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237 LANGUAGE FILE
Language name Bengali beŋ�ɡɔ�li
Language name Bella Coola �belə�ku�lə
Autonym (if known and different)
Autonym (if known and different) Nuxalk
Language family Indo-European Indic
Language family Salishan
Spoken in Bangladesh, West Bengal (India)
Spoken in British Columbia (Canada)
Approximate number of speakers 165m
Approximate number of speakers 50
Writing system Bengali script, a version of Devanagari
Writing system
Phonetics/phonology
Phonetics/phonology
Stress word-initial
Stress not distinctive
Contains following rare retroflex; voiced aspirated plosives
consonant (types)
Contains following rare uvular, ejective
consonant (types)
Said to have how many vowels? 7�nasalisation
Said to have how many vowels? 3
Marked vowel types
Marked vowel types
Tone none
Tone none
Rhythm no information
Rhythm no information
Vowel harmony none
Vowel harmony none
Morphology fusional word-based
Morphology polysynthetic stem-based
Particular formation types dvandva; suffix
Particular formation types prefix; full and partial reduplication; suffix
Syntax
Word order SOV AN neither
NPoss
Syntax
Word order VSO NPoss prepositions
Particular syntactic phenomena morphological aspect; conjugation classes; evidentials
Particular syntactic phenomena classifier; conjugation classes
Points of interest extremely complex consonant clusters
Points of interest honorific inflections
Sources Bright (1992), Campbell (1991), Haspelmath et al. (2005),
Ruhlen (1976)
Sources Bright (1992), Campbell (1991), Katzner (1977), Ruhlen
(1976), Wälchli (2005)