It is variously perceived as either adialect 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 thediglossicvernacular, withstandard Bengali forming thecodified lect.[12] Some incorrectly consider it as a "corrupt" form of Bengali,[13] and there is a reportedlanguage 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]
Sylheti is eponymously named afterSylhet, referring to the dialect or language spoken of that area.[16] According toGrierson (1903) the vernacularwas calledSylhettia by the Europeans after the town of Sylhet.[17] Though the speakers at that time referred to it asJaintiapuri,Purba Srihattiya, orUjania with the latter meaning "the language of the upper country".[18]
Sylheti is also spelt or known asSylhetti (orSileti),Sylheti Bangla andSiloti (also spelt inSyloti orSyloty).[19]
Sylheti belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, that evolved fromMagadhi Prakrit.[20] The lowlands around Sylhet were originally inhabited by ancientKhasi people (Austroasiatic);[21] and the earliest knownIndo-Aryan settlements were made in the 6th century underKamarupa 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 inRajnagar,Moulvibazar that was issued by KingSrichandra during the 10th century.[28]
The MuslimConquest 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 fromPersian andArabic,[30] cultivating the Perso-Arabic influence on the vernacular.[31] A script was developed in the region calledSylheti Nagri, which primarily focused on disseminatingSufi poetry, known asputhi.[32] Its earliest known work had been written during the 1600s, calledBhedsar by Syed Shah Husayn Alam.[33] The literature was transcribed in the standard form of late Middle Bengali, it was similar to theDobhashi 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 theIslamic 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 theGovernment 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 theAssam 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 asHason Raja orShah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to the literature.[42][43] Sylhet was reunited with Bengal following areferendum in 1947.[44]
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 aslang or corrupt version of Standard Bengali and not an independent language;[13] and there is a reportedlanguage 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 adiglossia where Sylheti is one among other low statusregional dialects while Standard Bengali, theofficial language, has a high status.[47]
In the Indian state of Assam whereAssamese is the state language, Standard Bengali language serves as an additional official language in itsBarak 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 toCOVID-19 in five majorSouth Asian languages including Sylheti.[50]
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 easternVangiya group ofMagadhi 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 andChittagonian 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 andmutual intelligibility differences are significant enough that Sylheti could claim itself as a language on its own right.[56]Ethnologue groups Sylheti inBengali–Assamese languages;[5] whereas Glottolog gives further subgrouping and places it in the "Eastern Bengali" group alongsideHajong, separately from the Bengali dialects.[57]
While modernsociolinguistics generally talks aboutvarieties, rather than languages and dialects, there are still many disagreements about the status of language varieties outside the discipline. These can be for reasons of funding or recognition,[58] or for reasons of identity.
The classification of Sylheti is contentious—Chalmers (1996) suggested that it was generally identified as adialect ofBengali though there were efforts to recognise it as a language.[59][60] 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.[61][62] 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.[63] Simard, Dopierala and Thaut have pointed out that the intelligibility could be an effect of prior exposure of Sylheti speakers to Standard Bengali,[64] and that the academic consensus is that mutual intelligibility ranges from "unintelligible" to "hardly intelligible".[65] 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][66][67]
Phonologically Sylheti is distinguished from Standard Bengali andother regional varieties by significant deaspiration and spirantisation,[68] leading to major restructuring of the consonant inventory[69] and the development of tones.[70]
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.[71] 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 ofTower Hamlets, which lacked support from the Sylheti community itself.[72][73]
Halat-un-Nabi, aputhi written bySadeq Ali is considered to be the most prominent literature in Sylheti Nagri.[74]
The presence and influence ofShah Jalal andShri Chaitanya dev is found in the Sylheti literature.[75] According to Syed Mostafa Kamal, (approximately 1650 AD) theBaul tradition was founded based on the combination of Chaitanyavad and Jaganmohani ideologies, that mystic literature influenced and seen in theVaishnava Padavali. As a result, Sylhet is considered as the spiritual capital of mysticism and the fertile land of Baul music.[74] 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.[76]
Sylheti currently does not have a standardised writing system.[77] Historically in the Sylhet region, theSylheti Nagri script was used alongside the Bengali script.[34] Sylheti Nagri was however mostly limited to writing religious poetry.[52] The script often avoidedtatsama (Sanskrit-derived terms) and incorporated Perso-Arabic vocabulary. Additionally, Sylheti Nagri texts were traditionally paginated from right to left.[78][79] 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.[80] An endangered script, it has since seen a revival mostly by academics and linguists.[81]
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 theSylhet Division in north-eastern Bangladesh, with its concentration mostly in the districts ofSylhet,Moulvibazar,easternSunamganj andnorth-easternHabiganj.[85] Recent findings assert that the local dialect spoken in much of the Habiganj district differs quite significantly from Sylheti.[86]
Outside theIndian subcontinent, the largest grouping of Sylheti speakers reside in the United Kingdom, of which 95 percent ofBritish Bangladeshis have origins from the Sylhet region.[89] It is estimated there are around 400,000 Sylheti speakers in the UK.[77] The largest concentration live ineast London boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets.[90] There are also significant numbers of speakers in the United States, most are concentrated in New York City,[91] and inHamtramck, Michigan where majority ofBangladeshi Americans there are of Sylheti origin.[92][93] There are also small numbers located inToronto, Canada.[94][95] Significant Sylheti-speaking communities reside in theMiddle East of which most are migrant workers,[96][97] and in many other countries throughout the world.
The phoneme inventory of Sylheti differs from bothStandard Rarhi Bengali as well as thetypical Bangladeshi Standard.[100] It is characterised by a loss of breathiness and aspiration contrasts, leading to a significant reduction in its phoneme inventory and to thedevelopment of tones. In particular, the following developments are seen:[101][102]
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/).[103]
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.[103]
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 tonalTibeto-Burman languages including various dialects ofKokborok such asReang. 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.
When adefinite article such as-gu/ţa (singular) or-guin/ţin (plural) is added, nouns are also inflected fornumber. Below are two tables which show the inflections of an animate noun,ꠍꠣꠔ꠆ꠞsatrô ('student'), and an inanimate noun,ꠎꠥꠔꠣzuta ('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,ꠅô, 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 ofꠉꠥꠍgus 'meat' beingꠉꠥꠍꠞgusôr '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 ofꠙꠥꠀfua beingꠙꠥꠀꠞfuar '(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 ꠟꠣꠉꠤhiknôrlagi, '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,ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠅsilôţô 'in Sylhet',ꠑꠣꠇꠣꠔdáxát 'in Dhaka', etc.
When counted, nouns must also be accompanied by the appropriatemeasure word. The noun's measure word (MW) must be used in between the numeral and the noun. Most nouns take the generic measure wordgu/ţa/xán, although there are many more specific measure words, such aszôn, which is only used to count humans.
Measuring nouns in Sylheti without their corresponding measure words (e.g.aţ mekur instead ofaţ-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 oneperson will remain.', sincezôn can only be used to count humans.
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, andP=polite (honor);H=here,T=there,E=elsewhere (proximity), andI=inanimate.
Thenominative case is used for pronouns that are the subject of the sentence, such as "I already did that" or "Willyou please stop making that noise?"
Theobjective case is used for pronouns serving as the direct or indirect objects, such as "I toldhim to wash the dishes" or "The teacher gaveme the homework assignment". The inanimate pronouns remain the same in the objective case.
Thepossessive case is used to show possession, such as "Where isyour coat?" or "Let's go toour 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 ismy book" and "There ismy need for money" respectively).
Bengali has no negative pronouns (such asno one, nothing, none). These are typically represented by adding the negative particleꠘꠣꠄ (nae) toindefinite pronouns, which are themselves derived from their corresponding question words. Common indefinite pronouns are listed below.
The relative pronounꠎꠦ (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.
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 prefixingꠛꠦ-be-, or sometimesꠘꠤ-ni-; for example, the opposite ofꠞꠥꠎꠉꠣꠞ (ruzgar, 'earning') isꠛꠦꠞꠥꠎꠉꠣꠞ (beruzgar, 'not earning, idle, mendicant'), the opposite ofꠇꠣꠝꠣ (xama, 'of use') isꠘꠤꠇꠣꠝꠣ (nixama, 'useless, of no use').
Demonstrative adjectives – 'this' and 'that' – correspond toꠁ, ꠅ/ꠅꠃi, ô/ôu andꠢꠤ, ꠢ/ꠢꠃhi, hô/hou, with the definite article attached to the following noun. Thus, 'this book' would translate toꠁ/ꠅꠃ ꠛꠁꠈꠣꠘi boi-xan, while 'those books' would translate toꠢꠃ ꠛꠁ-ꠉꠤꠍꠤꠘ/ꠛꠁ-ꠉꠥꠘ/ꠛꠁ-ꠀꠁꠘhi boi-gisin/boi-gun/boi-ain.
Sylheti adjectives form their comparative forms withꠀꠞꠅ (arô, 'more'), and their superlative forms withꠡꠛ ꠕꠣꠇꠤ (shôb táki, 'than all'). Comparisons are formed by using genitive form of the object of comparison, followed by the postpositionꠕꠣꠇꠤ/ꠕꠘꠤ (táki/tóni, 'than') or the postpositionꠟꠣꠇꠣꠘ (laxan, 'like') and then byꠀꠞꠅ (arô, 'more') orꠇꠝ (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 usingꠛꠟꠘ/ꠛꠣꠇ꠆ꠇꠣ/ꠛꠃꠔ (bolon/bakka/bout, 'much') orꠛꠃꠔ (bout, 'much'), which are especially useful for comparing quantities.
Sylheti verbs are highlyinflected 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 stemꠈꠣ and similarlyꠇꠞꠣ/ ꠇꠞꠘꠣ (xôra/ xôrna, to do) is formed from the stemꠇꠞ. The stem can end in either a vowel or a consonant. Verbs are conjugated fortense andperson 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 asvowel harmony, whereby one vowel can be influenced by other vowels in the word to sound more harmonious. An example would be the verbto write, with stemlex-:ꠟꠦꠈꠅ (lexô, 'you all write') but alsoꠟꠦꠈꠤ (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 asꠎꠣꠘꠤ (zani, to go) that change the first consonant in their stem in certain conjugations.
Like many otherIndo-Aryan languages (such asStandard Bengali orAssamese), nouns can be turned into verbs by combining them with select auxiliary verbs. In Sylheti, the most common such auxiliary verb isꠇꠞꠣ (xôra, 'to do'); thus, verbs such asjoke are formed by combining the noun form ofjoke (ꠓꠋ) withto do (ꠇꠞꠣ) to createꠓꠋ ꠇꠞꠣ. When conjugating such verbs the noun part of such a verb is left untouched, so in the previous example, onlyꠇꠞꠣ would be inflected or conjugated (e.g.:I will make a joke becomesꠀꠝꠤ ꠓꠋ ꠇꠞꠝꠥ; see more on tenses below). Other auxiliary verbs includeꠖꠦꠘꠤ andꠘꠦꠘꠤ, but the verbꠇꠞꠘꠣ 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 asꠜꠥꠐ ꠖꠦꠘꠤ (búţ deni, wherebúţ is the transliteration ofvote).
Sylheti is considered azero 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 verbꠀꠍ- (as) is used, which is conjugated according to the rules given below.
In the past tense, the incomplete verbꠀꠍ- 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 verbꠕꠣꠇꠣ (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
There are three sentence negators employed in Sylheti:
The zero verb copula is negated using the incomplete negatorꠘ-, which is conjugated asꠘꠣꠄ (1),ꠘꠣꠁ (2),ꠘꠣ (3).
Existential sentences that use the verbꠀꠍ- are negated withꠘꠣꠁ (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 particleꠘꠣꠄ (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 negatorꠘ- conjugated for first-person
We don't have a car
ꠀꠝꠞꠣꠞ ꠉꠣꠠꠤ ꠘꠣꠁ
ꠘꠣꠁ used to negateꠀꠍ-, which is completely replaced
Verbs are inflected for person andhonour, 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) andafne (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) andafnara (ꠀꠙꠘꠣꠞꠣ).
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:
মেঘmegh in Standard Bengali means 'cloud'.
মেঘmêg(h) in Eastern Bengali means 'rain' or 'cloud'.
^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.
^ab"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)
^abcd"Sylheti".Ethnologue.Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved9 January 2024.
^"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)
^"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)
^"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)
^ab"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)
^ab"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)
^"In the context of the UK, Sylheti has more vitality than Bangla on the basis of its demography." (Hamid 2005:243)
^Anne Kershen (2004).Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1666-2000. p. 145. Routledge. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
^"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)
^"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)
^William Farwley (2003).International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: 4-Volume Set. p. 483. Oxford University Press, USA. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
^South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203
^"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)
^Sircar, Dineshchandra (1971).Studies in the geography of ancient and medieval India. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 161.
^Chatterjee, Suhas (1998).Indian Civilization and Culture. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 432.
^" Sylhet town (Srihatta) became a major centre of lowland territorialism after the 10th century CE" (Ludden 2003:5081)
^Rakhal Das Banerji (2003).Origin of the Bengali Script. p. 6.
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^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.
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^Surinder Singh (2008).Popular Literature and Pre-modern Societies in South Asia. p. 32. Pearson Education India. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
^abcThibaut 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.
^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.
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^"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 thisdialect 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)
^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.
^Pradip Phanjoubam (2015).The Northeast Question: Conflicts and frontiers. p. 180. Routledge. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
^"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)
^"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)
^Hamid, Shahela (2011).Language Use and Identity: The Sylheti Bangladeshis in Leeds. Peter Lang. pp. 26–28.ISBN9783039115594.
^James N. Stanford, Dennis Richard Preston (2009).Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages. Disciplines. p. 441. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
^"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)
^"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)
^"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)
^ab"... 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)
^(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)"
^"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)
^"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)
^"Intelligibility of Standard Bengali by Sylhetis, the geographically clearly clearly defined use of Sylheti and its usage by a predominantly rural population indicate that Sylheti may indeed be a dialect of Bengali." (Rasinger 2007:27)
^"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)
^"[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)
^"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)
^"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)
^"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)
^"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)
^"Also noteworthy is the development of tones due to loss of the breathiness and aspiration contrast."(Mahanta & Gope 2018:81)
^Chalmers, R. (1996:6).Learning Sylheti. London: Centre for Bangladeshi Studies, Roehampton Institute.
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^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'.
^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.
^Das, Amrita Rani (2017).A Comparative Study of Bangla and Sylheti Grammar (Thesis). Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.doi:10.6093/UNINA/FEDOA/11892.S2CID165942159.
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Lawson, Sarah; Sachdev, Itesh (2004). "Identity, Language Use and Attitudes: Some Sylheti-Bangladeshi Data from London, UK".Journal of Language and Social Psychology.23 (1):49–60.doi:10.1177/0261927X03261223.S2CID144496795.
Ludden, David (2003). "Investing in Nature around Sylhet: An Excursion into Geographical History".Economic and Political Weekly.38 (48):5080–5088.JSTOR4414346.
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