Bengali Alphabet (বর্ণমালা)

This chart shows 11 vowels, 32 consonants and 8 other letters and signs, such as anusvara, visarga and common conjuncts. Textbooks give different totals because some count those extra letters and signs and some do not.

It is the chart of every consonant written with every vowel sign, one row per consonant: ক, কা, কি, কী, কু and so on. Learning it row by row is how most children learn to read Bengali.

Use our free Bengali typing editor: type the word as it sounds in English and it turns into Bengali (Bangla) script when you press space. For example, "nomoskar" becomes নমস্কার. No Bengali keyboard or software is needed.

They are the ISO 15919 romanisation, the standard way to write Indian scripts in English letters. Dots and lines mark sounds that plain English letters cannot tell apart: ṭa and ḍa are said with the tongue curled back, ā and ī are long vowels, and ṁ is the nasal anusvara.