Magadhi Prakrit
The oldest literary inscription in Bangladesh dates back to the 3rd century BCE. It was found at Mahasthangarh and is written in the Brahmi script. The language is Magadhi Prakrit. The Bengali language developed from Magadhi Prakrit, and it's written from Apabhramsa, between the 7th and 10th centuries. It once formed a single eastern Indo-Aryan language with Assamese and Odia, but later became distinct. It became an official language of the Sultanate of Bengal, where it was spoken as the main vernacular language. It absorbed vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. Bengali is the 10th most spoken language in the world. The language was modernized during the Bengali Renaissance in the 19th century. It has influenced other languages in the region, including Chakma, Rohingya, Assamese, Odia and Nepali. The indigenous Bengali alphabets descended from Brahmi serves as the Bengali script.