Linguistic situation in Bangladesh

How many languages do you think Bangladesh has? To answer this question, many people without any thought will say that Bangladesh is a monolingual country. According to them, people living in this country speak in one language only. However, that is a completely wrong answer. Bengali as a first language or mother tongue takes the dominant position inside the country, but there are other languages too that are mainly spoken by indigenous people living in mountainous areas. 

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In Bangladesh, there are about two million indigenous people who are divided into 50 indigenous communities. These indigenous communities speak in 30 ethnic-languages, which belong to four language families. Of them, 12-18 ethnic-languages are facing a serious threat of being extinct for not having an adequate number of speakers. As a result, very few people practice these languages. Below is a list of indigenous languages that are the member of four language families.

• Austro-Asiatic: Santal, Mundari and Khashi.
• Sino-Tibetan: Garo, Kokborok and Marma.
• Dravidian: Kurux and Sauria Paharia.
• Indo-Aryan: Bengali, Chakma, Hajong, Tanchangya and Urdu.

Not all indigenous languages have their own alphabets or written forms. In this case, Chakma, Marma, Mru and Meitei are fortunate enough because these four languages have their own scripts. Apart from these, there is another indigenous language named Sadri, which is spoken by Telegu, Santhali, Nepali, Rai and other indigenous communities as a lingua franca in the Sylhet tea garden area. This language is made up of alphabets taking from Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and other languages. When it comes to taking formal education, these language speakers have to depend on Bengali. Major indigenous languages dominate small languages. It is sad but true that authorities related to this sector have not taken any initiative to preserve these languages.

Apart from the above-stated indigenous languages, there are English, Arabic, Persian, Urdu and several other languages mainly spoken by the settlers coming from India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan etc.

Bengali language: The state language

In Bangladesh, 98% of people speak in Bengali fluently. The official language of Bangladesh is Standard Bengali (চলিত বা শুদ্ধ ভাষা). Most of the Bangladeshis speak in Standard Bengali or Bengali dialects as their first language. Therefore, it serves as the lingua franca of the nation. In Bangladesh, there are 16 dialects or regional varieties of Bengali language- Barishal, Bogura, Chattogram, Cumilla, Dhaka, Dinajpur, Faridpur, Jashore, Khulna, Kushtia, Mymensingh, Noakhali, Pabna, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Sylhet. Some of these dialects are so hard that the speakers of other regional varieties cannot understand these properly. For this reason, these dialects are treated as separate languages.

Bengali language is not only spoken in Bangladesh. A sizeable population in India, especially the inhabitants of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, use Bengali as the first official language. The Indian state of Jharkhand has recognized Bengali as the second official language. Therefore, it has got the status as one of the 22 official languages of India. As a first language or second language, it is spoken by 265 million people across the world, thus making it the seventh most spoken language in the world.

Bengali language belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Indian sub-continent. It has been originated from Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakrit. This language has its own script known as Eastern Nagari script. Some notable litterateurs in Bengali literature are Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jibanananda Das etc. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first Asian Nobel laureate after getting Nobel Prize for his book Gitanjali in Literature. On November 17, 1999, UNESCO has recognized February 21, Bengali Language Martyr Day, as International Mother Language Day.

If we look at the constitution of Bangladesh, we can see that Bengali is the only national and official language of this country. It is also the state language of this country. Despite using English in all sectors of this country, it has not even been recognized as the second language of Bangladesh. However, for its widespread use, it can be regarded as the co-official language of Bangladesh. In our country, the aristocratic society used to communicate in English as part of fashion or prestige. Nowadays, people of all classes use English more or less.