Persian-Arabic Compound Loanwords in the Bengali Language

Abstract

The present research examines Persian–Arabic compound loanwords in the Bengali language. As one of the major branches of the Indo-European languages in South Asia, Bengali has, over the centuries, been profoundly influenced by cultural, commercial, and literary interactions with both Persian and Arabic. The primary aim of this study is to identify the domains of phonological change and identification of semantic domains in which Persian–Arabic compound words are most prominently represented. Adopting a linguistic analytical approach, the study investigates the extent of influence of these compound loanwords on contemporary Bengali and demonstrates their strong presence across administrative, religious, literary, economic, social, political, and informal conversational registers. The research corpus consists of data collected from everyday spoken interactions and interviews with native Bangladeshi speakers. Field observations further reveal that several of these words have undergone noticeable phonological and semantic adaptations. Overall, this study underscores the importance of Persian–Arabic compound loanwords in enriching the Bengali lexicon and highlights their role in shaping the linguistic and cultural identity of the region.