Bangladeshi English

Bengali is the sole official and national language of Bangladesh. However, English is often used secondarily in the higher tier of the judiciary in the country. Laws were written in English during the British Raj. Since the introduction of Bangla Bhasha Procholon Ain, all the laws by parliament and all Ordinances promulgated by the President are being enacted in Bengali in Bangladesh. There are ten English language newspapers in Bangladesh. English medium schools are also operated in English. Mainly, the people of Bangladeshi descent residing in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US and students of English medium schools in Bangladesh use Benglish (though the teaching of Standard English is also attempted). However, upon public demand in 2012, the High Court of Bangladesh banned the use of Benglish, described as a slang mixture of Bengali and English, in radio and television programs "to protect local tongue". Benglish is a term that has been used in academic papers to describe a mixture of Bangla and English. For example, Benglish verbs are described as a particular type of complex predicate that consists of an English word and a Bengali verb, such as 'to have an accident', 'to get/come/put in' or 'to confuse'. == History ==

The East India Company adopted English as the official language of the empire in 1835. Replacement of the Persian language with English was followed by a surge in English language learning among Bengali babus. English remained an official language of the region until 1956 when the first constitution of Pakistan was adopted stating Bengali and Urdu as the official languages of the state following the Bengali language movement from 1947 to 1952. After independence in 1971, Bengali became the sole official language of Bangladesh, and all English-medium universities, schools and colleges were converted to Bengali instruction in order to spread mass education. ==Phonological features==

The influence of the Bengali substrate is evident in Bangladeshi English vowel pronunciation, which neutralizes the English tense-lax distinction. For example, /iː/ and /ɪ/ merge into /i/, and /uː/ and /ʊ/ merge into /u/. Back and central vowels such as /ɑː/, /ʌ/, and /ɜː/ converge towards the low central /a/, and the schwa /ə/ is realized as /æ/. The trap-bath split, characteristic of Received Pronunciation, is absent. The monophthongization of English complex diphthongs occurs, similar to Bengali's simpler gliding types, resulting in /eɪ/ reducing to /e/, /əʊ/ to /o/, and /eə/ to /e/. Deviations in the consonant inventory include the substitution of fricatives that are absent in Bengali. /θ/ and /ð/ are typically pronounced as the aspirated dentals /tʰ/ and /dʰ/, respectively, and /v/ emerges as a bilabial /b/ or /β/. The voiced alveolar /z/ phoneme is often affricated to /dʒ/, resulting in the pronunciation of words like "zoo" as /dʒuː/. Syllable-final /r/ is not elided, being pronounced as a trill or flap, and word-initial /r/ shows a retroflex tendency, close to the Bengali /ɽ/, thus producing an approximant sound. == Literature ==

Bangladeshi English literature (BEL) refers to the body of literary work written in the English language in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diaspora. In academia, it is also now referred to as Bangladeshi Writing in English (BWE). Early prominent Bengali writers in English include Ram Mohan Roy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Begum Rokeya, and Rabindranath Tagore. In 1905, Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) wrote ''Sultana's Dream'', one of the earliest examples of feminist science fiction. Modern writers of the Bangladeshi diaspora include Tahmima Anam, Neamat Imam, Monica Ali, and Zia Haider Rahman. == Numbering system ==

The South Asian numbering system is preferred for digit grouping. When written in words, or when spoken, numbers less than 100,000/100 000 are expressed just as they are in Standard English. Numbers including and beyond 100,000 / 100 000 are expressed in a subset of the South Asian numbering system. Thus, the following scale is used: == Grammar and Words ==