Bengali script

The Bengali script is derived from the ancient Brahmi script, with its development particularly influenced by the eastern variety of Brahmi. It shares similarities with the Assamese script, and by the 12th century CE, the Bengali alphabet was nearly complete, undergoing further changes until the 16th century. Written from left to right, it lacks capital letters and features many conjuncts and strokes that connect to a horizontal line. Punctuation marks are largely adopted from 19th-century English. Spelling standardization efforts began in the 1930s, with ongoing variations among different institutions and publishers. The Bengali language itself is part of the Indo-Aryan group and is spoken by over 210 million people, primarily in Bangladesh and India.12