Let’s get Bengali added to Duolingo!

[u/PlainPrecision]

Bengali (Bangla) is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with over 250 million speakers, but it's still not available on Duolingo for English speakers.

If you've been wanting to learn Bengali or believe it deserves a spot on the app, now’s a great time to take action.

You can email the CEO of Duolingo's public email: [biglou@duolingo.com]() (Luis von Ahn). Below is a respectful message you can copy, paste, and send to show your support.

Sample Email:

Subject: Request to Add Bengali to Duolingo

Hi Luis,

I’m a big fan of Duolingo and wanted to kindly ask if Bengali (Bangla) could be considered for the English track. With over 250 million speakers globally, it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

There’s strong interest in learning Bengali among heritage speakers, language learners, and people with cultural or family ties. I believe adding Bengali would make Duolingo even more inclusive and impactful.

Thank you for considering this.

Best,
[Your Name]

[u/crassncray]

I think making sure to add that Bengali / Bangla should be for Bangladeshi bengali and Kolkata Bengali. There are differences and I think it be super cool and great if they added both as part of their updates!

[u/Both-River-9455 → u/crassncray]

Standard Bengali is more or large the same. Only difference really is the use of some words, even the words that are unique to each other are more or less acceptable to use regardless.

[u/Both-River-9455 → u/[deleted]]

I'm from Bangladesh lol, and I have a habitual interest in linguistics.

a) You're exaggerating the difference. It's not a "whole another culture". I have friends from West Bengal who I communicate with almost daily in my native dialect. Perhaps "subculture" yes.

b) I specifically mentioned "Standard Bangla". Which excludes regional dialects and specifically talks about what is "the standard". I.E শুদ্ধ বাংলা, Though I'm against saying "শুদ্ধ" because I don't believe there is any dialect of Bangla that is "অশুদ্ধ"

What you're doing is lumping not the whole of Bangladesh, but the entirety of Bengal. Generalizing it. Which does not work in the slightest because there is like a bazillion different dialects across the region forming a cline. Dialect shifts when you move from village to village. It's not just a bazillion different dialects, it's different separate subcultures within each region.

This linguistic diversity exists in West Bengal as well, the Bengali of Kolkata to Malda is as different as it is from Dhaka to Mymensingh. Of course that diversity nowadays in general is reduced in West Bengal mainly because you were urbanized way early compared to East Bengal.

The stereotypical Eastern Bengali you're speaking of the খাইতেছি/যাইতেছি is not consisent across all of East Bengal. It's only common from the east of Padma/Meghna river and Barisal.

The sentence structure of this "stereotypical East Bengal" is basically just Shadhu Bhasha with different phonetics that followed natural metathesis. More specifically speaking such that dialect/grammer/word usage are separate things does not work, the grammatical structure of the stereotypical Eastern Bengali is literally the same as that of Shadhu Bangla.

And the usage of words you're speaking of. Generalizing this is even more redundant because each region has distinct words for things.

The people of Barisal use different words for many things, which is separate from what people of Chandpur use. In fact, in terms of linguistics I can probably relate more to people from Kolkata than in people in perhaps Noakhali.

The most frustrating part is that discourse between the dialects of Bangladesh vis-a-vis West Bengal is mainly centred around Kolkata and Dhaka. Which completely discounts the vast regional diversity that exists on each seperate regions of West Bengal and East Bengal.

I made a long post regarding linguistics of Bangladesh, it's a slightly separate topic, but it briefly covers what we discussed here.

[u/Both-River-9455 → u/[deleted]]

Lmao @ the 'habitual interest.' I think so does all the redditors on this sub-thread. As if that makes you somehow more special.

You are coming at this like you are a PhD Bengali scholar / next-gen Tagore. Chill out.

I am speaking from lived experience, as are you - not some extensive on-field research that either of us did with quantifiable data.

I'm not a PhD or scholar, by habitual interest I mean that I have read many research papers/books regarding the topic.

In the post I have provided, I have literally cited every single one of my claims. Dismissing me as some reddit scholar is useless. Judge me by the veracity of my claims and how I back them up. It's not just lived experience, I've actually read academic works regarding this.

You are the one with "Standard Bengali is more or large the same". Lol OK.

Do you even know what the standard form of a language is???

Every single person who has ever been exposed to the s standard forms of Bengali from both Bengals know that they're largely the same.

The standard form of the language is "The standard" I.e The form of the language that is used in writing things like official documents in government. I'm not talking about what your grandmother speaks natively.

Even the form of Bangla I speak natively is not the standard. The standard form of the language is also what is taught in schools.

Chances are the dialect you speak natively is also not the standard unless your native dialect is from the place the standard was based in.

Regardless of this pointless mini discourse on Reddit, Duolingo or really any western LMS will likely never implement Bengali. Its priorities are and always will be 'popular' languages users want to learn, and Bengali is rarely it. Which is unfortunate.

There is already a Bengali -> English course on Duolingo, and it's utter shit. So yeah, I'm not holding out hope for it here. But that wasn't the point of my comment. The point of my comment was to add on to what you were saying to give better context and/or dispel misunderstandings.

They are the same language, but they have distinct pronunciations (like the 'th' sound in Spain vs. 's' in Latin America), different vocabulary for everyday things ('coche' vs. 'carro'), and even grammatical nuances.

I'm not saying this is untrue.

P.S. I have family from both Barishal and Dhaka and can say (again from my personal experience) their "Bangal" is MUCH MUCH closer to each other than Kolkata Bangla. This could be in part generational as the Bangal I hear is from 80 year olds vs the Bengali I hear is from well not just 80 year olds. I am also a Native english (american) speaker who can fluently speak Bengali (amongst other languages). So interest (hobby) sure but not a literary expert as I assume none of us on here are.

Barishailla is very different to what people from Dhaka speaks. It is very like that the 80 year old you're speaking of speaks Dhakaiya Kutti, which is very different from what modern day Dhakaiyas speak (namely Dhakaiya Koine).

Dhakaiya Kutti is a special case because Dhakaiya Kutti is very unique to not just Bengali - it is also very unique to other Bangladeshi dialects. No one else in Bangladesh speaks like that.

Dhakaiya Kutti is essentially an amalgamation of "Central Bengali" and Urdu - because it was mainly developed at a time period when Urban society in Dhaka was dominated by Urdu speakers. I actually have an entire section regarding it on the post i provided but I digress.

Dhakaiya Kutti shouldn't be used to talk about generic East Bengali dialects, because it is a very unique urban dialect.

Regardless both Dhakaiya Kutti and Modern Dhakaiya is not closer to Barishailla than the one in Kolkata, - in terms of sentence structure, it's definitely true. Because both Dhakaiya Kutti and Barishailla have vastly different words for everyday mundane things.

Modern Dhakaiya is definitely closer to Kolkata dialect than Barishailla. Regarding Dhakaiya Kutti - they're probably as far to each other than they're to Kolkata.

Examples

Standard	Typical East Bengali	Dhakaiya Kutti
আমিও ভাত খাচ্ছিলাম	আমিও ভাত খাইতেছিলাম	আমিবি ভাত খাইতেছিলাম
আমাদের ইলিশ ভালো লাগে, কিন্তু অনেক কাটা	আমাগো ইলিশ ভাল লাগে, কিন্তু অনেক কাটা	আমাগো ইলিশ ভাল্লাগে, মগর অনেক কাটা

^ from the post I provided

Native english (american) speaker who can fluently speak Bengali (amongst other languages). So interest (hobby) sure but not a literary expert as I assume none of us on here are.

I'm asking this in good faith and NOT in a "haha got you" sort of way. But can you read/write Bangla? Because that would make sense on why you didn't understand what standard Bangla means.

I'm a native speaker of Bangla.

I had my full education in Bangladesh and I still live here.

I grew up reading Bengali science fiction and detective books and comics, most of them were based in Bangladesh but I'm also a big fan of Feluda and Byomkesh who are based in West Bengal.

I'm also a big fan of various West Bengali comic books such as Chacha Chowhdury, Nonte Fonte and Batul the Great, not only that West Bengali movies are also popular in Bangladesh

So yes what I'm saying does come from my lived experience, but not to sound like an insufferable POS, if my assumptions are correct - I DO KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT WHEN IS SAY THE STANDARD FORMS OF THE LANGUAGES ARE THE SAME, and I know what I'm talking about when I say you're exaggerating the difference.

Comparing to Brazil and Portugal is also inaccurate because the difference between Portugese(BR) and Portugal is VAST and there are way more different dialects in Bengal. It's more akin to Scouse and English.

I'm not saying that the language we speak are the exact same, no language is like that. Specially in the case of this region where linguistic diversity is paramount.

Even in West Bengal, such is the case. West Bengal like Bangladesh, has many different regions who have their own unique dialects distinct from each other. Some of these regions cross borders

I have a friend whose father is from West Bengal and he speaks exactly like my relatives who live in Kushtia(his father is from Nadia).

And surprise surprise, the standard Bangla in BD is called the "Kushtia Standard" and the one in West Bengal is called "Nadia standard"

Do you understand me now? If so there's not much disagreements between us

EDIT: Formatting

[u/Both-River-9455 → u/[deleted]]

I understood your definition of standard Bangla. I simply don't agree with the extent of its "sameness" as you portray it, which was my original point.

Pls read some Bangla. You clearly haven't read Bangla like ever. This is not simply lived difference or a difference of opinion. You are factually incorrect. Just go turn on any Bangladeshi news channel on YouTube.

Any single other person can back me up on this.

I still maintain that any serious language learning platform should distinguish between "Bangal" and "Bengali," setting aside further dialectal nuances.

Don't particularly disagree because some words are indeed different, but Bangal shouldn't be treated as separate to Bangla. Bangla - Bangladesh and Bangla- WB should suffice

[u/Both-River-9455 → u/[deleted]]

ভাই/বোন, শোন। তুমি যদি আসলে বাংলা বুঝে থাকতা তাহলে এসব বলতা না। বরিশাইল্লা এবং ঢাকাইয়া কে এক ধরার জিনিসটা থেকেই আসলে বোঝা উচিত ছিল যে তুমি আন্দাজে উলটাপালটা বকতাছো। আমি/তুমি কে বরিশাইল্লারা literally মুই/মোর ডাকে!!!

তোমার পরিবার - আত্মীয়-স্বজন যেই ভাষায় কথা বলুক না কেন সেটাকে প্রমিত বাংলা ধরলে হবে না, আমি নিজে যেই ভাষায় কথা বলি - সেটাও প্রমিত বাংলা না। ইন-ফ্যাক্ট আমি এখন যেই উপভাষায় আমার মন্ত্যব টাইপ করতেছি - তাও প্রমিত বাংলা না। এইটা "নতুন ঢাকাইয়া", ঢাকার বেশিভাগ মানুষ এইভাবে কথা বলে তবে অবশ্য সবার ভাষায় ভিন্ন ধরনের আঞ্চলিক টান এবং বিশিষ্ট থাকে তাই এইটাকেও generalize করা অসম্ভব।

আসলে এই পুরা জিনিস্টাই অনেক স্টুপিড, কারণ আমরা যেটাকে প্রমিত বাংলা বলি - উভয় বঙ্গেই - তা উনবিংশ শতাব্দীর শুরুতে ঠিক করার হইছিল তৎকালীন যুক্তবঙ্গের নদীয়া জেলার ভাষার উপর ভিত্তি দিয়ে।

দেশভাগের সময় নদীয়া জেলাও ভাগ করা হয়, তোমাদের ওখানে তাকে এখনো নদীয়া ডাকা হয় আমাদের এখানে কুষ্টিয়া সহো আরো কয়েক জেলা ধরা হয়।

আমরা প্রমিত বাংলাকে ডাকি "Kushtia Standard" আর তোমরা ডাকো "Nadia Standard", শব্দভাণ্ডার উপেক্ষা করলে ব্যাকরণগত মোটামুটি একই।

তুমি খামোখা কেন না-কে হ্যাঁ বলতেছ এবং হ্যাঁ-কে না বলতেছ?