Sylheti is the language of Sylhet, the North Eastern province of Bangladesh and a few southern districts of Assam. It is also spoken by a significant population in the other north-eastern states of India. It is similar enough to Bengali for some to consider it a dialect, but is probably better seen as a separate language. Indeed it was formerly written in its own script, Sylheti Nagari, similar in style to Devanagari but significantly simpler. Now it is almost invariably written in Bengali script.
The difference between Sylheti is a tendency to slur aspirated sounds and a vocabulary that is far more given to Arabic and Persian words than standard Bengali found in West Bengal. Sylheti is spoken by about 10% of Bangladeshis, but has affected the course of standard Bangla in the rest of the state.
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Last updated: 08-04-2005 17:58:19
