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Sylheti language

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Sylheti[a] (Sylheti Nagri: ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ, síloṭi, pronounced [sílɔʈi] ⓘ; Bengali: সিলেটি, sileṭi, pronounced [sileʈi]) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by an estimated 11 million people, primarily in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, Barak Valley of Assam, and northern parts of Tripura in India.[8][9] Besides, there are substantial numbers of Sylheti speakers in the Indian states of Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland.[9] as well as diaspora communities in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the Middle East.

Sylheti
Silôṭi
  • ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ
  • সিলেটি
The word "Silôṭi" in the Sylheti Nagri script
PronunciationSylheti pronunciation: [silɔʈi] ⓘ
Native toBangladesh and India
RegionSylhet Division and Barak Valley[1]
EthnicitySylhetis[2][3][4]
Native speakers
L1: 10 million (2003–2017)[5]
L2: 1.5 million (no date)[5]
Early forms
Sylheti Nāgarī script
Bengali–Assamese script
Latin script[6]
Language codes
ISO 639-3syl
syl
Glottologsylh1242
Linguasphere59-AAF-ui
Map of Sylheti speaking areas of South Asia
Sylheti is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [7]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.
A description of the king and queen of the termites in Sylheti

It is variously perceived as either a dialect of Bengali or a language in its own right. While most linguists consider it an independent language,[10][11] for many native speakers Sylheti forms the diglossic vernacular, with standard Bengali forming the codified lect.[12] Some incorrectly consider it as a "corrupt" form of Bengali,[13] and there is a reported language shift from Sylheti to Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, India and the diaspora;[14] though Sylheti has more vitality than Standard Bengali among the diaspora in the United Kingdom.[15]

Name

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See also: Names of Sylhet

Sylheti is eponymously named after Sylhet, referring to the dialect or language spoken of that area.[16] According to Grierson (1903) the vernacular was called Sylhettia by the Europeans after the town of Sylhet.[17] 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".[18]

Sylheti is also spelt or known as Sylhetti (or Sileti), Sylheti Bangla and Siloti (also spelt in Syloti or Syloty).[19]

History

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Sylheti belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, that evolved from Magadhi Prakrit.[20] The lowlands around Sylhet were originally inhabited by ancient Khasi people (Austroasiatic);[21] and the earliest known Indo-Aryan settlements were made in the 6th century under Kamarupa king.[22][23][24] Sylhet (Srihatta) then emerged as a center of lowland territorialism after the 10th century.[25] The 11th century Bhatera grants from the Srihatta kings Kesavadeva and Isanadeva were written in Sanskrit.[26][27] 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.[28]

The Muslim Conquest of Sylhet in 1303 CE extended the migratory movements of Muslims from western lands, who settled among the native population and greatly influenced the local language.[29] Thus Sylheti derived a large number of words from Persian and Arabic,[30] cultivating the Perso-Arabic influence on the vernacular.[31] A script was developed in the region called Sylheti Nagri, which primarily focused on disseminating Sufi poetry, known as puthi.[32] Its earliest known work had been written during the 1600s, called Bhedsar by Syed Shah Husayn Alam.[33] The literature was transcribed in the standard form of late Middle Bengali, it was similar to the Dobhashi idiom though phonologically was strongly influenced by Sylheti.[34][35] The script was read and taught culturally among households and was not institutionalised,[34] as the Islamic dynasties who ruled over Bengal established Persian alongside Arabic as the official languages.[36] 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.[37]

In 1903, Grierson reported that Sylheti was spoken only around Sylhet town of the then Sylhet district (now Sylhet Division and Karimganj district in Assam), and that among the Indo-Aryan speakers in the district, about 33 per cent spoke this language.[38]

The earliest appearance of a documentation of Sylheti vocabulary was in 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 words used in Sylhet.[39] Many terms that were listed here differ from modern Sylheti – highlighting its evolution. In 1868, another short glossary of local terms in various districts of the Dacca Division (which included Sylhet) were written up and compared to standard Bengali to allow ease in understanding local vernaculars.[40] Despite being annexed to the Assam Province during colonial rule, Sylheti speakers felt a linguistic affinity with the rest of Bengal.[41] Bengali literature had some influence from Sylheti, popular songwriters or poets such as Hason Raja or Shah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to the literature.[42][43] Sylhet was reunited with Bengal following a referendum in 1947.[44]

Status

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According to Simard, Dopierala and Thaut, Sylheti is a "minoritised, politically unrecognised, and understudied language."[45] It is currently not officially recognised as a language in either Bangladesh or India.[46] Many native speakers consider it to be a slang or corrupt version of Standard Bengali and not an independent language;[13] and there is a reported language shift to Standard Bengali and a decrease in the number of native speakers since parents are not teaching it to their children.[14] In Bangladesh, there is a diglossia where Sylheti is one among other low status regional dialects while Standard Bengali, the official language, has a high status.[47]

In the Indian state of Assam where Assamese is the state language, Standard Bengali language serves as an additional official language in its Barak Valley districts; which host a majority Sylheti-speaking population.[48]

In the United Kingdom, British schools have begun enlisting Sylheti in their syllabi.[49] BBC News has also broadcast online videos relating to COVID-19 in five major South Asian languages including Sylheti.[50]

Classification

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Grierson (1903) notes that the language of eastern Sylhet is not intelligible to Bengalis from the west, though he still classed it as Bengali,[51] grouping it under "Eastern Bengali".[52] Chatterji (1926) too calls it a dialect of Bengali and places it in the eastern Vangiya group of Magadhi Prakrit and notes that all Bengali dialects were independent of each other and did not emanate from the literary Bengali called "sadhu bhasha".[53] Among the different eastern dialect groups, Sylheti and Chittagonian have phonetic and morphological properties that are alien to standard Bengali and other western dialects of Bengali,[54] and these differences are such that Sylheti is more distant to standard Bengali than is Assamese.[55]

Recent scholarship notes that these morpho-phonological and mutual intelligibility differences are significant enough that Sylheti could claim itself as a language on its own right.[56] Ethnologue groups Sylheti in Bengali–Assamese languages;[5] whereas Glottolog gives further subgrouping and places it in the "Eastern Bengali" group alongside Hajong, separately from the Bengali dialects.[57]

Language-dialect controversy

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The classification of Sylheti is contentious—Chalmers (1996) suggested that it was generally identified as a dialect of Bengali though there were efforts to recognise it as a language.[58][59] Grierson had classified Sylheti as an Eastern Bengali dialect and had noted that it "possess all the peculiar characteristics of the extreme Eastern Bengali type."[52] Anecdotal evidence suggests that Sylhetis, who could also speak in Standard Bengali, considered the two languages to be mutually intelligible.[60][61] 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.[62] Simard, Dopierala and Thaut have pointed out that the intelligibility could be an effect of prior exposure of Sylheti speakers to Standard Bengali,[63] and that the academic consensus is that mutual intelligibility ranges from "unintelligible" to "hardly intelligible".[64] On the basis of phonology and phonetics, lexicon, grammatical structure and a lack of mutual intelligibility, some recent linguists claim that Sylheti is not merely a dialectal variation of Bengali but a language in its own right.[56][65][66]

Phonologically Sylheti is distinguished from Standard Bengali and other regional varieties by significant deaspiration and spirantisation,[67] leading to major restructuring of the consonant inventory[68] and the development of tones.[69]

As majority of the diaspora in the United Kingdom speak Sylheti, it created an environment that was somewhat uninfluenced by Standard Bengali, inevitably leading some to view Sylheti as a distinct language.[70] During the 1980s there were unsuccessful attempts to recognise Sylheti as a language in its own right by a small group in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which lacked support from the Sylheti community itself.[71][72]

Literature

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Cover of 19th century Halat-un-Nabi by Sadeq Ali

Halat-un-Nabi, a puthi written by Sadeq Ali is considered to be the most prominent literature in Sylheti Nagri.[73]

The presence and influence of Shah Jalal and Shri Chaitanya dev is found in the Sylheti literature.[74] According to Syed Mostafa Kamal, (approximately 1650 AD) the Baul tradition was founded based on the combination of Chaitanyavad and Jaganmohani ideologies, that mystic literature influenced and seen in the Vaishnava Padavali. As a result, Sylhet is considered as the spiritual capital of mysticism and the fertile land of Baul music.[73] A great number of poets enriched Sylheti literature. Among them, Hason Raja, Radha Raman, Syed Shah Noor, Shitalong Shaha, Durbin Shaha are noteworthy. The main theme of the Nagri literature are mainly religious, Islamic history, tradition, stories, Raga, Baul and mystic music. There have been 140 books have found, including 88 printed books in Sylheti Nagri script.[75]

Writing system

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Main article: Sylheti Nagri

Sylheti currently does not have a standardised writing system.[76] Historically in the Sylhet region, the Sylheti Nagri script was used alongside the Bengali script.[34] Sylheti Nagri was however mostly limited to writing religious poetry.[52] The script often avoided tatsama (Sanskrit-derived terms) and incorporated Perso-Arabic vocabulary. Additionally, Sylheti Nagri texts were traditionally paginated from right to left.[77][78] It is claimed by some that the orthography of the script equates with Sylheti, due to the fewer characters compared with the Bengali script as there are fewer phonemes found in Sylheti.[79] An endangered script, it has since seen a revival mostly by academics and linguists.[80]

Standard Bengali is the medium of instruction in Bangladesh.[81] some may therefore write in Sylheti using the Bengali–Assamese script.[76] In United Kingdom, publishers use Latin script for Sylheti and according to the Sylheti Translation and Research (STAR), Latin (Roman) script is the most used script for writing Sylheti.[82] The New Testament in Sylheti was published in the Sylhet Nagri script along with versions in the Latin and in the Bengali–Assamese script, in 2014.[83]

Geographical distribution

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Banglatown in Brick Lane, London, UK, which is home to one of the largest Sylheti diaspora communities in the western world

Sylheti is the primary language of the Sylhet Division in north-eastern Bangladesh, with its concentration mostly in the districts of Sylhet, Moulvibazar, eastern Sunamganj and north-eastern Habiganj.[84] Recent findings assert that the local dialect spoken in much of the Habiganj district differs quite significantly from Sylheti.[85]

Sylheti is also widely spoken in the southern Assam region of Barak Valley, India, which includes the districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj.[86] In addition, it is spoken in the northern parts of Tripura[8][9] and Jiribam, Manipur.[84] There is also a significant population of Sylheti speakers in Hojai district of Central Assam,[84] Shillong in Meghalaya,[87] and the state of Nagaland.[9] A few numbers are also located in Kolkata, most of whom are migrants from Assam.

Outside the Indian subcontinent, the largest grouping of Sylheti speakers reside in the United Kingdom, of which 95 percent of British Bangladeshis have origins from the Sylhet region.[88] It is estimated there are around 400,000 Sylheti speakers in the UK.[76] The largest concentration live in east London boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets.[89] There are also significant numbers of speakers in the United States, most are concentrated in New York City,[90] and in Hamtramck, Michigan where majority of Bangladeshi Americans there are of Sylheti origin.[91][92] There are also small numbers located in Toronto, Canada.[93][94] Significant Sylheti-speaking communities reside in the Middle East of which most are migrant workers,[95][96] and in many other countries throughout the world.

Lexicon

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Sylheti shares most linguistic properties with Standard Bengali,[97][better source needed] with a lexical similarity of 53.2%.[98] [better source needed]

Phonology

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The phoneme inventory of Sylheti differs from both Standard Rarhi Bengali as well as the typical Bangladeshi Standard.[99] It is characterised by a loss of breathiness and aspiration contrasts, leading to a significant reduction in its phoneme inventory and to the development of tones. In particular, the following developments are seen:[100][101]

  • Both voiced and voiceless aspirated stops have become unaspirated (d̪ʱ → d̪; t̪ʰ → t̪).
  • The voiceless labials have spirantised to homorganic fricatives (p → ɸ; pʰ → ɸ).
  • The velar stops have become velar fricatives (k → x; kʰ → x), although [k] can be heard as an allophone of /x/ when preceded by high vowels /i, u/.
  • The post-alveolar affricates have spirantised to alveolar fricatives (tʃ → s; tʃʰ → s; dʒ → z; dʒʱ → z).
  • Among the voiceless stops only the dental /t̪, d̪/ and retroflex /ʈ, ɖ/ stops have remained stops. In some analyses, the dental–retroflex distinction (/t̪, ʈ/) is replaced by highly unusual dental–alveolar one (/t̪, t̠/).[102]
Vowels[100]
  Front Central Back
Close i ꠁ   u ꠃ
Close-mid e ꠄ    
Open-mid     ɔ ꠅ
Open   a ꠀ  
Consonants[100]
  Labial Dental Retroflex/
Alveolar 		Palato-
alveolar 		Velar Glottal
Nasal m ꠝ n ꠘ     ŋ ꠋ  
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless unaspirated t̪ ꠔ, ꠕ ʈ ꠐ, ꠑ  
voiced unaspirated b ꠛ, ꠜ d̪ ꠖ, ꠗ ɖ ꠒ, ꠓ ɡ ꠉ, ꠊ  
Fricative voiceless fricative ɸ~f ꠙ, ꠚ s ꠌ, ꠍ   ʃ ꠡ x ꠇ, ꠈ  
voiced fricative   z ꠎ, ꠏ       ɦ ꠢ
Flap   ɾ ꠞ      
Approximant l ꠟ    

Tone

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Sylheti is tonal.[103][104][105] This is rare among the Indo-Aryan languages, but not unheard of, e.g. in Punjabi, Dogri, Chittagonian, Gawri (Kalam Kohistani), Torwali, some Eastern Bengali varieties, etc.[106][107] There are two types of tonal contrasts in Sylheti: the emergence of high tone in the vowels following the loss of aspiration, and a level tone elsewhere.

Word Transliteration Tone Meaning
ꠀꠔ at level 'intestine'
‘ꠀꠔ át high 'hand'
ꠇꠣꠟꠤ xali level 'ink'
ꠈꠣꠟꠤ xáli high 'empty'
ꠉꠥꠠꠣ guṛa level 'powder'
ꠊꠥꠠꠣ gúṛa high 'horse'
ꠌꠥꠞꠤ suri level 'theft'
ꠍꠥꠞꠤ súri high 'knife'
ꠎꠣꠟ zal level 'net, web'
ꠏꠣꠟ zál high 'spicy/pungent'
ꠐꠤꠇ ṭik level 'tick'
ꠑꠤꠇ ṭík high 'correct'
ꠒꠣꠟ ḍal level 'branch'
ꠓꠣꠟ ḍál high 'shield'
ꠔꠣꠟ tal level 'palmyra, rhythm'
ꠕꠣꠟ tál high 'plate'
ꠖꠣꠘ dan level 'donation'
ꠗꠣꠘ dán high 'paddy'
ꠙꠥꠟ ful level 'bridge'
ꠚꠥꠟ fúl high 'flower'
ꠛꠣꠟꠣ bala level 'bangle'
ꠜꠣꠟꠣ bála high 'good, welfare'
ꠛꠣꠔ bat level 'arthritis'
ꠜꠣꠔ bát high 'rice'

A more recent study shows that there is a three-way tonal system in Sylheti words with two syllables or more. According to this analysis, words with aspiration in the final syllable historically gain a high tone across the word, whilst those with initial aspiration have this replaced by a low tone across the word. Those with no historical aspirated consonants retain a mid tone.[102]

No. Word IPA Tone Meaning Word IPA Tone Meaning Word IPA Tone Meaning
1 ꠙꠣꠑꠣ ɸáʈá High 'goat' ꠚꠣꠐꠣ ɸàʈà Low 'torn' ꠙꠣꠐꠣ ɸāʈā Mid 'grindstone'
2 ꠇꠥꠑꠣ kúʈá High 'room' ꠈꠥꠐꠣ kùʈà Low 'taunting' ꠇꠥꠐꠣ kūʈā Mid 'stick'
3 ꠙꠣꠈꠣ ɸáxá High 'fan' ꠚꠣꠇꠣ ɸàxà Low 'empty' ꠙꠣꠇꠣ ɸāxā Mid 'ripe'

It is considered that these tones arose when aspirated consonants lost their aspiration. Sylheti continues to have a long history of coexisting with tonal Tibeto-Burman languages including various dialects of Kokborok such as Reang. Even though there is no clear evidence of direct borrowing of lexical items from those languages into Sylheti, there is still a possibility that the emergence of Sylheti tones is due to external influence, as the indigenous speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages by and large use Sylheti as a common medium for interaction.

Grammar

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Sylheti grammar is the study of the morphology and syntax of Sylheti.[108]

Nouns

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Case

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When a definite article such as -gu/ţa (singular) or -guin/ţin (plural) is added, nouns are also inflected for number. Below are two tables which show the inflections of an animate noun, ꠍꠣꠔ꠆ꠞ satrô ('student'), and an inanimate noun, ꠎꠥꠔꠣ zuta ('shoe').

Noun Inflection
Animate Inanimate
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥ/

hikɽa-gu/

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

hikɽa-guta

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥ/ ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

hikɽa-gu/ hikɽa-guta

the student

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟ

hikɽa-ôxôl

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟ

hikɽa-ôxôl

the students

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥ/

zuta-gu/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

zuta-guta

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

zuta-gu/ zuta-guta

the shoe

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘ/

zuta-guin/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠦꠍꠤꠘ/

zuta-gesin/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣ‌ꠎꠥꠠꠣ

zuta-zuŗa

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠦꠍꠤꠘ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣ‌ꠎꠥꠠꠣ

zuta-guin/ zuta-gesin/ zuta-zuŗa

the shoes

Objective

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠞꠦ/

hikɽa-gu-re/

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞꠦ

hikɽa-guta-re

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠞꠦ/ ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞꠦ

hikɽa-gu-re/ hikɽa-guta-re

(to) the student

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟꠞꠦ

hikɽa-ôxl-ôre

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟꠞꠦ hikɽa-ôxl-ôre

(to) the students

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥ/

zuta-gu/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

zuta-guta

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣ

zuta-gu/ zuta-guta

(to) the shoe

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘ/

zuta-guin/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠤꠍꠤꠘ

zuta-gesin

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠤꠍꠤꠘ

zuta-guin/ zuta-gesin

(to) the shoes

Genitive

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠞ/

hikɽa-gu-r/

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞ

hikɽa-guta-r

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠞ/ ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞ

hikɽa-gu-r/ hikɽa-guta-r

the student's

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟꠞ

hikɽa-ôxl-ôr

ꠢꠤꠇꠠꠣꠅꠇꠟꠞ

hikɽa-ôxl-ôr

the students'

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠞ/

zuta-gu-r/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞ

zuta-guta-r

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠞ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠞ

zuta-gu-r/ zuta-guta-r

the shoe's

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞ

zuta-guint-ôr

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞ

zuta-guint-ôr

the shoes'

Locative – –

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔ/

zuta-gu-t/

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠔ

zuta-guta-t

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔ/ ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠔꠣꠔ

zuta-gu-t/ zuta-guta-t

on/in the shoe

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔ

zuta-guint-ô

ꠎꠥꠔꠣꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔ

zuta-guint-ô

on/ in the shoes

All of the inflected nouns above have an indefinite article preceding their case markers. There are some basic rules to keep in mind about the cases, apart from the "default" nominative.

For the genitive case, the ending may change, though never with a definite article attached. A noun (without an article) which ends in a consonant or the inherent vowel, ꠅ ô, is inflected by adding –ꠞ -ôr to the end of the word (and deleting the inherent vowel if applicable). An example of this would be the genitive of ꠉꠥꠍ gus 'meat' being ꠉꠥꠍꠞ gusôr 'of meat' or '(the) meat's'. A noun which ends in any vowel apart from the inherent vowel will just have a -ꠞ -r following it, as in the genitive of ꠙꠥꠀ fua being ꠙꠥꠀꠞ fuar '(the) boy's'. The genitive ending is also applied to verbs (in their verbal noun forms), which is most commonly seen when using postpositions (for example: ꠢꠤꠇꠘꠞ ꠟꠣꠉꠤ hiknôr lagi, 'for learning').

For the locative case, the marker also changes in a similar fashion to the genitive case, with consonants and the inherent vowel having their own ending, -ꠅ -ô, and all other vowels having another ending, -ꠔ -t. For example, ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠅ silôţô 'in Sylhet', ꠑꠣꠇꠣꠔ dáxát 'in Dhaka', etc.

Measure words

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When counted, nouns must also be accompanied by the appropriate measure word. The noun's measure word (MW) must be used in between the numeral and the noun. Most nouns take the generic measure word gu/ţa/xán, although there are many more specific measure words, such as zôn, which is only used to count humans.

Measure Words
Sylheti

Nôy-ţa

nine-MW

ghoŗi

clock

Nôy-ţa ghoŗi

nine-MW clock

Nine clocks

Xôtô-ţa

How many-MW

balish

pillow

Xôtô-ţa balish

{How many}-MW pillow

How many pillows

Bout-zôn

Many-MW

manush

person

Bout-zôn manush

Many-MW person

Many people

Sair-fas-zôn

Four-five-MW

fôɽauɽa

teacher

Sair-fas-zôn fôɽauɽa

Four-five-MW teacher

Four or five teachers

Measuring nouns in Sylheti without their corresponding measure words (e.g. aţ mekur instead of aţ-gu mekur 'eight cats') would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, omitting the noun and preserving the measure word is grammatical and not uncommon to hear. For example, Xáli êx-zôn táxbô. (lit. 'Only one-MW will remain.') would be understood to mean 'Only one person will remain.', since zôn can only be used to count humans.

Pronouns

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Personal pronouns

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Sylheti personal pronouns are somewhat similar to English pronouns, having different words for first, second, and third person, and also for singular and plural (unlike for verbs, below). Sylheti pronouns, like their English counterparts, do differentiate for gender. Sylheti has different third-person pronouns for proximity. The first are used for someone who is nearby, and the second are for those who are a little further away. The third are usually for those who are not present. In addition, each of the second- and third-person pronouns have different forms for the familiar and polite forms; the second person also has a "very familiar" form (sometimes called "despective"). It may be noted that the "very familiar" form is used when addressing particularly close friends or family as well as for addressing subordinates, or in abusive language. In the following tables, the abbreviations used are as follows: VF=very familiar, F=familiar, and P=polite (honor); H=here, T=there, E=elsewhere (proximity), and I=inanimate.

The nominative case is used for pronouns that are the subject of the sentence, such as "I already did that" or "Will you please stop making that noise?"

Personal pronouns (nominative case)
Subject Proximity Honor Singular Plural
1 VF ꠝꠥꠁ (mui, I) ꠝꠞꠣ (môra, we)
F ꠀꠝꠤ (ami, I) ꠀꠝꠞꠣ (amra, we)
2 VF ꠔꠥꠁ, ꠔꠥꠁꠘ (tui, tuin, you) ꠔꠥꠞꠣ (tura, you)
F ꠔꠥꠝꠤ (tumi, you) ꠔꠥꠝꠞꠣ/ꠔꠥꠝꠤ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (tumra/tumi-tain, you)
P ꠀꠙꠘꠦ (afne, you) ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠣ/ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠁꠘ (afnara, you)
3 H F ꠄ (e, he), ꠄꠁ (ei, she) / ꠁꠉꠥ (igu, he/she) ꠄꠞꠣ (era, they)
P ꠄꠁꠘ (ein, he/she) ꠄꠞꠣ/ꠄꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (era/ein-tain, they)
I ꠁꠉꠥ/ꠁꠇꠐꠣ (igu/ikţa, it/this) ꠁꠉꠥꠁꠘ (iguin, these)
I P (ita, it/this) (itain, these)
T F ꠢꠦ (he, he), ꠔꠣꠁ (tai, she) ꠔꠣꠞꠣ (tara, they)
P ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (tain, he/she) ꠔꠣꠞꠣ/ꠔꠣꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (tara/tain-tain, they)
I ꠅꠉꠥ/ꠅꠇꠐꠣ (ôgu/ôxţa, it/that) ꠅꠉꠥꠁꠘ (ôguin, those)
E F ꠢꠦ (he, he), ꠔꠣꠁ (tai, she) ꠔꠣꠞꠣ (tara, they)
P ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (tain, he/she) ꠔꠣꠞꠣ/ꠔꠣꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ (tara/tain-tain, they)
I ꠢꠉꠥ/ꠢꠇꠐꠣ (hôgu/hôxţa, it/that) ꠢꠉꠥꠁꠘ (hôguin, those)
I P (hita, it/that) (hitain, those)

The objective case is used for pronouns serving as the direct or indirect objects, such as "I told him to wash the dishes" or "The teacher gave me the homework assignment". The inanimate pronouns remain the same in the objective case.

Personal pronouns (objective case)
Subject Proximity Honor Singular Plural
1 VF ꠝꠞꠦ (môre, me) ꠝꠞꠣꠞꠦ (môrare, us)
F ꠀꠝꠣꠞꠦ (amare, me) ꠀꠝꠞꠣꠞꠦ (amrare, us)
2 VF ꠔꠞꠦ (tôre, you) ꠔꠥꠞꠣꠞꠦ (turare, you)
F ꠔꠥꠝꠣꠞꠦ (tumare, you) ꠔꠥꠝꠞꠣꠞꠦ/ꠔꠥꠝꠣ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ (tumrare/tuma-tanre, you)
P ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠦ (afnare, you) ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠣꠞꠦ/ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠁꠘꠔꠞꠦ (afnarare/afnaintôre, you)
3 H F ꠄꠞꠦ (ere, him), ꠄꠁꠞꠦ (eire, her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞꠦ (erare, them)
P ꠄꠘꠞꠦ (enre, him/her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞꠦ/ꠄꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ (erare/ein-tanre, them)
I ꠁꠉꠥꠞꠦ/ꠁꠇꠐꠣꠞꠦ (igure/ikţare, it) ꠁꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞꠦ (iguintôre, these)
T F ꠄꠞꠦ (ere, him), ꠄꠁꠞꠦ (eire, her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞꠦ (erare, them)
P ꠄꠘꠞꠦ (enre, him/her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞꠦ/ꠄꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ (erare/ein-tanre, them)
I ꠅꠉꠥꠞꠦ/ꠅꠇꠐꠣꠞꠦ (ôgure/ôxţare, it) ꠅꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞꠦ (ôguintôre, those)
E F ꠢꠦꠞꠦ/ꠔꠣꠞꠦ (here/tare, him), ꠔꠣꠁꠞꠦ (taire, her) ꠔꠣꠞꠣꠞꠦ (tarare, them)
P ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ (tanre, him/her) ꠔꠣꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ (tain-tanre, them)
I ꠢꠉꠥ/ꠢꠇꠐꠣ (hôgu/hôxţa, it) ꠢꠉꠥꠁꠘ (hôguin, those)

The possessive case is used to show possession, such as "Where is your coat?" or "Let's go to our house". In addition, sentences such as "I have a book" (ꠀꠝꠣꠞ ꠄꠇꠐꠣ ꠛꠁ ꠀꠍꠦ) or "I need money" (ꠀꠝꠣꠞ ꠐꠦꠇꠣ ꠖꠞꠇꠣꠞ) also use the possessive (the literal translation of the Bengali versions of these sentences would be "There is my book" and "There is my need for money" respectively).

Personal pronouns (possessive case)
Subject Proximity Honor Singular Plural
1 VF ꠝꠞ (môr, my) ꠝꠞꠣꠞ (môrar, our)
F ꠀꠝꠣꠞ (amar, my) ꠀꠝꠞꠣꠞ (amrar, our)
2 VF ꠔꠞ (tôr, your) ꠔꠥꠞꠣꠞ (turar, your)
F ꠔꠥꠝꠣꠞ (tomar, your) ꠔꠥꠝꠞꠣꠞ/ꠔꠥꠝꠣ-ꠔꠣꠘ/ꠔꠥꠝꠣ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞ (tumar/tuma-tan/tuma-tanôr, your)
P ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞ (afnar, your) ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠣꠞ/ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠁꠘꠔꠞ (afnarar/afnaintôr, your)
3 H F ꠄꠞ (er, his), ꠄꠁꠞ (eir, her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞ (erar, their)
P ꠄꠘ/ꠄꠁꠘꠞ (en/einôr, his/her) ꠄꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞ (ein-tanôr, their)
I ꠁꠉꠥꠞ/ꠁꠇꠐꠣꠞ (igur/ikţar, its) ꠁꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞ (iguintôr, of these)
T F ꠄꠞ (er, his), ꠄꠁꠞ (eir, her) ꠄꠞꠣꠞ (erar, their)
P ꠄꠘ/ꠄꠁꠘꠞ (en/einôr, his/her) ꠄꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞ (ein-tanôr, their)
I ꠅꠉꠥꠞ/ꠅꠇꠐꠣꠞ (ogur/oxţar, its) ꠅꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞ (oguintôr, of those)
E F ꠔꠣꠞ (tar, his/her) ꠔꠣꠞꠣꠞ (tader, their)
P ꠔꠣꠘ/ꠔꠣꠘꠞ (tan/tanôr, his/her) ꠔꠣꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞ (tain-tanôr, their)
I ꠢꠉꠥꠞ/ꠢꠇꠐꠣꠞ (hôgur/hôxţar, its) ꠢꠉꠥꠁꠘꠔꠞ (hôguintôr, of those)

Indefinite and negative pronouns

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Bengali has no negative pronouns (such as no one, nothing, none). These are typically represented by adding the negative particle ꠘꠣꠄ (nae) to indefinite pronouns, which are themselves derived from their corresponding question words. Common indefinite pronouns are listed below.

Question word Indefinite pronoun Indefinite negative pronoun

ꠇꠦ/

xe/

ꠇꠦꠉꠥ/

xegu/

ꠇꠤꠉꠥ

kigu

ꠇꠦ/ ꠇꠦꠉꠥ/ ꠇꠤꠉꠥ

xe/ xegu/ kigu

who

ꠇꠦꠃ

xeu

ꠇꠦꠃ

xeu

someone

ꠇꠦꠃ

xeu

ꠘꠣꠄ

nae

ꠇꠦꠃ ꠘꠣꠄ

xeu nae

no one

ꠇꠣꠞ/

xar/

ꠇꠦꠉꠥꠞ/

xegur/

ꠇꠤꠉꠞꠥ

kigur

ꠇꠣꠞ/ ꠇꠦꠉꠥꠞ/ ꠇꠤꠉꠞꠥ

xar/ xegur/ kigur

whose

ꠇꠦꠃꠞ/

xeur/

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ

xeurôr

ꠇꠦꠃꠞ/ ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ

xeur/ xeurôr

someone's

ꠇꠦꠃꠞ/

xeur/

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ

xeurôr

ꠘꠣꠄ

nae

ꠇꠦꠃꠞ/ ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ ꠘꠣꠄ

xeur/ xeurôr nae

no one's

ꠇꠣꠞꠦ

kare

ꠇꠣꠞꠦ

kare

to whom

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠦ/

xeure/

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞꠦ

xeurôre

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠦ/ ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞꠦ

xeure/ xeurôre

to someone

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠦ/

xeure/

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ

xeurôre

ꠘꠣꠄ

nae

ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠦ/ ꠇꠦꠃꠞꠞ ꠘꠣꠄ

xeure/ xeurôre nae

to someone

ꠇꠥꠘ

kun

ꠇꠥꠘ

kun

which

ꠇꠥꠘꠥ/

kunu/

ꠇꠥꠘꠅ

kunô

ꠇꠥꠘꠥ/ ꠇꠥꠘꠅ

kunu/ kunô

any

ꠇꠥꠘꠥꠉꠥ

kunugu

ꠘꠣꠄ

nae

ꠇꠥꠘꠥꠉꠥ ꠘꠣꠄ

kunugu nae

none

ꠇꠤꠔꠣ

kita

ꠇꠤꠔꠣ

kita

what

ꠇꠤꠍꠥ/

kisu/

ꠇꠥꠘꠔꠣ

kunta

ꠇꠤꠍꠥ/ ꠇꠥꠘꠔꠣ

kisu/ kunta

some/ something

ꠇꠤꠌ꠆ꠍꠥ/

kichchu/

ꠇꠥꠘꠔꠣ

kunta

ꠘꠣꠄ

nae

ꠇꠤꠌ꠆ꠍꠥ/ ꠇꠥꠘꠔꠣ ꠘꠣꠄ

kichchu/ kunta nae

nothing

Relative pronouns

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The relative pronoun ꠎꠦ (ze) and its different variants, as shown below, are commonly employed in complex sentences. The relative pronouns for animate objects change for number and honour, but those for inanimate objects stay the same.

Animate relative pronouns
Nominative (who) Genitive (whose) Objective (to whom)
Singular (VF/F) ꠎꠦ ze ꠎꠣꠞ zar ꠎꠣꠞꠦ zare
Singular (P) ꠎꠦꠁꠘ zein ꠎꠦꠘ zen ꠎꠦꠘꠞꠦ zenore
Plural (VF/F) ꠎꠣꠞꠣ zara ꠎꠣꠞꠣꠞ zarar ꠎꠣꠞꠣꠞꠦ zarare
Plural (P) ꠎꠦꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ zein-tain ꠎꠦꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘ zein-tan ꠎꠦꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠘꠞꠦ zein-tanore
Inanimate relative pronouns
Nominative/Objective (which) Genitive (of which) Locative (in which)
ꠎꠦꠔꠣ zeta ꠎꠦꠔꠣꠞ zetar ꠎꠦꠔꠣꠔ zetat

Adjectives

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Adjectives do not inflect for case, gender, or number in Sylheti and are placed before the noun they modify.

Some adjectives form their opposites by prefixing ꠛꠦ- be- , or sometimes ꠘꠤ- ni-; for example, the opposite of ꠞꠥꠎꠉꠣꠞ (ruzgar, 'earning') is ꠛꠦꠞꠥꠎꠉꠣꠞ (beruzgar, 'not earning, idle, mendicant'), the opposite of ꠇꠣꠝꠣ (xama, 'of use') is ꠘꠤꠇꠣꠝꠣ (nixama, 'useless, of no use').

Demonstrative adjectives – 'this' and 'that' – correspond to ꠁ, ꠅ/ꠅꠃ i, ô/ôu and ꠢꠤ, ꠢ/ꠢꠃ hi, hô/hou, with the definite article attached to the following noun. Thus, 'this book' would translate to ꠁ/ꠅꠃ ꠛꠁꠈꠣꠘ i boi-xan, while 'those books' would translate to ꠢꠃ ꠛꠁ-ꠉꠤꠍꠤꠘ/ꠛꠁ-ꠉꠥꠘ/ꠛꠁ-ꠀꠁꠘ hi boi-gisin/boi-gun/boi-ain.

Comparatives and superlatives

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Sylheti adjectives form their comparative forms with ꠀꠞꠅ (arô, 'more'), and their superlative forms with ꠡꠛ ꠕꠣꠇꠤ (shôb táki, 'than all'). Comparisons are formed by using genitive form of the object of comparison, followed by the postposition ꠕꠣꠇꠤ/ꠕꠘꠤ (táki/tóni, 'than') or the postposition ꠟꠣꠇꠣꠘ (laxan, 'like') and then by ꠀꠞꠅ (arô, 'more') or ꠇꠝ (xôm, 'less'). The word for 'more' is optional, but the word for 'less' is required, so in its absence 'more' is inferred. Adjectives can be additionally modified by using ꠛꠟꠘ/ꠛꠣꠇ꠆ꠇꠣ/ꠛꠃꠔ (bolon/bakka/bout, 'much') or ꠛꠃꠔ (bout, 'much'), which are especially useful for comparing quantities.

Sylheti Literal Translation Meaning
ꠇꠞꠤꠝ ꠞꠢꠤꠝꠞ ꠕꠘꠤ ꠟꠣꠝ꠆ꠙꠣ
Xorim Rohimor tóni lampa 		Karim of Rahim than tall Karim is taller than Rahim
ꠇꠞꠤꠝ ꠞꠢꠤꠝꠞ ꠕꠘꠤ ꠀꠞꠅ ꠟꠣꠝ꠆ꠙꠣ
Xorim Rohimor tóni aroo lampa 		Karim of Rahim than more tall Karim is taller than Rahim
ꠇꠞꠤꠝ ꠞꠢꠤꠝꠞ ꠕꠘꠦ ꠇꠝ ꠟꠣꠝ꠆ꠙꠣ
Xorim Rohimor tóni xom lampa 		Karim of Rahim than less tall Karim is shorter than Rahim
ꠇꠞꠤꠝ ꠞꠢꠤꠝꠞ ꠟꠣꠇꠣꠘ ꠟꠣꠝ꠆ꠙꠣ
Xorim Rohimor laxan lampa 		Karim of Rahim like tall Karim is as tall as Rahim
ꠇꠞꠤꠝ ꠞꠢꠤꠝꠞ ꠕꠘꠤ ꠛꠃꠔ ꠟꠣꠝ꠆ꠙꠣ
Xorim Rohimor tóni bout lampa 		Karim of Rahim than much tall Karim is much taller than Rahim

Verbs

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Sylheti verbs are highly inflected and are regular with only few exceptions. They consist of a stem and an ending; they are traditionally listed in Sylheti dictionaries in their "verbal noun" form, which is usually formed by adding -a, - ni, -na to the stem: for instance, ꠈꠣꠘꠤ (xani, to eat) is formed from the stem ꠈꠣ and similarly ꠇꠞꠣ/ ꠇꠞꠘꠣ (xôra/ xôrna, to do) is formed from the stem ꠇꠞ. The stem can end in either a vowel or a consonant. Verbs are conjugated for tense and person by changing the endings, which are largely the same for all verbs. However, the stem vowel can often change as part of the phenomenon known as vowel harmony, whereby one vowel can be influenced by other vowels in the word to sound more harmonious. An example would be the verb to write, with stem lex-: ꠟꠦꠈꠅ (lexô, 'you all write') but also ꠟꠦꠈꠤ (lekí, 'we write'). If verbs are classified by stem vowel and if the stem ends in a consonant or vowel, there are nine basic classes in which most verbs can be placed; all verbs in a class will follow the same pattern. A prototype verb from each of these classes will be used to demonstrate conjugation for that class; bold will be used to indicate mutation of the stem vowel. Additionally, there are irregular verbs, such as ꠎꠣꠘꠤ (zani, to go) that change the first consonant in their stem in certain conjugations.

Like many other Indo-Aryan languages (such as Standard Bengali or Assamese), nouns can be turned into verbs by combining them with select auxiliary verbs. In Sylheti, the most common such auxiliary verb is ꠇꠞꠣ (xôra, 'to do'); thus, verbs such as joke are formed by combining the noun form of joke (ꠓꠋ) with to do (ꠇꠞꠣ) to create ꠓꠋ ꠇꠞꠣ. When conjugating such verbs the noun part of such a verb is left untouched, so in the previous example, only ꠇꠞꠣ would be inflected or conjugated (e.g.: I will make a joke becomes ꠀꠝꠤ ꠓꠋ ꠇꠞꠝꠥ; see more on tenses below). Other auxiliary verbs include ꠖꠦꠘꠤ and ꠘꠦꠘꠤ, but the verb ꠇꠞꠘꠣ enjoys significant usage because it can be combined with foreign verbs to form a native version of the verb, even if a direct translation exists. Most often this is done with English verbs: for example, to vote is often referred to as ꠜꠥꠐ ꠖꠦꠘꠤ (búţ deni, where búţ is the transliteration of vote).

Copula

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Sylheti is considered a zero copula language in some aspects.

  • In the simple present tense there is no verb connecting the subject to the predicative (the "zero verb" copula). There is one notable exception, however, which is when the predicative takes on the existential, locative, or possessive aspects; for such purposes, the incomplete verb ꠀꠍ- (as) is used, which is conjugated according to the rules given below.
  • In the past tense, the incomplete verb ꠀꠍ- is always used as the copula, regardless of the nature of the predicative.
  • For the future tense and non-finite structures, the copula is supplied by the verb ‘ꠅꠅꠀ (ówa), with the only exception being the possessive predicative for which the verb ꠕꠣꠇꠣ (táxa, 'to remain') is utilised.

The following table demonstrates the rules above with some examples.

English Sylheti Notes
I am happy ꠀꠝꠤ ꠈꠥꠡꠤ No verb used to denote the copula
There is time ꠛꠦꠁꠟ ꠀꠍꠦ ꠀꠍ- used to connect to an existential predicative
I am at home ꠀꠝꠤ ꠛꠣꠠꠤꠔ ꠀꠍꠤ ꠀꠍ- used to connect to a locative predicative
We were happy ꠀꠝꠞꠣ ꠛꠦꠎꠣꠞ ꠀꠍꠟꠣꠝ In the past tense, ꠀꠍ- is used as the copula
I will be at home ꠀꠝꠤ ꠛꠣꠠꠤꠔ ꠕꠣꠇꠝꠥ In the future tense, ꠕꠣꠇꠣ is used as the copula
He will have a car ꠔꠣꠞ ꠄꠈꠣꠘ ꠉꠣꠠꠤ ꠕꠣꠇꠛ In the future tense, ꠕꠣꠇꠣ is used to connect to a possessive predicative

Negation

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There are three sentence negators employed in Sylheti:

  • The zero verb copula is negated using the incomplete negator ꠘ-, which is conjugated as ꠘꠣꠄ (1), ꠘꠣꠁ (2), ꠘꠣ (3).
  • Existential sentences that use the verb ꠀꠍ- are negated with ꠘꠣꠁ (nai), which does not need to be conjugated.
  • All other verbs (with the exceptions of the ones listed above) are negated using the universal negative particle ꠘꠣꠄ (nae). ꠘꠣꠄ is typically placed after the finite verb (see examples below), but can also be placed at the end of the sentence, which negates the whole sentence. ꠘꠣꠄ can be used in all tenses except two: the present perfect and the past perfect.
  • Verbs in the present perfect and the past perfect tenses are negated using the suffix -ꠘꠣ (na) which can also refer to "no" in yes–no questions.
Negating verbs
English Sylheti Notes
I am not happy ꠀꠝꠤ ꠈꠥꠡꠤ ꠘꠣꠄ Incomplete negator ꠘ- conjugated for first-person
We don't have a car ꠀꠝꠞꠣꠞ ꠉꠣꠠꠤ ꠘꠣꠁ ꠘꠣꠁ used to negate ꠀꠍ-, which is completely replaced
I don't work ꠀꠝꠤ ꠇꠣꠝ ꠇꠞꠤ ꠘꠣ ꠘꠣ is used to negate all other finite verbs
I didn't help him ꠀꠝꠤ ꠔꠣꠞꠦ ꠡꠣꠁꠎ꠆ꠏ ꠇꠞꠍꠤꠟꠣꠝ ꠘꠣ

Person

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Verbs are inflected for person and honour, but not for number. There are five forms: first person, second person (very familiar), second person (familiar), third person (familiar), and second/third person (polite). The same sample subject pronouns will be used for all the example conjugation paradigms: mui (ꠝꠥꠁ), ami (ꠀꠝꠤ), tui (ꠔꠥꠁ), tumi (ꠔꠥꠝꠤ), he (ꠢꠦ), tai (ꠔꠣꠁ) and afne (ꠀꠙꠘꠦ). These have the following plurals respectively: môra (ꠝꠞꠣ), amra (ꠀꠝꠞꠣ), tura (ꠔꠥꠞꠣ), tumra (ꠔꠥꠝꠞꠣ)/tumi-tain (ꠔꠥꠝꠤ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ), tara (ꠔꠣꠞꠣ)/tain-tain (ꠔꠣꠁꠘ-ꠔꠣꠁꠘ) and afnara (ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠣ).

Comparison

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A notable characteristic of spoken Sylheti is the correspondence of the /x/ and /ɦ/, pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative to the /k/ or /kʰ/ of Bengali and voiceless glottal fricative to the /x/ of Assamese respectively.

Standard Bengali Typical East Bengali Assamese Sylheti IPA Meaning
ঢাকা
Dhaka 		ঢাহা, ঢাকা
Ḍáha, Dáka 		ঢাকা
Dhaka 		ꠓꠣꠇꠣ
Daxa 		/ɖáxa/ Dhaka
একজন মানুষ
Êkjôn manush 		একজন মানুষ
Êkzôn manush 		এজন লোক
Ezôn lük 		ꠄꠇꠎꠘ ꠝꠣꠘꠥꠡ
Êxzôn manu 		/exzɔn manu/ A person
একজন লোক, একজন পুরুষ
Êkjon lok, Êkjôn purush 		একজন লুক, একজন বেডা
Êkzôn luk, Êkzôn bêḍa 		এজন মানুহ
Ezôn manuh 		‌ꠄꠇꠎꠘ ꠛꠦꠐꠣ
Êxzôn beṭa 		/exʈa beʈa/ A man
কীসের
Kisher 		কীয়ের
Kiyer 		কিহৰ
Kihôr 		ꠇꠤꠅꠞ
Kior 		/kiɔ́ɾ/ Informal of Whereof
কন্যা, ঝি, মেয়ে, পুত্রী
Kônna, Jhi, Meye, Putri 		কইন্যা, ঝি, মাইয়া, পুড়ি
Kôinna, Zí, Maiya, Puri 		জী, ছোৱালী
Zi, Süali 		ꠏꠤ, ꠙꠥꠠꠤ
Zí, Furi 		/zí/, /ɸuɽi/ Daughter
মানবজাতি
Manôbjati 		মাইনষের জাত
Mainsher zat 		মানৱজাতি, মানুহৰ জাতি
Manôwzati, Manuhôr zati 		ꠝꠣꠘꠥꠎꠣꠔ
Manuzat 		/manuzat̪/ Mankind
অসমীয়া, অহমীয়া
Ôshômiya, Ôhômiya 		অহমীয়া
Ôhômiya 		অসমীয়া
Ôxômiya 		ꠅꠢꠝꠤꠀ
Ôhômia 		/ɔɦɔmia/ Assamese people
আঙুল
Angul 		আঙ্গুল
Angul 		আঙুলি
Anguli 		ꠀꠋꠉꠥꠁꠟ
Anguil 		/aŋguil/ Finger, toe
আংটি
Angṭi 		আংটি, আঙ্গুইট
Angti, Anguiṭ 		আঙুঠি
Anguṭhi 		ꠀꠋꠐꠤ
Angṭí 		/aŋʈi/ Ring
আগুনপোড়া
Agunpora 		আগুনপুড়া
Agunpura 		জুইত পোৰা, জুইত সেকা
Zuit püra, Zuit xeka 		ꠀꠉꠥꠁꠘꠙꠥꠠꠣ
Aguinfura 		/aguinfuɽa/ Baked, grilled
পাখি, চিড়িয়া
Pakhi, Chiriya 		পাখি, পাহি, পাইখ্যা
Pakhi, Pahi, Paikhya 		চৰাই, পখী
Sorai, Pokhi 		ꠌꠥꠀ, ꠙꠣꠇꠤꠀ, ꠙꠞꠤꠘ꠆ꠖꠣ
Sua, Fakia, Forinda 		/sua/, /ɸakia/, /ɸɔrinda/ Bird
পরে
Pôre 		পরে
Pôre 		পাছত, পৰত
Pasot, Porot 		ꠛꠣꠖꠦ
Bade 		/bad̪e/ Later
সকল, সমস্ত, সব, তামাম
Shôkôl, Shômôsto, Shômôsto, Shôb, Tamam 		হগল, হক্কল, সমস্ত, সব, তামাম, ব্যাক
Hôgôl, Hôkkôl, Shômôsto, Shôb, Tamam, Bêk 		সকলো, সৱ, চব
Xôkôlü; Xôb; Sôb 		ꠢꠇꠟ, ꠡꠛ, ꠔꠣꠝꠣꠝ
Hôxôl, Shôb, Tamam 		/ɦɔxɔl/, /ʃɔb/, /t̪amam/ All
পুরা, গোটা, আস্ত
Pura, Goṭa, Astô 		পুরা, গুটা/গোডা, আস্তা

Pura, Guta/Goda, Asta

গোটেই
Güṭei 		ꠀꠍ꠆ꠔꠣ, ꠙꠥꠞꠣ, ꠉꠥꠐꠣ
Asta, Fura, Guṭa 		/ast̪a/, /ɸura/, /guʈa/ Whole
সাত বিল
Shat bil 		সাত বিল, হাত বিল
Shat bil, Hat bil 		সাত বিল
Xat bil 		ꠢꠣꠔ ꠛꠤꠟ
Hat bil 		/ɦat̪ bil/ Seven wetlands
সাতকড়া
Shatkôra 		সাতকড়া, হাতকড়া
Shatkôra, Hatkôra 		সাতকৰা
Xatkôra 		ꠢꠣꠔꠇꠠꠣ
Hatxôra 		/ɦat̪xɔɽa/ Citrus macroptera fruit
সিলেটি
Sileṭi 		সিলডি, সিলেইট্যা
Silôḍi, Sileiṭṭa 		ছিলঠীয়া
Silôṭhiya 		ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ
Silôṭi 		/silɔʈi/ Sylheti
ভালো করে খান।
Bhalo kôre khan. 		ভালা/ভালো কইরা খান।
Bála/Bálo kôira khan. 		ভালকৈ খাওক।
Bhalkoi khaük. 		ꠜꠣꠟꠣ ꠇꠞꠤ/ꠑꠤꠇꠦ ꠈꠣꠃꠇ꠆ꠇꠣ।
Bala xôri/tike xaukka. 		/bála xɔɾi xaukka/, /bála ʈike xaukka/ Bon appetit
স্ত্রী, পত্নী, বউ
Stri, Pôtni, Bôu 		বউ
Bôu 		স্ত্রী, ঘৈণী, পত্নী
Stri, Ghôini, Pôtni 		ꠝꠣꠃꠉ, ꠛꠃ
Maug, Bôu 		/maug/, /bɔu/ Wife
স্বামী, বর
Shami, Bôr 		স্বামী, হাই, হাইন, জামাই
Shami, Hai, Hain, Zamai 		গিৰিয়েক, পতি, স্বামী
Giriyêk, Pôti, Swami 		ꠢꠣꠁ, ꠎꠣꠝꠣꠁ
Hai, Zamai 		/zamai/ Husband
জামাই
Jamai 		জামাই
Zamai 		জোঁৱাই
Züai 		ꠖꠣꠝꠣꠘ꠆ꠖ
Damand 		/damand/ Son-in-law
শ্বশুর
Shôshur 		হউর, হশুর
Hôur, Hôshur 		শহুৰ
Xôhur 		ꠢꠃꠞ
Hôur 		/ɦɔúɾ/ Father-in-law
শাশুড়ি
Shashuṛi 		হউরী, হাশুরি, হাউরি
Hôuri, Hashuri, Hauri 		শাহু
Xahu 		ꠢꠠꠤ
Hoṛi 		/ɦɔɽi/ Mother-in-law
শ্যালক
Shyalok 		শালা, হালা
Shala, Hala 		খুলশালা
Khulxala 		ꠢꠣꠟꠣ
Hala 		/ɦala/ Brother-in-law
শ্যালিকা
Shyalika 		শালী, হালী
Shali, Hali 		খুলশালী
Khulxali 		ꠢꠣꠟꠤ
Hali 		/ɦali/ Sister-in-law
শেখা, শিখা
Shekha, Shikha 		শিখা, শিহা, হিকা, হিহা, হিয়া
Shikha, Shiha, Hika, Hiha, Hiya 		শিকা
Xika 		ꠢꠤꠇꠣ
Hika 		/ɦika/ Learn
সরিষা
Shôrisha 		হইরা, সইষ্যা, হউরা
Hôira, Shôishya, Hôura 		সৰিয়হ
Xôriôh 		ꠢꠁꠞꠢ, ꠟꠣꠁ
Hôirô, Lai 		/ɦɔiɾɔ/, /lai/ Mustard
শেয়াল, শিয়াল
Sheyal, Shiyal 		শিয়াল, হিয়াল
Shiyal, Hial 		শিয়াল
Xiyal 		ꠢꠤꠀꠟ
Hial 		/ɦial/ Fox, Jackal
বিড়াল
Biṛal 		বিলাই, মেহুর
Bilai, Mehur 		মেকুৰী, বিৰালী
Mekuri, Birali 		ꠝꠦꠇꠥꠞ, ꠛꠤꠟꠣꠁ
Mekur, Bilai 		/mekuɾ/, /bilai/ Cat
শুঁটকি
Shuṭki 		হুটকি, হুনি
Huṭki, Huni 		শুকটি, শুকান মাছ
Xukôti, Xukan mas 		ꠢꠥꠐꠇꠤ, ꠢꠥꠇꠂꠘ
Huṭki, Hukôin 		/ɦuʈki/, /ɦukoin/ Sundried Fish
আপনার নাম কী?
Apnar nam ki? 		আপনের নাম কী(তা)?
Apner nam ki(ta)? 		আপোনাৰ নাম কি?
Apünar nam ki? 		ꠀꠙꠘꠞ ꠘꠣꠝ ꠇꠤꠔꠣ?
Afnor nam kita? 		/aɸnôɾ nam kit̪a/ What's your name?
ডাক্তার আসার আগেই রোগী মারা/মরে গেল।
Daktar ashar agei rogi mara/more gelô 		ডাক্তর আহার/আওয়ার আগেই রোগী মইরা গেল।
Daktôr ahar/awar agei rügi môira gelô 		ডাক্তৰ অহাৰ আগতেই ৰোগী মৰি গ’ল।

Daktor ohar agotei rügi mori gól

ꠒꠣꠇ꠆ꠔꠞ ꠀꠘꠤꠞ ꠀꠉꠦꠅ ꠛꠦꠝꠣꠞꠤ ꠝꠞꠤ ꠉꠦꠟ।
Daxtôr aanir ageu bemari môri gelô. 		/ɖaxt̪ɔɾ aanir age bemaɾi mɔɾi gelo/ Before the doctor came, the patient had died.
বহু দিন দেখিনি।
Bôhú din dekhini. 		বহুত দিন দেহিনাই/দেখছি না।
Bôhút din dehinai/dekhsi na. 		বহুদিন দেখা নাই।
Bôhudin dekha nai. 		ꠛꠣꠇ꠆ꠇꠣ ꠖꠤꠘ ꠖꠦꠈꠍꠤ ꠘꠣ।
Bakka din dexsi na. 		/bakka d̪in d̪exsi na/ Long time, no see.
আপনি ভালো আছেন নাকি?
Apni bhalo achhen naki? 		আপনে ভালা আছইন/আছেন নি?, আপনে ভালো আছেন নিকি?
Apne bála asôin/asen ni?, Apne bálo asen niki? 		আপুনি ভালে আছেনে?
Apuni bhale asênê? 		ꠀꠙꠘꠦ ꠜꠣꠟꠣ ꠀꠍꠁꠘ ꠘꠤ?
Afne bala asôin ni? 		/aɸne bála asoin ni/ Are you fine/good?
আমি তোমাকে ভালোবাসি।
Ami tomake bhalobashi. 		আমি তুমারে ভালোবাসি।
Ami tumare bálobashi. 		মই তোমাক ভাল পাওঁ।
Moi tümak bhal paü. 		ꠀꠝꠤ ꠔꠥꠝꠣꠞꠦ ꠜꠣꠟꠣ ꠙꠣꠁ।
Ami tumare bala fai. 		/ami t̪umare bála ɸai/ I love you.
আমি ভুলে গেছি/গিয়েছি।
Ami bhule gechhi/giyechhi. 		আমি ভুইলা/ভুইল্যা গেছি, আমি পাউরি গেছি।
Ami búila/búilla gesi, Ami pauri gesi. 		মই পাহৰি গৈছোঁ।
Môi pahôri goisü. 		ꠀꠝꠤ ꠙꠣꠃꠞꠤꠟꠤꠍꠤ।
Ami faûri lisi. 		/ami ɸaʊɾi lisi/ I have forgotten.
আলু গোস্তের/মাংসের ঝোলটা আমার ভালো লাগল।
Alu goster/mangsher jholṭa amar bhalo laglo. 		আলু গুস্তের/মাংসের ঝুলটা/ছালনডা আমার ভালা লাগলো।
Alu guster/mangsher jhulta/salônḍa amar bála laglo. 		‍মাংসৰ তৰকাৰীখন মোৰ খুব ভাল লাগিছে।
Mangxôr tôrkarikhôn mür khub bhal lagise. 		ꠀꠟꠥ ꠉꠥꠍ꠆ꠞ ꠍꠣꠟꠝꠉꠥꠔꠣ ꠀꠝꠣꠞ ꠛꠣꠇ꠆ꠇꠣ ꠜꠣꠟꠣ ꠟꠣꠉꠍꠦ​
Alu gusôr salômguta amar bakka bala lagse. 		/gust̪ɔɾ salɔmguʈa amaɾ bakka bála lagse/ I liked the potato meat curry.
শিলচর কোনদিকে?
Shilcôr kondike? 		শিলচর কোনদিকে/কোন ফাইল/কোন মুহি?
Shilcôr kündike/kün phail/kün muhi? 		শিলচৰ কোনফালে?
Xilsôr künphale? 		ꠢꠤꠟꠌꠞ ꠇꠥꠘꠛꠣꠄ/ꠇꠥꠘꠛꠣꠁꠖꠤ/ꠇꠥꠘꠝꠥꠈꠣ?
Hilcôr kunbae/kunbaidi/kunmuka? 		/ɦil͡tʃɔɾ kunbae, kunbaed̪i, kunmuká/ Which way to Silchar?
এটা কী?

Eṭa ki?

এইটা/এইডা কী(তা)?

Eita/(E)iḍa ki(ta)?

এইটো কি?

Eitü ki?

ꠁꠉꠥ/ꠁꠇꠐꠣ ꠇꠤꠔꠣ?
Igu/Ikṭa kita? 		/igu, ikʈa kit̪a/ What is this?
সেটা কী?

Sheṭa ki?

হেইটা/হেইডা কী(তা)?

Heita/H(e)iḍa ki(ta)?

সেইটো কি?

Xeitü ki?

ꠢꠤꠉꠥ/ꠢꠤꠇꠐꠣ ꠇꠤꠔꠣ?
Higu/Hikṭa/Hiṭa kita? 		/ɦigu, ɦikʈa kit̪a/ What is that?
শেষ
Shesh 		হেষ
Hêsh 		শেষ
Xex 		ꠢꠦꠡ
Hesh 		/ɦeʃ/ End, finish

Comparison with Standard Bengali

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A phrase in:

  • Standard Bengali: এক দেশের গালি আরেক দেশের বুলি æk desher gali arek desher buli.
  • Sylheti: ꠄꠇ ꠖꠦꠡꠞ ꠉꠣꠁꠟ ꠀꠞꠇ ꠖꠦꠡꠞ ꠝꠣꠔ ex deshôr gail arôx deshôr mát.

which literally means 'one land's obscenity is another land's language', and can be roughly translated to convey that a similar word in one language can mean something very different in another.

Another example:

  • মেঘ megh in Standard Bengali means 'cloud'.
  • মেঘ mêg(h) in Eastern Bengali means 'rain' or 'cloud'.
  • ꠝꠦꠊ/মেঘ megh in Sylheti means 'rain'.
  • In Pali, मेघ megha means both 'rain' and 'cloud'.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ /sɪlˈhɛti/

References

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  1. ^ Niharranjan Ray (January 1980). Bangalir Itihas (in Bengali). Vol. 2.
  2. ^ Shahela Hamid (2011). Language Use and Identity: The Sylheti Bangladeshis in Leeds. pp.Preface. Verlag Peter Lang. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  3. ^ (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:5)
  4. ^ Tanweer Fazal (2012). Minority Nationalisms in South Asia: 'We are with culture but without geography': locating Sylheti identity in contemporary India, Nabanipa Bhattacharjee. pp. 59–67.
  5. ^ a b c Sylheti at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  6. ^ "Sylheti language and the Syloti-Nagri alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  7. ^ "World Atlas of Languages: Sylheti". en.wal.unesco.org. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  8. ^ a b "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)
  9. ^ a b c d "Sylheti". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  10. ^ "Along the linguistic continuum of eastern Indic languages, Sylheti occupies an ambiguous position, where it is considered a distinct language by many and also as a dialect of Bengali or Bangla by some others." (Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
  11. ^ "At the geographical extremes, Chittagonian, Sylheti, Mal Paharia, and Rohingya are so unintelligible to speakers of other dialects that they are almost universally considered by linguists to be separate languages on their own." (Khan 2018)
  12. ^ "In Bangladesh, Sylheti functions as a diglossic "Low" variety and Bengali, the official language of Bangladesh, as the "High" variety. Bengali is the language of official administration and education in Bangladesh, and Sylheti is normative in informal contexts in Sylhet." (Lawson & Sachdev 2004:50)
  13. ^ a b "Sylheti is often dismissed as 'slang' or as a corrupted version of Bengali, even by some of its own speakers, for whom it is not a language in its own right." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:4)
  14. ^ a b "There is reported language shift in the Sylheti-speaking regions of Bangladesh and India, as well as in the diaspora with Bengali replacing Sylheti, as some parents do not speak Sylheti to their children, reducing the number of future Sylheti speakers." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:5)
  15. ^ "In the context of the UK, Sylheti has more vitality than Bangla on the basis of its demography." (Hamid 2005:243)
  16. ^ Anne Kershen (2004). Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1666-2000. p. 145. Routledge. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  17. ^ "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)
  18. ^ "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)
  19. ^ William Farwley (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: 4-Volume Set. p. 483. Oxford University Press, USA. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  20. ^ South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203
  21. ^ (Ludden 2003:5081)
  22. ^ "copper plate inscriptions indicate that land around the Kushiara was more densely populated, because Kamarupa kings had granted large tracts of land to immigrant Brahmans and their supporting castes, to make this region part of Assam (Khanda Kamarupa)." (Ludden 2003:5081)
  23. ^ Sircar, Dineshchandra (1971). Studies in the geography of ancient and medieval India. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 161.
  24. ^ Chatterjee, Suhas (1998). Indian Civilization and Culture. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 432.
  25. ^ " Sylhet town (Srihatta) became a major centre of lowland territorialism after the 10th century CE" (Ludden 2003:5081)
  26. ^ Rakhal Das Banerji (2003). Origin of the Bengali Script. p. 6.
  27. ^ 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. XIX. Sylhet: 277–286.
  28. ^ "Paschimbhag Copperplate: History engraved". The Daily Star. 2 August 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  29. ^ Syed Hasan Imam Hussainy Chisti (1999). "Arabic and Persian in Sylhet". In Sharif Uddin Ahmed (ed.). Sylhet: History and Heritage. Bangladesh Itihas Samiti. pp. 598–599. ISBN 984-31-0478-1.
  30. ^ 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. p. 452. Springer. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  31. ^ S. N. H. Rizvi (1970). East Pakistan District Gazetteers: Sylhet. p. 303. East Pakistan Government Press. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  32. ^ Surinder Singh (2008). Popular Literature and Pre-modern Societies in South Asia. p. 32. Pearson Education India. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  33. ^ "Bhédsār, 1st Edition"Bhédsār, 1st Edition"". Endangered Archives Programme.
  34. ^ a b c 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. p. 667. BRILL. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  35. ^ Thibaut d'Hubert, ed. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. (2014), "Dobhāshī", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE (Brill Online). Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  36. ^ Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (2003). Culture and Learning in Islam. p. 115. UNESCO. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  37. ^ Archiving texts in the Sylhet Nagri script (EAP071) British Library. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  38. ^ "In North-East and North Sylhet, especially in Jaintiapur and Karimganj, the language is more corrupt. Sylhet Town, which is the head-quarters of the District, being within six miles of the Jaintiapur Pargana lies within the area in which this dialect is spoken, and hence this form of speech is called Sylhettia by Europeans. E 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. It is estimated that of the 2,033,000 speakers of Bengali in Sylhet, 1,355,000 use ordinary Eastern Bengali. The rest speak Sylhettia." (Grierson 1903:221)
  39. ^ (Grierson 1903:224)
  40. ^ 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.
  41. ^ Tanweer Fazal (2013). Minority Nationalisms in South Asia. Routledge. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-1-317-96647-0.
  42. ^ Tasiqul Islam (2012). "Hasan Raja". In Sirajul Islam; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir (eds.). Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. OL 30677644M. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
  43. ^ Zakaria, Saymon (2012). "Karim, Shah Abdul". In Sirajul Islam; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir (eds.). Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. OL 30677644M. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
  44. ^ Pradip Phanjoubam (2015). The Northeast Question: Conflicts and frontiers. p. 180. Routledge. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  45. ^ "Sylheti is a minoritised, politically unrecognised, and understudied Eastern Indo-Aryan language with approximately 11 million speakers worldwide, with high speaker concentrations in the Surma and Barak river basins in north-eastern Bangladesh and south Assam, India, and in several diasporic communities around the world (especially UK, USA, and Middle East)." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:1)
  46. ^ "It is not officially recognised in Bangladesh, where it is simply referred to as a dialect of Bengali by the government (Faquire 2012); it has, equally, no legal status in India." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:4)
  47. ^ Hamid, Shahela (2011). Language Use and Identity: The Sylheti Bangladeshis in Leeds. Peter Lang. pp. 26–28. ISBN 9783039115594.
  48. ^ James N. Stanford, Dennis Richard Preston (2009). Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages. Disciplines. p. 441. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
  49. ^ "British schools enlist Sylheti in their syllabi". Dhaka Tribune. 22 June 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  50. ^ "Coronavirus vaccine Q&A in five South Asian languages". BBC News. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  51. ^ "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)
  52. ^ a b c "The Cachar version in p. 234 may be taken as illustrating the typical Eastern Sylhet dialect also." George Grierson (1903). Language Survey of India – Vol. V Pt 1. Motilal Banarsidass.
  53. ^ "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)
  54. ^ Chatterji 1926, p. 138.
  55. ^ "The Bengali dialects of the extreme east and south-east (Sylhet, Chittagong) are certainly more removed from Standard Bengali than is Assamese." (Chatterji 1926:8)
  56. ^ a b "... because of significant morpho-phonological differences and a lack of mutual intelligibility, a strong argument can be made in favour of Sylheti claiming the status of a language in its own right." (Sen 2020:43)
  57. ^ "Glottolog 4.4 - Sylheti". glottolog.org.
  58. ^ (Rasinger 2007:26, 27): "The linguistic classification of Sylheti is problematic and heavily debated. Chalmers reports that: Sylheti is generally defined as a dialect of Bengali, although attempts have been made to have it recognised as a language in its own right (Chalmers, 1996:4)"
  59. ^ (Chung 2019:99)
  60. ^ "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)
  61. ^ "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)
  62. ^ "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)
  63. ^ "The claim of mutual intelligibility by some speakers of both Sylheti and Bengali may be more an effect of the speakers' exposure to both languages; speakers of Sylheti who have never learned Bengali often report that they do not understand it to any functional degree." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:5)
  64. ^ "[T]he academic consensus on mutual intelligibility between Sylheti and Bengali ranges from 'unintelligible' to 'hardly intelligible' (Chalmers 1996)." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:4–5)
  65. ^ "The papers presented in this volume highlight some of the striking structural differences between Sylheti and standard Bengali, in phonetics and phonology, lexicon, and grammatical structure, and challenge the view that Sylheti is merely a dialectal variation of Bengali." (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:8)
  66. ^ "Considering the unique linguistic properties such as phoneme inventory, allophony, and inflectional morphology in particular and lexicon in general, Sylheti is often regarded as a separate language (Grierson 1928, Chatterjee 1939, Gordon 2005).(Gope & Mahanta 2014:10)
  67. ^ "One of the properties that distinguish Sylheti from SCB or other regional varieties is the significant application of obstruent weakening involving de-aspiration and spirantization." (Gope & Mahanta 2014:10)
  68. ^ "Consequently, the consonant inventory (especially the obstruents), of Sylheti exhibit a major reduction and restructuring compared to that of (Standard Colloquial Bengali)." (Gope & Mahanta 2014:10)
  69. ^ "Also noteworthy is the development of tones due to loss of the breathiness and aspiration contrast." (Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
  70. ^ Chalmers, R. (1996:6). Learning Sylheti. London: Centre for Bangladeshi Studies, Roehampton Institute.
  71. ^ Kershen, Anne J (2019). A Question of Identity. Section: Language in Bangladesh.
  72. ^ 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.
  73. ^ a b "ভাষা ও সংষ্কৃতি" (in Bengali). Bangladesh National Portal. 13 September 2020. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  74. ^ Mayenin, Munayem (2012). Larakoron My Sylheti Grammar. Lulu.com. p. 29. ISBN 9781470963231.
  75. ^ "ভাষা ও সংষ্কৃতি" (in Bengali). Bangladesh National Portal. 14 September 2020. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  76. ^ a b c Comanaru, Ruxandra; D'Ardenne, Jo (2018). The Development of Research Programme to Translate and Test the Personal well-being Questions in Sylheti and Urdu. p. 16. Köln: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
  77. ^ Sirajul Islam; Miah, Sajahan; Khanam, Mahfuza; Ahmed, Sabbir, eds. (2012). "Sylheti Nagri". Banglapedia: the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Online ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Banglapedia Trust, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. ISBN 984-32-0576-6. OCLC 52727562. OL 30677644M. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
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  81. ^ Robert Kirkpatrick (2015). English Language Education Policy in Asia. Springer. p. 30. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  82. ^ "Roman Script". Sylheti Translation And Research. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  83. ^ The New Testament in Sylheti. Bible League International (Ahle Kitab Society, Sylhet). 2014. ISBN 978-9849119401.
  84. ^ a b c (Simard, Dopierala & Thaut 2020:2)
  85. ^ Alam, Mahbub (11 August 2016). "সিলেটের মতো নয় হবিগঞ্জের ভাষা" [Habiganj's language is not like Sylhet's]. Banglanews24.com (in Bengali).
  86. ^ 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 19 September 2019.
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  89. ^ Audrey Gillan (21 July 2002). "From Bangladesh to Brick Lane". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 July 2008.
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  94. ^ Gideon Bolt, A. Sule Özüekren, Deborah Phillips (2013). Linking Integration and Residential Segregation. p. 137. Routledge. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
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  99. ^ "Its phoneme inventory differs from the inventory in the Standard dialect of Bangla or its closest varieties (Khan, 2010)." (Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
  100. ^ a b c (Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
  101. ^ Gope, Amalesh (2016). The phonetics and phonology of Sylheti tonogenesis. Guwahati: Indian Institute of Technology.
  102. ^ a b Raychoudhury, Priti; Mahanta, Shakuntala (28 May 2020). The three way tonal system of Sylheti (PDF). 10th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2020. pp. 503–507. doi:10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-103. S2CID 219499647.
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  106. ^ Pal, Animesh K. (1965). "Phonemes of a Dacca Dialect of Eastern Bengali and the Importance of Tone". Journal of the Asiatic Society. VII: 44–45. The tonal element in Panjabi as well as in Eastern Bengali has been noticed in respect of various new ways of treating the voiced aspirates and 'h'.
  107. ^ Masica, Colin P. (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge University Press, p. 102, Glottalization is often connected with tone and in the East Bengali cases seem to be related to the evolution of tone from the voiced aspirates.
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Bibliography

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Notes

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Sylheti language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
 
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Sylheti phrasebook.
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