Bengali is spoken in several countries and regions, primarily where Bengali communities live or where the language has official status. Key locations
- Bangladesh: Official language; the vast majority of the population speaks Bengali as their first language. This is the language’s home region.
- India: Widely spoken, especially in West Bengal and the Barak Valley of Assam; Bengali is one of the 22 scheduled languages and is an official language in several states. There are large Bengali-speaking communities across India beyond these areas as well.
- Other countries with sizable Bengali-speaking communities (often among immigrant or migrant populations): United Kingdom, United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, Canada, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and various European and Oceanian countries. In these places, Bengali is commonly spoken within expatriate and diaspora communities, even though it is not an official national language.
Notes
- The language is also present in smaller pockets in parts of Pakistan and in regions with historical Bengali-speaking populations.
- Estimates of total Bengali speakers consistently place the number well above 200 million when counting both first-language speakers and second-language/linguistic communities.
If you’d like, I can tailor this to a specific country or provide sources for the most up-to-date figures.
