The table below shows the vowels present in the modern (since the late nineteenth century) inventory of the Bengali alphabet: There also used to be two long vowels: " ৠ" ṝ ( দীর্ঘ ৠ dirghô rri, "long rri") and " ৡ" ḹ ( দীর্ঘ ৡ dirghô lli), which were removed from the inventory during the Vidyasagarian reform of the script due to peculiarity to Sanskrit.Most diphthongs are represented by juxtaposing the graphemes of their forming vowels, as in কেউ keu /keu/. Although there are only two diphthongs in the inventory of the script: " ঐ" oi ( স্বর ঐ shôrô oi, "vocalic oi") /oi/ and " ঔ" ou ( স্বর ঔ shôrô ou) /ou/, the Bengali phonetic system has, in fact, many diphthongs.To denote the absence of the inherent vowel following a consonant, a diacritic called the হসন্ত hôsôntô (্) may be written underneath the consonant. An exception to the above system is the vowel /ɔ/, which has no vowel mark but is considered inherent in every consonant letter.These vowel marks cannot appear without a consonant and are called কার kar. When a vowel sound follows a consonant (or a consonant cluster), it is written with a diacritic which, depending on the vowel, can appear above, below, before or after the consonant. When a vowel sound occurs syllable-initially or when it follows another vowel, it is written using a distinct letter.Another grapheme called " ঌ" ḷ (or হ্রস্ব ঌ rôshshô li as it used to be) representing the vocalic equivalent of a dental approximant in Sanskrit but actually representing the constant-vowel combination লি /li/ in Bengali instead of a vowel phoneme, was also included in the vowel section but unlike " ঋ", it was recently discarded from the inventory since its usage was extremely limited even in Sanskrit. This inconsistency is also a remnant from Sanskrit, where the grapheme represents the vocalic equivalent of a retroflex approximant (possibly an r-colored vowel). Nevertheless, it is included in the vowel section of the inventory of the Bengali script. The grapheme called " ঋ" ṛ (or হ্রস্ব ঋ rôshshô ri, "short ri", as it used to be) does not really represent a vowel phoneme in Bengali but the consonant-vowel combination রি /ri/.These graphemes serve an etymological function, however, in preserving the original Sanskrit spelling in tôtsômô Bengali words (words borrowed from Sanskrit). The letters are preserved in the Bengali script with their traditional names despite the fact that they are no longer pronounced differently in ordinary speech. The redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had short and long vowels: " ই" i ( হ্রস্ব ই rôshshô i, "short i") /i/ and " ঈ" ī ( দীর্ঘ ঈ dirghô ī, "long ī") /iː/, and " উ" u ( হ্রস্ব উ rôshshô u) /u/ and " ঊ" ū ( দীর্ঘ ঊ dirghô ū) /uː/. There are two graphemes for the vowel sound and two graphemes for the vowel sound.As a result, the sound is orthographically realised by multiple means in modern Bengali orthography, usually using some combination of " এ" e ( স্বর এ shôrô e, "vocalic e") /e/, " অ", " আ" a ( স্বর আ shôrô a) /a/ and the যফলা jôfôla (diacritic form of the consonant grapheme য jô). Even though the open-mid front unrounded vowel /ɛ/ is one of the seven main vowel sounds in the standard Bengali language, no distinct vowel symbol has been allotted for it in the script since there is no /ɛ/ sound in Sanskrit, the primary written language when the script was conceived.Bengali, Assamese and Odia which are Eastern languages have this value for the inherent vowel, while other languages using Brahmic scripts have a for their inherent vowel. " অ" ô ( স্বর অ shôrô ô, "vocalic ô") /ɔ/ sounds as the default Inherent vowel for the entire Bengali script.All of them are used in both Bengali and Assamese languages.
The swôrôbôrnôs represent six of the seven main vowel sounds of Bengali, along with two vowel diphthongs.
The Bengali script has a total of 9 vowel graphemes, each of which is called a স্বরবর্ণ swôrôbôrnô "vowel letter". Vowels & Consonant are used as alphabet and also diacritical marks.
The Bengali script can be divided into vowels and vowel diacritics/marks, consonants and consonant conjuncts, diacritical and other symbols, digits, and punctuation marks.