Language Codification Elaboration

We accept Haugen's framework, since it seems to us that the suggestions offered by others are either implicit in Haugen's approach or are roughly similar to it. For example, Ferguson (1971) suggests three dimensions as relevant for discussing language development: (a) graphization, (b) standardization and (c) modernization. He himself, however states that modernization roughly corresponds to Haugen viz. selection, codification nd acceptance. What Ferguson calls graphization is also taken care of by Haugen, when he says "it is a significant and probably crucial requirement for a standard language that it be written." Though we mainly follow Haugen's framework, we will also occasionally refer to Havranek.

The mechanism of emergence and development of a standard language is governed by certain objective laws which are closely linked with the societal function that the language fulfils. Therefore, an insightful study of the mechanism of emergence and development of a standard language demands as its background the study of the history of the society to which the language belongs, viz. the history of the economic and social-political conditions of the people who represent the society. Hence the emergence and developmental conditions of Bengali cannot be properly understood unless we study the question in close connection with the history of the Bengali society. Therefore, let us look back for a while.

In the history of Bengal and the Bengali society the closing decades of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth century are remarkable for a number of reasons. As a consequence of the permanent land-revenue settlement, introduced buy Lord Cornwallis in 1790, a middle-class was created. By this time Calcutta-the citadel of British colonial administration-had already grown into a center of trade and commerce. The people belonging to the newly created middle-class began to flock in and around Calcutta from the different corners of the province. Many of these people found employment either in governmental offices or in commercial and business establishment run by the British. When the British instituted a Western system of education they zealously accepted it. These were the people who framed the base of the urban middle-class elite. A group of political and religious reformers, who came from this middle-class elite, built a number of organizations to promote what they believed to be fulfilling their own as well as the people's interests.

This organization keenly felt hat in order to generate support from the people they must communicate in their own language. From the beginning of the nineteenth century Christian missionaries were

Making use of the vernacular press, and thus, the art of printing was becoming popular. Writing Bengali in prose-style which was started by this time by these Christian missionaries gathered strength through the efforts of the native organizational leaders who in their zeal to popularize their objectives started various newspapers and periodicals through the medium of Bengali. In this connection one should not forget to mention the contribution made by the authority of the Fort William College. For teaching Bengali to British Officers they published a set of Bengali texts, grammars and vocabulary lists. One should observe, therefore, that they along with the Christian missionaries laid the foundation upon which the native organization leaders built the super-structure of Bengali prose.

Before this period, there existed a vernacular literature, through only in poetic form, which has its history going as far back as the eleventh century. Evidence of prose-writing is conspicuously absent excepting in some land-grant documents and a few personal letters exchanged between individuals.

Before we can discuss at length the question of development of standard written Bengali, let us briefly dwell upon the Calcutta Colloquial Bengali, the name of which figures most prominently in any discussion pertaining to Bengali.

Selection and Acceptance

Nobody knows for sure what different dialect elements had gone into the creation of the Calcutta Colloquial Bengali at its formative period during the later years of the eighteenth and the beginning decades of the next century, but this much seems certain that its locus must have been the speech patterns that were current at the time in the regions adjacent to both the banks of the Bhagirathi. The middle-calls people who migrated to greater Calcutta Bengali, as a common medium of colloquial discourse and never any discount voice was raised against this selection. It gave them a new sense of solidarity and cohesion, not known before. As days passed on, Calcutta Bengali, the language of the prestigious center, was accepted throughout Bengal as a model of polite discourse. It began to emerge as a symbol of Bengali national pride, identity and unity.

We have already discussed that the formation of Bengali as a standard literary language dates from the first decades of the nineteenth century when there arose, for the first time, the tradition of writing Bengali in prose style. The standard literary Bengali from its

beginning days of emergence shows two different varieties: Sadhu Bhasa 'pedantic language' (henceforth SB) and Colit Bhasa ' current language' (henceforth CB). The SB followed at the beginning the vernacular very closely and was heavily influenced by Sanskrit. The CB, though not completely free from the influence of the vernacular, derived its substance from the colloquial speech that was prevalent at the time in the Calcutta metropolitan area and din the neighborhood.

The people who wrote in the SB style accepted the established ageold norm, and they never questioned the legitimacy of incorporation of Sanskritic vocables into the Bengali prose. They, it might not be improper to think, had rather a feeling that colloquial speech is not the proper medium to be into written use. Writing for them necessarily meant a sophisticated affair, which, therefore, according to these early pioneers, demanded inclusion of learned tatsama vocables. The tadbhava counterparts of these tatsama forms were not theoretically forbidden, but in practice were very rarely used. These vocables mainly belonged to the nominal adjective and postpositional classes. With regard to the verbal and pronominal morphology, however vernacular cradition was strictly adhered to. One of the most favorite choice of verbal construction was to build compound forms with verbal nouns followed by the root kas 'to do' which allowed tadbhava roots with the vernacular suffices. In the CB style, however, the bulk of the vocables and all the pronominal forms and suffixes were derived from the Calcutta colloquial source. Some of the distinguishing marks of the two styles of Bengali are illustrated below:

Sadhu Bhasa Colit Bhasa Gloss

dorson korilam/dekhilam dekhlam I saw
somprodan koriachile/diachile diechile you give
bhokkon koritechile/khaitechile khacchile you were eating
hoster dara/hat dia hat die by the hand
griho hoite/bar?i khoit?e bar?i theke from the house
uddaner nikor? e baganer kache near the garden
tahadigoke tader to them
tomadiger tomader your
jahake jake to whom

From what has already been described it would appear that at the formative stage of Bengali as a national language standardization was of a bi-model type, and not uni-modal. The SB represented one mode, Calcutta colloquial and the CB was, for all practical purposes, identical, since the language of ordinary conversation in Calcutta

and in neighborhood was not much different from what was written in the CB style.

The CB style of writing in comparison with the SB style, was given an inferior status. Since Sanskrit features have always been accorded high status. The CB style might have been considered unworthy of serious writing because it did not display much of an inclination to yield to the influence of Sanskrit. But the CB style received a wide popular support. Some conversational material produced at the instance of the Fort William college, the writings of William Carev including his translation of the Bible, Ram Tam Basu's Raja Pratapaditya Carit (1801), and some of the essays of Mrityunjay Vidyalangkar contained in his book Purasa Pariksa mark the beginning of writing in this style. Two noteworthy books written in CB were published later. The first one, Alaler Ghorer Dulal (The Spoilt child of a Rich House, 1858) a social novel, was written by Pyari Chand Mitra. Kali Prasanna Sinha was the author of the second book called Huton Pecar Naksa (The Sketches of the Hooting Owl, 1863).

From the very start Bengali intellectual recognized SB as the appropriate vehicle of modern discourse. From the beginning of the ninth century large volumes of printed materials using this style began to be published. The opening of the written channel of communication meant transmitting information from the center of political control and economic power to outlying areas. As a direct consequence of this, the process of social mobilization, so aptly described by Karl Deutsch (1961), started vigorously. Though the tradition of writing was also present in the Vernacular period, it touched only a thin layer of the society, because literary was limited to a privileged few. Obviously the tradition of writing did not have any regular use among the masses and thus it did not penetrate deep enough to have a profound effect upon the society. But as soon as the printed materials appeared, diverse sectors of the population, who remained isolated so long, started participating in the public life. This, in its turn, contributed immensely to the growth of increased literacy and the creation and maintenance of a widely circulating mass media. Thus, printing and publishing materials in CB heralded the dawn of awakening for the Bengali society.

The language of the first prose writers of Bengali during the first half of the nineteenth century, states S.K. Chatterji (1963), was rather stiff and was overloaded with uncommon Sanskrit words. But by 1850 a somewhat flexable style was established chiefly through the works of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891) and Aksnoy Kumar Datta (1820-1886), Bankim Chandra Chattopadyay (1838-1894) who is

generally looked upon as the greatest writer of Bengali before Rabindra Nath Tagore, (1861 - 1941). In their writings we find judicious use of tatsama and tadbhava words. Yet the style of writing was titled and artificial.

Towards, the last quarter of the nineteenth century there arose a movement for making the art of writing portray the real spirit of the language. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was at the helm of this movement, Pramatha Chaudhuri (1868-1946), the novelist and essayist, became its great champion. The latter through his powerful journal Sobuj-Patra 'the Green Leaf' made the movement attain a great success. This movement gave birth to a new kind of style. The verbal and pronominal inflexions as well the postpositions that came to be used is this new style were identical with those of the Calcutta colloquial. Many colloquial tadbhava vocabulary items received, for the first time, currency in the written language, though the bulk of the vocabulary, remained tatsama as it was in the SB. The abundance tatsama vocabulary marks this style closer to SB though otherwise it looks rather like CB. For want of a better term, we will call this new style Nobbo Colit Bhasa 'New Current Language' (henceforth NCB).

After the emergence of NCB both SB and NCB were used side by side, but NCB gained ground more and more. An intensive interaction between the two has been taking place from the very start, and gradually a series of qualititative changes have affected both. Thus some of the grammatical and lexical distinction between the two are in the process of being obliterated.

According to Ferguson, the ideal language situation is one where a single accepted norm of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary is used for all levels of speaking and writing. Undoubtedly such a situation would be most congenial for ideal type of social mobilization. Members of such a speech-community would be in a position spheres viz. in its literary, cultural and economic activities, without the need to master anew some linguistic skills bearing upon pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Bengali has by no means attained his ideal situation. First of all, though NCB has been gradually penetrating all spheres of written communication, SB has still its function in certain areas. Invitational letters and formal documents are invariably written in SB. In details, news are written in NCB but editorials in SB. There are some writers who feel that it is not possible to use NCB for serious expository writing.

Underlying this apparent hopeless situation one can, however, read

the sure sings of an eventual of a uni-modal language meeting the conditions stated by Ferguson. Things are moving towards that direction in a sure and steady manner, although nobody can predict how soon it would happen. This assumption is based on the facts that follow.

With the advancement towards modernity, the gap between the Calcutta Collquial, the status model, and the different regional dialects began to be reduced through the process called 'Sanskritization' by Pattanayak (1969). Besides, due to the increased literacy the standard written language has been becoming more and more accessible to the masses, who have been making the written language came closer to life and serve the diverse needs of a complex society. As a result the gap between the colloquial and the written language has been getting narrower. As a consequences of an intensive interaction between the two styles of written Bengali and the Calcutta colloquial there have emerged a lot of similarities between them in all levels of linguistic structure. They have almost on identical phonological system with minor deviations. Their grammatical systems also are remarkably similar. It is largely in the lexicon that they differ from each other. However, modern innovation, particularly relating to science and technology, shows identity in this area also. In this connection it should be mentioned that the spelling rules for SB and NCB are not identical. The similarities found among the different modes of Bengali relating to the different levels of structure are the direct consequences of the process of standardization which has been or is being achieved through codification and elaboration. Let us illustrate these processes in some detail.

Codification:

We have discussed before that for purposes of efficient communication it is ideal for a language to have a standard set of perceptive rules of pronunciation and spelling for all the lexical items. It is also equally desirable that all the levels of linguistic structure are regulated by sets of standard rules. The mechanism of developing the above types of rules is termed 'Codification'

Speaking about codificational rules relating to spelling, we should note that such rules may be arbitrary, and need not have one-to-one representation of the phonological structure of a language. From Bengali we can cite many such examples that will illustrate the arbitrary nature of the spelling rules. It is a well known fact that in Bengali like many other Indo-Aryan language the retroflex stop d? and the retroflex flap r? are in complementation as far as the inherited words are concerned. However, they have different graphemic representation.

Bengali as one of the descendants of Sanskrit has taken over many Sanskritic norms with respect to both spelling and grammar. The school system with its prescribed text books, grammars and examination procedures enforces and ensures these norms to be followed. It is a common-place to observe that the writers and journalists also follow these norms. One such norm with regard to spelling is that all tatsama words, most of which are pronounced differently I Bengali, must be spelled as they are done in Sanskrit.

This is a relatively recent history of codification. In the beginning of this century when there was a great increase in the frequency of use of tadbhava words Bengali spelling system faced a problem. Since there was no standard rules to regulate the spelling of the tadbhava words writers followed their individual preferences leading the whole situation to chaos, Ultimately, in the thirties, the Calcutta University constituted a committee of experts who recommended a set of rules regulating the spelling of these words.

A contemporary trend introduced by the Anand Bazar group of journal for the spelling of foreign borrowings and non-tatsama words is worthy of note here. This trend consists of writing medial and final consonantal clusters as graphemic sequences where the former tradition was to render then\m s graphemic sequences where the former tradition was to render them as graphemic conjuncts. Nobody can foretell if in the long run this trend will hold.

Elaboration:

The functional domain of a standard language is as complex as the society it represents. It has to serve the multiple needs of a communities, classes and professional groups. Therefore, in order to answer the diverse needs of a complex society it must adequately equip itself with a variety of resources. According to Haugen, the phenomenon of expanding the resources of a language is known as 'elaboration'. For the same semantic import Havranek uses the term 'enlargement'. It does not matter very much whether the process of expansion of vocabulary is called 'enlargement' or 'elaboration'. What are of particular interest for us are the processes through which the expansion of vocabulary is materialized. Havranek describes in details the different functions of a standard language. Two of these are called 'technically theoretical' and 'technically practical' functions. For fulfilling the first of those functions the process of 'intellectualization' of vocables takes place. He maintains that the very cultural and civilizational role of the standard literary language is responsible for the enlargement of vocabulary through the process of 'intellectualization'. The process of incorporation of vocabulary suitable for expressing the practical needs of

everyday life, comes into play for fulfilling the second function. Havranek does not give any specific name for this second process. Let us call it 'practicalization' in contrast with his term 'intellectualalization', which we may call 'theoreticalization'.

In the realm of Bengali vocabulary, the elaboration that took place due to the process of 'theoreticalization', owes mainly to Sanskrit. We have discussed before that SB at its initial phases leaned heavily towards Sanskrit, and this leaning, we should state, was due more to the tendency of conservation than anything else. But the dependence on Sanskrit for the elaboration of Bengali vocabulary through the process of 'theoreticalization' is quite different, both in terms of its nature and the results it produced.

In the early phases the SB had the tendency of using learned word for the ordinary well-known things or facts of everyday life. Thus, in early SB one would find the use of totini, strotossini, or nirjhorini for the colloquial word nodi 'river'. Similarly, for the everyday words bondhutto 'friendship' SB used mitrota, Sokkhota or souhardo. But due to the process of 'practicalization', which fulfills the necessity of expressing the subject matter of everyday practical life, in recent times the use of these types of learned words has been reduced to a great extent, and the use of common words has gained in frequency. The process of 'theoreticalization', however, introduces a lot of Sanskrit words, either through wholesale borrowing or through coinage using productive elements of Sanskrit. These innovations mostly relate to scientific or technical terms.

It is now a part of the government policy to see that Bengali is invested with the status it lacked. The government is trying by various means to extend the use of Bengali wherever possible. It aims to run all the business of the State through Bengali wherever possible. Not only will instruction in secondary schools but also at the University level will be carried out through Bengali. The government is trying to compile a list of suitable terms for use within various ministries. It has also sponsored the formation of different academic disciplines. The government is thus acting as an agency responsible for developing codification and elaborational norms for the language. The contributions that are being made in this regard by the journalists, authors of text books and writers in general must not be lost sight of.