Brahmi to Bangla: Etymology of the mother tongue

Bangla language has a glorious history and strong origins. Carrying that history forward, millions of people proudly call Bangla their mother tongue. But modernity demanded change, and because of that, Bangla alphabets were modified.

'Brahmi to Bangla' by Sabyasachi Hazra charts the evolution of Bangla showcases the origins of our language to bring forth the roots of the magnificent Bangla alphabets. Held at Alliance Francaise de Dhaka, Dhanmondi, the exhibition will continue till 25 June. 

The Business Standard sat down with Sabyasachi. After many years of research, he wanted to enlighten the Bangladeshi youth about their roots through this exhibition. Even though he had not created any of the exhibits, he himself is a cover designer and an artist by hobby. 

Sabyasachi has been involved with typography for about 15-20 years. And for five years he had been working on this project to present the Bangla 'Mudrito Horof'- printed typeface. He wants to introduce the new generation working with letters, typography, and calligraphy to the existing font.

The exhibition was paired with the launch of a book, 'In the Quest of Bangla Typography.' The book compiles all the exhibition's works as well as more detailed information of the history. It is a booklet to help artists study the original handwriting and become familiar with creating calligraphy from it. 

The other purpose of the exhibition was to also present to the youth and people in general how the Bangla alphabet came to its modern iteration.

The curation in the exhibition was arranged in a manner to first show the origins. As per Sabyasachi's research, the origins go as far as the Asoka Dynasty and stops at Khilji Dynasty where finally Bangla letters are known to have found their full formation. 

"In the next step, in accordance with printed letters, we started from a magazine called 'China Illustrata', where the first samples of the Bengali alphabet can be found. The book was published in 1667 from Amsterdam, Netherlands. This section ended with Satyajit Ray's hand drawn works. This step showed the difference of the origins and the printed letters- how it began and what it finally settled as. It is important as these printed fonts later influenced the establishment of the fonts we see now" said Sabyasachi. 

The artist also kept a section where he paid tribute to ten people who had worked hard to give Bangla letters an aesthetic form, and made it appear beautiful. 

"You see, the letter  'sware aw' was not like this before. It was different. Most people do  not have any idea about it. This exhibition wants people to know what it looked like before." 

"None of the work here is my own. I am just curating it. I was very passionate about this book. I gave suggestions regarding the printed fonts where I suggested implementing a QR Code so that people can scan and research further," said Sabyasachi. 

Sabyasachi completed his education in Faculty of Fine Arts from University of Dhaka and his main focus was drawing and painting. But he did not want to make selling art his main source of income and  moved on to making cover designs.

"A cover represents the whole book. I try to read the entire book I am to design the cover for so that my design, with one look, speaks the gist of the book." 

According to Sabyasachi, the crowd for the exhibition was mostly young people. Some even came back to try and understand the history of our language and its letters. 

"Even if one aspiring typography, calligraphy artist becomes inspired by our original font, through my exhibition or this book, that is a success for me I believe," concluded Sabyasachi, full of hope. 

TBS Picks

1. Artistic Bangla alphabets

This is the allotment of the alphabets and a version of their origins. Together they look like a font. These came from different places, not just from a Bengali region or background. There are foreign contributions among these letters as well. 

2. Influence of the forms of natural and usable folk products in the shapes of Bangla letters 

In every language, the geo-natural environment has some kind of influence in the shapes of how the letters look. This is to represent that. 

3. Satyajit Ray- a pioneer of modern Bangla typography and calligraphy

Satyajit Ray has left behind numerous calligraphies within his works. He also contributed to the variations of the alphabets and their fonts.