Sylheti Language - History

History

In the 19th century, the British tea-planters in the area referred to the Sylheti language as Sylhettia. In Assam, the language is still referred to as Srihattiya, the name used in ancient literature. The Sylheti language was written in the Sylheti Nagari script, which is not widely known.Sylhet has a rich heritage of literature in the Sylheti Nagari Script, (or नागरी, Nāgrī, the name of its parent writing system) going back at least 200 years. The Sylheti Nagari script includes 5 independent vowels, 5 dependent vowels attached to a consonant letter and 27 consonants. The Sylheti Nagari alphasyllabary differs from the Bengali alphabets as it is a form of Kaithi, a script (or family of scripts) which belongs to the main group of North Indian scripts of Bihar. The writing system's main use was to record religious poetry, described as a rich language and easy to learn. In the 1860s, a Sylheti by the name of Moulvi Abdul Karim spent several years in Europe and learnt the printing trade. After returning home, he designed a woodblock type for the Syloti-Nagri alphabet and founded the Islamia Press in Sylhet Town in about 1870. Other Sylheti presses were established in Sunamgonj, Shillong and Calcutta. These presses fell out of use during the early 1970s. Since then the Syloti-Nagri alphabet has been used mainly by linguists and academics. During the 1971 Liberation War, when all Sylheti Nagari printing presses were destroyed, the writing system came to a halt. After Bangladesh gained independence, the government of the newly formed Bangladesh mandated Bengali studies and the use of the Bengali alphabets as a curriculum to be taught at all levels of education. Efforts to establish Sylheti as a modern language were vigorously opposed by political and cultural forces allied to successive Bangladeshi governments.

Campaigns started to rise in London during the mid 1970s to mid 1980s to recognise Sylheti as a language on its own right. During the mid 1970s, when the first mother-tongue classes were established for Bangladeshis by a non-Sylheti, Nurul Islam, the classes were given in Bengali rather than Sylheti which triggered the campaign. During the 1980s, a recognition campaign for Sylheti took place in the area of Spitalfields, East End of London. One of the main organisation was the Bangladeshis' Educational Needs in Tower Hamlets (BENTH). However this organisation collapesed in 1985 and ended the pro-Sylheti campaign in the borough. Nonetheless Sylheti remained dominant and the domestic language within the hamlet. This fact is being recognised by Tower Hamlets Council in the provision of local services in the community.