Sylheti language
Indo-Aryan language
Sylheti is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by an estimated 11 million people, primarily in Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, Barak Valley of Assam, and northern parts of Tripura in India. In addition, there are substantial numbers of Sylheti speakers in the Indian states of Meghalaya, Manipur, and Nagaland, as well as among diaspora communities across the globe—from Britain and North America to various parts of the Middle East.
It is variously perceived as either a dialect of Bengali or a language in its own right. While many linguists consider it an independent language, for many native speakers Sylheti forms the diglossic vernacular, with standard Bengali forming the codified lect. Some incorrectly consider it as a "corrupt" form of Bengali, and there is a reported language shift from Sylheti to Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, India and the diaspora; though Sylheti has more vitality than Standard Bengali among the diaspora in the United Kingdom.
Name
Sylheti is eponymously named after Sylhet, referring to the dialect or language spoken of that area. According to Grierson (1903) the vernacular was called Sylhettia by the Europeans after the town of Sylhet. 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".
Sylheti is also spelt or known as Sylhetti (or Sileti), Sylheti Bangla and Siloti (also spelt in Syloti or Syloty).
History
Sylheti belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages that evolved from Magadhi Prakrit.
“Sylheti language” enters the record as indo-Aryan language. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sylheti, language and Indo-Aryan can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sylheti language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.