There are many compound letters in Bengali made up of two or more letters . Its not possible to list them all here. You will find it easier to read them from a book like Learn Bengali in 30 days. However lets attempt a few of these.
The next figure contains double letters - ie each sounds the same eg kk in chiKKen ( chicken) , LL in Jill etc. See if you can identify each doubled letter. The last three are not so obvious and so their corresponding letter is written as half size to help you identify them . The answer are at the bottom of the figure.
See if you can read these words using the above doubled letters .
The answers are A . Apple B . Jill C Anna D Chicken E Egg F Yddi ( If - Hindi) G Hajj H Abbot I Eddie J Atta ( flour - Hindi ) K Abrit't'i ( Recitation )
Note how the soft T' as in the word K- Aabrit't'i and the hard T as in Tom in the word J - Atta are made up from the single letters.
Lets look at numbers from 1 to 10 . These are used less and less being replaced by English numbers.
Here are compound letters made of two letters . Note the name of the compound is derived from the half letter at the top and half letter at the bottom - ulkaa meansa a meteor.
Here are some half letters which are often used to form compound letters of two or even three half letters. See if you can identify them . Some blanks have been filled . We need help in identifying and completing the compound letters below. If you can help please send an email to Ukindia for eg in fig 49h below the first letter would be 1. Short u , look , mulk etc.
Please send the answers to all three figures 49h with its 50 letters , 49ia with 20 lettters and 49ja with 33 letters ( some eg 1 and 2 in the first figure, may be repeated) in the next three figures -in each case identifying the letter , then a short English word in which it might occur and a short Bengali word in which it is used. The answers should all be in English letters and should not take an expeienced Bengali reader more than 10 minutes to do. Your help will be acknowledged. With many thanks.
Answers are here given by Sameer (thank you very much Sameer ! ) . Note that some letters above are duplicated but for the moment we will leave it as is and you can use them as practice. Later on we will make some words using these half letters and vowel marks .
# sound location bangla word english 1- u underneath alu potato 2- u underneath same as above 3- u (after r) to the right rush Russia 4- uu underneath puurbaw east 5- uu underneath same as above 6- uu (after r) to the right duruuhaw difficult or ri (after h) to the right hridoy heart 7- ri underneath mrittu death 8- ri underneath same as above 9- e to the left desh nation 10- e to the left same as above 11- oi to the left moitraw friendship 12- oi to the left same as above 13- ou to the right moushumi monsoon 14- k (before t/r) to the right bękti (bekti) person 15- g on top rarely used 16- ng on top rarely used 17- ch on top achchha O.K. 18- j on top rarely used 19- n' to the right ushn'aw warm 20- n' on top kawn't'awk thorn 21- t underneath bęstaw busy 22- tu underneath kintu but 23- tr underneath strii woman 24- d underneath rarely used 25- dh underneath bouddhaw Buddhist 26- n on top jawnmaw birth 27- n (before # 21) on top antawrjatik international 28- n underneath prawshnaw question 29- n underneath same as above 30- p on top rarely used 31- b underneath ddiip (spelled dbiip) island 32- b underneath same as above 33- b underneath same as above 34- m on top lawmba long 35- m underneath atta (spelled atma) soul 36- ę to the right bębawhar use 37- r underneath gram village 38- r underneath same as above 39- r underneath same as above 40- r underneath same as above 41- r on top dhawrmaw religion 42- l on top kawlpawna imagination 43- l underneath plabawn flood 44- l underneath same as above 45- sh on top rarely used 46- sh on top srisht'i creation 47- sh on top same as above 48- s on top sthan place 49- s on top same as above 50- punctuation mark that prevents the "aw" sound from coming after a consonant
The next compound letters next can be used to form more words .
Answers
2 kt 15 tt ( atta)
Here are some more compound letters , see if you can identify them
Answers 10 nn 12 pp( apple) 24 LL More to follow