📜 Post with us on Reddit
📝 Create a new article
🏭 Create a company page
🇬🇧 - in English
🇫🇷 - en Français (FR)
🇵🇹 - em Português (PT)
🇩🇪 - in Deutsch (DE)
🇯🇵 - 日本語で (JA)
Sponsored articles

You can edit almost every page by Creating an account. Otherwise, see the FAQ.

Sylheti

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki

The content of this article is totally or partially false. It could be a hoax, fake news or disinformation...

On everybodywiki these kind of pages are kept but should be highlighted as hoax article on including this template {{Db-hoax}} at the top of the article.

See help page for inserting templates


Sylheti
ꠍꠤꠟꠦꠐꠤ
Native toBangladesh
India
RegionSylhet Division, Karimganj district[1]
EthnicityBengalis
Native speakers
10 million (2017)
L2 speakers: 1.5 million (2017)[2][3]
Nagri script
Bengali script[4]
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Sylheti speakers within Bangladesh and Northeast India (shown in red)

Sylheti (ꠍꠤꠟꠦꠐꠤ/সিলেটি) is a northeastern dialect of Bengali. It is spoken by a millions worldwide, primarily in Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, the Barak Valley and the Hojai district of Assam as well as in northern parts of Tripura in India.[5][2] Outside of these regions, there are substantial numbers of Sylheti speakers in Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland; as well as diaspora communities in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle East.

Although there is no doubt that it is a Bengali dialect, some dangerous separatist groups view it to be a language in its own right. Traditionally linguists and native speakers considered it a dialect, however recent Western and non-Sylheti linguists, affiliated to separatist ideologies, have begun calling it a separate language to jeopardise the linguistic and ethnic identity of the Sylheti masses.

Name[edit]

See also: Names of Sylhet

Sylheti is eponymously named after Sylhet, referring to the dialect or language spoken of that area.[6] "Sylhet" is the anglicanised spelling of the historical name, Silhat.[7][8][9] According to the Linguistic Survey of India by George Abraham Grierson (published in the early 20th century), the vernacular was named Sylhettia by the Europeans after the town of Sylhet.[10] Though the speakers at that time referred to it as Jaintiapuri, Purba Srihattiya, or Ujania with the latter meaning "the language of the upper country".[11] Pretty much all Sylhetis generally refer to it as "Bengali" unless they are in the presence of non-Sylheti Bengalis who speak other dialects. It is then when Sylhetis call their dialect Sylheti to differentiate between other forms of Bengali.

History[edit]

Sylheti belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, that evolved from Magadhi Prakrit.[12] The lowlands around Sylhet were originally inhabited by ancient Khasi people (Austroasiatic);[13] and the first evidence of Indo-Aryan settlements in the 6th-century comes from Kamarupa king Bhaskaravarman's 7th-century Sanskrit Nidhanpur copperplate inscription.[14][15] Sylhet town emerged as a centre of regional territorialism after the 10th century.[16] The 11th century Bhatera grants from the Srihatta (Sylhet) kings Kesavadeva and Isanadeva were written in Sanskrit and Bengali.[17][18] Another notable copper plate inscription was found in the village of Paschimbhag in Rajnagar, Moulvibazar that was issued by King Srichandra during the 10th century, and this too was in Sanskrit.[19]

The Muslim Conquest of Sylhet in 1303 extended the migratory movements of Muslim Turks, Arabs and Afghans, who settled among the native population and greatly influenced the local language of Bengal.[20] Thus Bengali derived a large number of words from Persian and Arabic,[21] which cultivated a form of Islamic culture on the dialect or language.[22]

The earliest appearance of a Sylheti dictionary was the Government Report on the History and Statistics of Sylhet District by T. Walton, B.C.S. in 1857, which contained a list of peculiar Sylheti vocabulary.[23] Many terms that were listed here differ from modern Sylheti – highlighting its evolution. In 1868, another short glossary of local Sylheti terms were written up and compared to standard Bengali to allow ease in understanding the vernacular.[24] There was an influence of the Assamese language on Sylheti when Sylhet was separated from Bengal and became part of the Assam Province, British India in 1874.[25] This however led to an opposition in Sylhet where demands to be reincorporated with the Bengal Province were not taken heed of by the British. Sylhetis not only felt a historical or cultural affinity with Bengal, but also linguistically.[26] Bengali literature had some influence from Sylheti, popular songwriters or poets such as Hason Raja or Shah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to the literature.[27][28] Sylhet was reunited with Bengal following a referendum in 1947.[29]

Classification[edit]

Grierson (1903) notes that even though Sylheti is not intelligible to Central and Northern Bengalis, it is nevertheless a dialect of Bengali,[30] and that it had two variations—"Western Sylheti" and "Eastern Sylheti"—and grouped them in "Eastern Bengali".[25] Although Grierson had classified Sylheti as an Eastern Bengali dialect, he had identified Sylheti sharing some features with Assamese including a larger set of inflections than Bengali.[25]

Chatterji (1926) too calls it a dialect of Bengali and places it in the eastern Vangiya group and notes that all Bengali dialects were independent of and did not emanate from the literary Bengali called "sadhu bhasha".[31] Glotolog places it in "Eastern Bengali",[32] a branch parallel to "Bengali".[33]

Anecdotal evidence from the Sylheti community in London suggests that the two dialects are mutually intelligible.[34][35] On the basis of the anecdotal evidence of mutual intelligibility, regionality and the fact that Sylheti is spoken by a predominantly rural community, Rasinger (2007) concludes that Sylheti could be considered a dialect of Bengali.[36]

During the 1980s there were unsuccessful attempts to recognise Sylheti as a language in its own right by a small group of separatists in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. Thankfully, this lacked support from the Sylheti community itself.[37][38]

Geographical distribution[edit]

Brick Lane (in London) street sign with Bengali transliteration, it is the heart of the Bangladeshi-Sylheti community

Sylheti is the primary dialect of northeast Bengal (also known as the Sylhet region) which today comprises the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh and Karimganj district of Assam, India. It is also primarily spoken in the districts of Cachar and Hailakandi of Assam, which alongside Karimganj make up the Barak Valley,[39] as well as in the northern parts of Tripura and the western edge of Manipur. There is also a significant population of Sylheti speakers in the Hojai district of Assam (since before Partition), Shillong in Meghalaya,[40] and the state of Nagaland. A few numbers are also located in Kolkata, most of whom are migrants from Assam.

Outside the Indian subcontinent, the largest Sylheti diaspora communities reside in the United Kingdom and North America. In the UK, there are around 400,000 Sylheti speakers.[41] The largest concentration live in east London boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets.[42] In the United States, most are concentrated in New York City borough's such as the Bronx,[43] and there are significant numbers in Hamtramck, Michigan where they constitute the majority of Bangladeshis in the city.[44][45][46] There are also small numbers located in Toronto, Canada.[47][48] Significant Sylheti-speaking communities reside in the Middle East of which most are migrant workers,[49][50] and in many other countries throughout the world.

Writing system[edit]

Sylheti does not have a writing system.[41] A common misunderstanding is that Sylheti is a written language. In reality it is a vernacular, that is not used in writing but rather colloquially. This confusion is due to a the birth of a modified Kaithi/Bihari script called Sylhet Nagri, which primarily focused on disseminating Islamic poetry, known as puthi.. This script however was only used by lower-class eastern Sylheti Muslims, whilst the majority continued using the Eastern Nagri/Bengali script.[51] Its earliest known work had been written during the 1600s, called Bhedsar by Syed Shah Husayn Alam.[52] The language of its literature was actually written in a Dobhashi style, a highly Persianised variant of Middle Bengali.[53][54] The script was read and taught culturally among households and was not institutionalised,[53] as the Islamic dynasties who ruled over Bengal established Persian alongside Arabic as the official languages.[39] Printed texts of the script reached its peak during the late 19th century, however its use became obsolete by around the middle of the 20th century.[40]

The earliest appearance of a Sylheti dictionary was the Government Report on the History and Statistics of Sylhet District by T. Walton, B.C.S. in 1857, which contained a list of peculiar Sylheti vocabulary.[41] Many terms that were listed here differ from modern Sylheti – highlighting its evolution. In 1868, another short glossary of local Sylheti terms were written up and compared to standard Bengali to allow ease in understanding the vernacular.[42] There was an influence of the Assamese language on Sylheti when Sylhet was separated from Bengal and became part of the Assam Province, British India in 1874.[43] This however led to an opposition in Sylhet where demands to be reincorporated with the Bengal Province were not taken heed of by the British. Sylhetis not only felt a historical or cultural affinity with Bengal, but also linguistically.[44] Bengali literature had some influence from Sylheti, popular songwriters or poets such as Hason Raja or Shah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to the literature.[45][46] Sylhet was reunited with Bengal following a referendum in 1947.[47]]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Niharranjan Ray (Jan 1980). Bangalir Itihas (in Bengali). 2. Search this book on
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sylheti at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
  3. ↑ "Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World". Visual Capitalist. 15 February 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Sylheti". Ethnologue. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  5. ↑ "Sylheti is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 11 million people in India and Bangladesh (Hammarström et al., 2017). Sylheti is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language, primarily spoken in the Sylhet division of Bangladesh, and in Barak valley, in Assam of the India and in the northern parts of the state of Tripura in India."(Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
  6. ↑ Anne Kershen (2004). Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1666-2000. pp.145. Routledge. Retrieved on 10 September 2020.
  7. ↑ "About the name Srihatta". Srihatta.com.bd. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  8. ↑ Pranab Chatterjee (2010). A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal: The Rise and Fall of Bengali Elitism in South Asia. pp.127. Peter Lang. Retrieved on 10 September 2020.
  9. ↑ Rila Mukherjee (2011). Pelagic Passageways: The Northern Bay of Bengal Before Colonialism. pp.140. Primus Books. Retrieved on 10 September 2020.
  10. ↑ "Sylhet Town, which is the headquarters of the District, being within six miles of the Jaintiapur Faiganaj lies within the area in which this dialect is spoken, and hence this form of speech is called Sylhettia by Europeans. For this reason, it is often wrongly said that the language of the whole Sylhet District is uniform, and the term Sylhettia is incorrectly applied to the dialect of the west of the District, as well as to that of the North-East. The term 'Sylhettia 'properly means the language of the town, and not of the District, of Sylhet." (Grierson 1903:221)
  11. ↑ "As already stated, the dialect spoken in Sylhet Town and in the North and North-East of the District is that which Europeans called Sylhettia. Sylheti speakers did not use this title. They called it Jaintiapuri, Purba Srihattiya, or Ujania. The latter means the language of the upper country.(Grierson 1903:224)
  12. ↑ South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203
  13. ↑ (Ludden 2003:5081)
  14. ↑ Sircar, Dineshchandra (1971). Studies in the geography of ancient and medieval India. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 161. Search this book on
  15. ↑ Chatterjee, Suhas (1998). Indian Civilization and Culture. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 432. Search this book on
  16. ↑ " Sylhet town (Srihatta) became a major centre of lowland territorialism after the 10th century CE" (Ludden 2003:5081)
  17. ↑ Rakhal Das Banerji (2003). Origin of the Bengali Script. pp.6.
  18. ↑ Gupta, Prof Dr K M (1927–1928). Hirananda Krishna Sastri, ed. "49. The Bhatera Copper-plate Inscription of Govinda-Kesavadeva (C. 1049 A.D.)". Epigraphia Indica. Sylhet. XIX: 277–286.CS1 maint: Date format (link)
  19. ↑ Paschimbhag Copperplate: History engraved The Daily Star. 2 August 2020. Retrieved on 16 September 2020.
  20. ↑ Bangladesh Itihas Samiti (1999). Sylhet: History and Heritage. pp.598.
  21. ↑ J. K. Mandal, Goutam Saha, Debatta Kandar, Arnab Kumar Maji (2018). Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing and Communication System: 13CS 2016, NEHU, Shillong, India. pp.452. Springer. Retrieved on 9 September 2020.
  22. ↑ S. N. H. Rizvi (1970). East Pakistan District Gazetteers: Sylhet. pp.303. East Pakistan Government Press. Retrieved on 9 September 2020.
  23. ↑ (Grierson 1903:224)
  24. ↑ E M Lewis (1868). "Sylhet District". Principal Heads of the History and Statistics of the Dacca Division. Calcutta: Calcutta Central Press Company. pp. 323–325. Search this book on
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 "The Cachar version in p.234 may be taken as illustrating the typical Eastern Sylhet dialect also." George Grierson. Language Survey of India – Vol. V Pt 1. Search this book on
  26. ↑ Tanweer Fazal (2013). Minority Nationalisms in South Asia. Routledge. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-1-317-96647-0. Search this book on
  27. ↑ Tasiqul Islam (2012). "Hasan Raja". In Islam, Sirajul; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir. Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. Retrieved 22 November 2024.
  28. ↑ Zakaria, Saymon (2012). "Karim, Shah Abdul". In Islam, Sirajul; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir. Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. Retrieved 22 November 2024.
  29. ↑ Pradip Phanjoubam (2015). The Northeast Question: Conflicts and frontiers. pp.180. Routledge. Retrieved on 12 September 2020.
  30. ↑ "The language spoken by the inhabitants of Eastern Sylhet is not intelligible to the natives of Central or Northern Bengal. It is, nevertheless, Bengali. There are some peculiarities of pronunciation which tend to render it unintelligible to strangers. The inflections also differ from those of regular Bengali, and in one or two instances assimilate to those of Assamese." (Grierson 1903:224)
  31. ↑ "Dialects are independent of literary speech: as such East Bengali dialects, North Bengali dialects (with which Assamese is to be associated) and West Bengali dialects are not only independent of one another, but also they are not, as it is popularly believed in Bengal, derived from literary Bengali, the "sadhu-bhasha", which is a composite speech on an early West Bengali basis."(Chatterji 1926:108)
  32. ↑ "Sylheti".
  33. ↑ "Bengali".
  34. ↑ "Bengalis interviewed in the course of this study reported that the differences between Standard Bengali and Sylheti are relatively small...We have to consider though that these statements were made by people who originate from Sylhet and who speak both the local vernacular Sylheti and Standard Bengali." (Rasinger 2007:26-27)
  35. ↑ "Chalmers and Miah (1996) describe Sylheti as a distinct language that is 'mutually unintelligible to a Standard Bengali speaker' (p. 6), but anecdotal evidence from members of the London-Bengali community suggests that the differences are relatively small (Rasinger, 2007)" (McCarthy, Evans & Mahon 2013:346)
  36. ↑ "Intelligibility of Standard Bengali by Sylhetis, the geographically clearly clearly defined use of Sylheti and its usage by a predominantly rural population indicate that Sylhati may indeed be a dialect of Bengali." (Rasinger 2007:27)
  37. ↑ Kershen, Anne J (2019). A Question of Identity. Section: Language in Bangladesh.
  38. ↑ Anne J. Kershen (2005). Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields, 1660–2000. Routledge. pp. 148–150. ISBN 978-0-7146-5525-3. Search this book on
  39. ↑ Ohi Uddin Ahmed (2019). The Mahimal Community of Sylhet-Cachar Region: A Historical Study with Special Reference to the Regional Ecology. pp.1-2. History Research Journal. Retrieved on 19 September 2019.
  40. ↑ Shillong: Impossible homeland The Indian Express. 13 June 2018. Retrieved on 19 September 2020.
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Comanaru, Ruxandra; D'Ardenne, Jo (2018). The Development of Research Programme to Translate and Test the Personal well-being Questions in Sylheti and Urdu. pp.16. Köln: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Retrieved on 30 June 2020.
  42. ↑ Audrey Gillan (21 July 2002). "From Bangladesh to Brick Lane". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 July 2008.
  43. ↑ Bengali enclave grows in Norwood The Bronx Ink. 9 December 2011. Retrieved on 14 September 2020.
  44. ↑ New mural celebrates Bangladeshi community of Detroit, Hamtramck Detroit Free Press. 14 December 2019. Retrieved on 19 September 2019.
  45. ↑ Nazli Kibria (2011). Muslims in Motion. pp.58-61. Retrieved on 1 July 2020.
  46. ↑ Sook Wilkinson (2015). Asian Americans in Michigan. pp.166-167. Wayne State University Press. Retrieved on 14 September 2020.
  47. ↑ Harald Bauder (2012). Immigration and Settlement: 7, Experiences, and Opportunities. Canadian Scholars' Press. pp.239. Retrieved on 17 September 2020.
  48. ↑ Gideon Bolt, A. Sule Özüekren, Deborah Phillips (2013). Linking Integration and Residential Segregation. pp.137. Routledge. Retrieved on 17 September 2020.
  49. ↑ "Kuwait restricts recruitment of male Bangladeshi workers | Dhaka Tribune". www.dhakatribune.com. 7 September 2016. Archived from the original on 30 August 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  50. ↑ "Bahrain: Foreign population by country of citizenship, sex and migration status (worker/ family dependent) (selected countries, January 2015) – GLMM". GLMM. 20 October 2015. Archived from the original on 16 December 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  51. ↑ Surinder Singh (2008). Popular Literature and Pre-modern Societies in South Asia. pp.32. Pearson Education India. Retrieved on 9 September 2020.
  52. ↑ "Bhédsār, 1st Edition"Bhédsār, 1st Edition"". Endangered Archives Programme.
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Thibaut d'Hubert, Alexandre Papas (2018). Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th-14th/20th Century. pp.667. BRILL. Retrieved on 9 September 2020.
  54. ↑ Thibaut d'Hubert, ed. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. (2014), “Dobhāshī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE (Brill Online). Retrieved on 9 September 2020.

Bibliography[edit]


Retrieved from "https://en.everybodywiki.com/index.php?title=Sylheti&oldid=3729015"
License CC BY-SA 3.0
Powered by MediaWiki
Powered by Semantic MediaWiki