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Bengali or Bangla (বাংলা, Bengali pronunciation: [ˈbaŋla]) is an Indo-Aryan language of East South Asia, evolved from Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit. Bengali is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. With nearly 200 million native speakers, Bengali is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world (it is ranked between fourth and seventh). Bengali is the main language spoken in Bangladesh; in India, Bengali is ranked as either the second or third most spoken language. Along with Assamese, it is geographically the most eastern of the Indo-European languages. (more...)