Sylheti language

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]
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A description of the king and queen of the termites in Sylheti

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.

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]

  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 Sylheti at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  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. ^ "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 "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. ^ Cite error: The named reference simmard-corrupt was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference simard-shift was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "In the context of the UK, Sylheti has more vitality than Bangla on the basis of its demography." (Hamid 2005:243)


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