Isn't It Time Sylheti Was Recognised As A National Language In Bangladesh?

[IAS]

'Sylheti is the language spoken by 95% of Bangladeshis living in the U.K. This language has been described as being distinct from Bengali in terms of phonology and morphology and shares 80% of its vocabulary with Bengali, the rest being quite distinctive. Standard Bengali can be perceived as being so different from Sylheti that it has been mistaken as "Pakistani". In turn, speakers of other Bengali dialects can find Sylheti "hardly intelligible".

The writing system for Sylheti is called Sylheti Nagri, last taught in schools in Sylhet more than 50 years ago, although a number of English transliteration schemes are also often used to represent the language'.

Source: http://www.emille.lancs.ac.uk/sylhetic.php


According to the data we received from Hampshire schools in 2000 there were, within the LEA, at least 200 pupils at Key Stages 1-4 whose families originated from the Sylhet region in north-eastern Bangladesh. Over 90% of the 220,000 Bangladeshi people in Britain can trace their roots back to this one district.

Most of the families speak Sylheti, which is usually defined as a dialect of Bengali, the sixth most widely spoken language in the world. Sylheti has never been recognised as a language in its own right, even though it is quite different from standard Bengali, in its sound system, the way in which its words are formed and in its vocabulary. This is at least partly because its script, Sylheti Nagari, was never officially recognised, despite having been widely used by ordinary people for about 600 years until its decline in the twentieth century.

Nowadays, children living in Bangladesh would learn standard Bengali, the national language and official medium of education. However, in Britain, Bangladeshi children will probably enter the school with a degree of fluency in Sylheti, but with a very limited knowledge of Bengali and often, with little exposure to the written word.

This presents an enormous dilemma for teachers of Bangladeshi children. Bengali is so different from Sylheti that, when dual language texts are read, it is quite possible that they will barely be understood by young children. However, this difficulty will be overcome if the story-teller is given time to prepare, so that the stories are told in Sylheti, (possibly alongside the reading).

Source: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/e...cr-bengali.htm



The majority of Sylheti Bengalis both in Bangladesh and especially the diaspora are comfortable with the Sylheti language and have only limited understanding of Dhakaiya ‘shuddho’ Bangla. Isn't it about time that Bangladesh recognised Sylheti as the separate language it is?


This would help Sylhetis in the job market and in education generally. It would also help Bangladesh's image as the country was supposed to be founded on freedom to speak ones language. I suspect that political notions of nationalism is the main hindering factor!

[Fazal]

huh ?

[IAS]

'Sylheti (native name সিলটী Silôţi; Bengali name সিলেটী Sileţi) is the language of Sylhet, the north-eastern region of Bangladesh, and also spoken in parts of the North-East Indian states of Assam (the Barak valley) and Tripura (the North Tripura district). It is also spoken by a significant population in the other north-eastern states of India and amongst the large expatriate communities in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and the Middle East.

Sylheti is often either considered a dialect of Bengali (Bangla) due to many similarities between both languages, and also often considered a separate language due to significant differences between them. Given that Sylhet was part of the ancient kingdom of Kamarupa,[1] the language has many common features with Assamese, including the existence of a larger set of fricatives than other East Indic languages. According to Grierson,[2] "The inflections also differ from those of regular Bengali, and in one or two instances assimilate to those of Assamese". Indeed it was formerly written in its own script, Sylheti Nagari, similar in style to Kaithi but with differences, though nowadays it is almost invariably written in Bengali script.[3]

Sylheti is distinguished by a wide range of fricative sounds (which correspond to aspirated stops in closely-related languages such as Bengali), the lack of breathy voiced stops seen in many other Indic languages, word-final stress, and a relatively large set of loanwords from Arabic, Hindi and Persian. Sylheti is spoken by about 10 percent of Bangladeshis, but has affected the course of standard Bengali in the rest of the state'.

Source: Wiki

[Fazal]

Originally Posted by IAS
'Sylheti is the language spoken by 95% of Bangladeshis living in the U.K.

In that case shouldn't U.K. first recognize Sylheti as their National Language first? You know in Bangladesh its just 10% (according to your stat) It would be hard sell.

Go for it I am with you... go to Mr. Brown's office... if you need to call a protest and a rally ... take Miraz and Omio with you.

[Miraz]

A useful link

A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.^[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.^[2]
In popular usage, the word "dialect" is sometimes used to refer to a lesser-known language (most commonly a regional language), especially one that is unwritten or not standardized.^[3]

Read full

Another useful read

di·a·lect (dī'ə-lĕkt')
n.

1. 1. A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists: Cockney is a dialect of English

Link

And here's another one.

Bengali - a cocktail of many languages
Due to centuries of powerful influences from Europeans, Mughals, Arabs, Persians, and East Asians, Bengali has absorbed countless words from foreign languages, often totally integrating these borrowings into the core vocabulary. After centuries of invasions from Persia and the Middle East, numerous Turkish, Arabic, and Persian words were absorbed and fully integrated into the lexicon. Later, European colonialism brought words from Portuguese, French, Dutch, and most significantly English.
Bangladesh , Kolkata and the United Kingdom
In the dialects prevalent in eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet divisions), many of the stops and affricates heard in Kolkata Bengali are pronounced as fricatives.
These pronunciations are most extreme in the Sylheti dialect, at northeastern Bangladesh - the dialect of Bengali most common in the United Kingdom !

Link

And another one

The dialects of the Bengali language are part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan language group of the Indo-European language family. Sylheti, Chittagonian, Chakma and Rohingya are some of the many languages that are often considered dialects of Bengali. Although these languages are mutually intelligible with neighboring dialects of Bengali, they would not be understood by a native speaker of Standard Bengali.
Bengali dialects can be split in two ways: spoken vs. literary variations, and regional variations.

Read full

[Tigers_eye]

i get furious when I see a citation from wiki.

To all students: wiki is not recognized as a reliable source in academic writing. In this case I would let IAS pass (post #3) since this type of writing is not considered as academic.

by the way why do you (IAS) have to open similar threads?

[IAS]

Sylheti is recognised in the UK as the standard language in the British Bangladeshi community. Hence all the service provision and council personnel tend to be focused on Sylhetis.

More to the point is why the Bangladeshi govt doesn't recognise that Sylhetis don't speak your lingo and offer services in Sylheti as well as Dhakaiya. For a start Bangla TV should broadcast Sylheti shows (instead of waiting for Channel S to pioneer it) and civil
service job interviews should be held in Sylheti.

Especially as Sylhetis originate from the current political entity known as Bangladesh. Your govt should lead the way.

[layperson]

You go IAS !!! All revolutionaries at the beginning were seen as traitors or mental cases or negative characters. So the more opposition you face with the idea the harder you should go for it. Maybe after you are lying six feet under you will be seen as a Leader who pioneered the sylheti langauge movement. Father of the sylheti nation.

[Murad]

95% bengalies in UK speaks sylheti language?? hmm i think all other district's ppl started speaking sylheti after goin to the UK as they are living with the sylhetis mostly..

Most sylheti ppl dont understand or speak standard bangla.. so other ppl has to learn sylheti to live with them in UK..

[Fazal]

All good points.

In that case do you think, we should have special quota system for them for jobs, education, lanes in highway (like HOV lanes), pre-assigend seating arrangement in public tranposrtation, etc ?

Furthermore do you think they should have a seperate country within Bangladesh like Timur in Indonesia ?

For cricket team, should they play with BD team or they should represent a seperate team of their own?

[Miraz]

Originally Posted by IAS
Sylheti is recognised in the UK as the standard language in the British Bangladeshi community. Hence all the service provision and council personnel tend to be focused on Sylhetis.

More to the point is why the Bangladeshi govt doesn't recognise that Sylhetis don't speak your lingo and offer services in Sylheti as well as Dhakaiya. For a start Bangla TV should broadcast Sylheti shows (instead of waiting for Channel S to pioneer it) and civil
service job interviews should be held in Sylheti.

Especially as Sylhetis originate from the current political entity known as Bangladesh. Your govt should lead the way.

Good proposal.

Bangladesh government should start offering services in Sylheti, Chatgaiya, Barishal, Faridpur, Rajshahi and Noakhali dialects.

To set example, UK government should take job interviews in Sylheti and not in English.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by layperson
You go IAS !!! All revolutionaries at the beginning were seen as traitors or mental cases or negative characters. So the more opposition you face with the idea the harder you should go for it. Maybe after you are lying six feet under you will be seen as a Leader who pioneered the sylheti langauge movement. Father of the sylheti nation.

Great. Then sham, al, sraabon, chinaman, me, et al will all be rajakars to their cause, eh?

[IAS]

Some interesting reading Miraz.

I particularly found the following interesting from the Wiki source you provided:


'There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results'.

I tend to agree. A language is distinguished from a dialect usually because the former has an army to enforce such a view and the latter does not.


'Depending on political realities and ideologies, the classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent'.

So Dhakaiya is enforced as the 'pure' national language based on politics and one groups idea of Bangladeshi identity rather than the relative merits/demerits of the languages under discussion me thinks.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by IAS
So Dhakaiya is enforced as the 'pure' national language based on politics and one groups idea of Bangladeshi identity rather than the relative merits/demerits of the languages under discussion me thinks.

Nope. Dhakaiya is in fact a dialect of bengali. I cant understand some of the words even because they're so alien. For example "mainkar chipay". Arguably thats bikrampuri... but then again its close enough to Dhakaiya.

[IAS]

Originally Posted by layperson
You go IAS !!! All revolutionaries at the beginning were seen as traitors or mental cases or negative characters. So the more opposition you face with the idea the harder you should go for it. Maybe after you are lying six feet under you will be seen as a Leader who pioneered the sylheti langauge movement. Father of the sylheti nation.

I am hardly a revolutionary.

I don't need to lift a finger....Sylhet and the rest of your country are going down divergant paths anyway lol It is natural given the diverse economic and cultural development.

ps. Just look at this Bangla Cricket forum. Even though our lot make up a large portion of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the West, only a handful of Sylhetis regularly post here.

Ammark....you are right but since Dhakaiya is so close to 'Shuddho' that most Sylhetis will not recognise the difference. A lot of Sylhetis think it is more than 'mere coincidence' that a 'national' language was chosen which is so close to Dhakaiya rather than Sylheti or Chatgaiya or Eastern Bengali languages. I guess it helps them steal the good jobs etc. Entrenches priviledges.

[Miraz]

IAS,
First of all you have to understand that Dhakaiya is another dialect of Bangla just like Sylheti.

You should not confuse it with the national language. I think you have got a misunderstanding here (may be willingly).

From now on, try to use Bangla and Sylheti as reference not Dhakaiya.

[Miraz]

And about your claim 95% Bangalee speak Sylheti is exaggerated to say the least.

I have got about 20-25 friend/well wishers here, about 10-15 of them are of sylheti origin. All of them speaks proper Bangla. Some of them use their dialect only with another sylheti while others use proper Bangla in their home.

You may be limiting only to the very closely knit sylhetic community that doesn't often mix outside.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by IAS
Ammark....you are right but since Dhakaiya is so close to 'Shuddho' that most Sylhetis will not recognise the difference. A lot of Sylhetis think it is more than 'mere coincidence' that a 'national' language was chosen which is so close to Dhakaiya rather than Sylheti or Chatgaiya or Eastern Bengali languages. I guess it helps them steal the good jobs etc. Entrenches priviledges.

No. Dhakaiyya isnt so close to shuddho. They have a different vocabulary, for example the word "magar", and just as sylheti has a different phrasing structure, so does Dhakaiyya. Standard Bengali has its origins in nadia, west bengal according to wikipedia. Meherpuri dialect is by far closest to the proper standard bengali.

Sylheti survives and thrives in its region, so does Chatgaiya. There is not much of a hegemony of Standard Bengali that intrudes into the use of either dialect in their native regions. In fact I find it much easier to follow Sylheti (and Chatgaiya I might add) spoken by people who grew up in Sylhet/Ctg and rest of Bangladesh than Sylhetis and Chatgaiyas from London. The accent and use of VERY "gaiya" words (not sanitised sylheti that a villager from sunamgonj would speak to say a sylheti government officer in say chhatak) really makes Londoni Sylheti very alien from standard spoken sylheti.

[ialbd]

Originally Posted by Miraz

I have got about 20-25 friend/well wishers here, about 10-15 of them are of sylheti origin. All of them speaks proper Bangla. Some of them use their dialect only with another sylheti while others use proper Bangla in their home.

thats exactly what I have experienced with the Sylhetis I have interacted with....

[Murad]

i think half of the sylheti ppl in sylhet speaks shuddo bangla.. such as shunam gonj, Chatak, Hobi Gonj..and few more places to name.. i dont remember them..

[ammark]

From my experience, even in the little village of Monu Bajar between Kulaura and Shamshernagar people understood my bangla well, those who were schooled spoke in bangla with me too. There wasnt this issue of "Ami syloti, dhakaiyaa maat'te fattam na"

[Miraz]

ammar, regarding your editing in post #17.

I respect your right as a moderator and authority to edit anything (within forum rules) but at the same time I expect that you should try to understand the context of the post before editing. It shows a bit disrespect to any member when his/her post is edited without any credible reason.

My post was not disrespectful to anyone or any community. I was trying to clarify IAS's claim that 95% bangladeshis in UK speak Sylheti.

Originally Posted by Miraz
And about your claim 95% Bangalee speak Sylheti is exaggerated to say the least.

I have got about 20-25 friend/well wishers here, about 10-15 of them are of sylheti origin. All of them speaks proper Bangla. Some of them use their dialect only with another sylheti while others use proper Bangla in their home.

You may be limiting only to the very closely knit sylhetic community (edited)

In the edited part I just said that I have never came across such people and they must be very closely knit within their community and don't often mix with non-sylheti Bangladeshis. I don't know what's offending here? or what's disrespectful? There is nothing wrong here. There are lot of communities who are very closely knit and prefer interacting within themselves. It's not only prevalent in Bangladeshi community, it's also common in many other communities in different countries.

- As a general member.

[IAS]

I wonder how many of those who are saying that in their experience most Sylhetis in Bangladesh speak Dhakaiya are actually Sylheti ie. by ethnic origin and first language/culture. I suspect that this colours perseptions. My views are standard amongst Sylhetis.

As a British born person I have more in common with Sylhetis back in BD in terms of language/culture/outlook than most other Bangladeshis of other regions here. Isn't that one reason (apart from economic) so many BD Sylhetis marry their Londoni Sylheti ethnic kin?

In my experience most of relatives working as in local govt speak Sylheti during their duties or else a 'pidgin' form of Dhakaiya when speaking with Non-Sylhetis. Even the Finance Minister Saifur Rahman speaks in Sylheti. So I doubt ppl locally would mix languages much. And BD being a poor country most ppl don't make it all the way to Uni where I guess Dhakaiya is standard.

[shaad]

You know, I think IAS has the right idea. I think we should also start pushing for Banglacricketese to be recognized as a supra-national language. Obviously, everyone who subscribes to Banglacricket, whatever their nationality, speaks it (albeit with varying degrees of fluency). And unlike Sylheti, which according to IAS shares 80% of its vocabulary with Bengali, 100% of both the Bengali and English language vocabularies are shared with Banglacricketese. And unlike those "limited" languages, Banglacricketese has not one script, but two.

Frankly, I have trouble taking any post seriously where the poster makes basic errors like considering the Dhakaiya dialect to be "shuddho" or standard Bangla. And then, as some posters have pointed out, there are the glaring flaws in both logic and precision:

IAS writes Sylheti as having "been described as being distinct from Bengali in terms of phonology and morphology and shares 80% of its vocabulary with Bengali, the rest being quite distinctive." I think the term he/she intended to use here is Standard Bengali Dialect instead of Bengali. Because, by definition, Bengali as a language is a superset of the standard and regional dialects, both in West Bengal and Bangladesh. And I think it's fair to say that none of the regional Bengali dialects share 100% of their vocabulary with the Standard Bengali Dialect.

But let's take the rationales provided by the IAS. He/she claims 95% of the Bangladeshis in UK speak the Sylheti dialect. That's well and good (if true, I would like to see the citations), but unless say, 75% of the population of Bangladesh speaks the dialect why should we declare it a national language of Bangladesh? If we declare a regional dialect like Sylheti to be a national language, shouldn't we do the same for all the other regional dialects (Dhakaiya, Borishaila, Chatgaiya, etc.)?

The same argument applies to all the benefits that IAS claims would accrue to Sylhetis in the job market and in education. The Standard Bengali Dialect, being derived largely from a WB dialect, does not unduly privilege any regional group in Bangladesh, not even the Dhakaiyas that IAS seems to have a large chip on his/her shoulder about. However, labelling Sylheti a national language, while perhaps benefitting Sylhetis, would confer on them an advantage over other regional groups, and that to me seems manifestly unfair.

[Zunaid]

In any event, a language is a dialect with an army.