Bengali: এই যে

[Johnnypolyglot]

এই যে I am pronouncing it [eɪ̯ ʤℯ]. Please confirm or refute if I have the correct pronunciation (to the best of your ability, I realize you are looking at the IPA and not actually listening to the pronunciation of the phrase).


What is the literal meaning এই যে ? (what does it mean directly translated) (Please do not use an online translator of any kind.)


What is the perceived meaning of এই যে ? (what does it actually mean)


Can it be used as a greeting like hello?


Can it be used to say, “excuse me”?


Please answer with your own knowledge. Please do not Google, copy, paste your answer. Answer only if you are a native Bangla speaker. Also, very important, my question is not asking how do I say hello or how do I say excuse me. My question is specifically asking about the phrase এই যে.

 

[Dib]

[eɪ̯ ʤe] is the standard pronunciation. Perfect.

The most "concrete" meanings are:
1. এই = this (near deixis) - pronoun or adjective.
A. যে = which/that (relative pronoun), that (subordinating conjunction)
Both, however, have some important secondary meanings each:
2. এই - as an adverb - has a near temporal deictic meaning similar to English "just", but covering both past and future.
3. এই - as an interjection - is like "hey" or "excuse me", used to attract attention. On itself it is not polite enough to be used towards strangers.
B. যে - as an adverb - can be an evidentiality marker, signaling obvious knowledge (often due to revelation in current discourse). (probably not possible with future tense?)

I can imagine the phrase এই যে standing for different combinations of these meanings, examples:
1A. ব্যাপারটা দাঁড়াল এই যে সব কিছু ঠিক আছে। The matter is this, that everything is alright.
1B. এই যে is used like Eng. "here you go", Fr. "voilà", Ger. "bitte", It. "prego", Hindi "aaie" when handing out something to someone who asked for it.
2B. এই যে তুমি বললে ... But you just said ... (that is the speaker is pointing out a clear self-contradiction of the interlocuter)
3.. When used as an interjection, "এই যে" is more polite than "এই", and can sometimes be used also towards strangers to attract their attention - like "excuse me" if you please, though still not polite enough in my opinion to address your teacher, for example.

"এই যে" may equate to "hello" under some circumstances, I suppose, but not as a greeting, rather as a formula to attract attention, like: "hello, you! come here!"

 

[Johnnypolyglot]

Dib Ji, very thorough answer. I appreciate it.