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Curious question on the famous Buddhist monk Atiśa who was born in the area of present-day Bangladesh. He's known for being a great figure in 'Bengali' history, but imo its a tad anachronistic to label him even any ethnicity considering he lived long before our modern conception of identity.
It begs the questions, did the guy even technically ever speak what we can call "Bangla"?? Was the language even distinct in his lifetime or was it still a variety of Prakrit? He also spent most of his life in Tibet- so its fascinating to think about what he spoke and how he even saw himself as culturally.
Bengali was definitely an ethnicity then, and has been considered such since the Gauda kingdom. While the Bengali language was not the same back then as it is now, the Pala empire did have a language distinct from neighboring countries and that language is the direct ancestor to what we call Bengali today. Regardless, his family was nobility indigenous to the Bengal region, and that definitely makes him Bengali. Most languages developed after their ethnic identities developed not vice versa.
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