#sylheti

Where do I start?

Is it better to learn how to read and write before learning how to speak?

Is it worth it learning the language using Romans rather than going straight into the alphabet?

When I asked these questions I was informed that nobody can read or write in sylheti - because of the ban of the alphabet and the encouragement of bangla over sylheti.

Oh boy, that is a complicated question. And I wanted to talk about it for so long, so thsnks for giving me that opportunity.

Linguistically speaking, no, I'm not. I'm a Bengali. That 'duita' is in fact Bengali, but a dialect called Sylheti, not Assamese, though it also has the word. Assamese does have a lot of similarities with Sylheti, so that might explain it.

But I, like generations of both sides of my family, do live in Assam, so in that sense I am Assamese. But I do not speak the language, though if spoken slowly, I understand most of it.

Sylheti (ছিলটি)

Basic facts

Number of native speakers: 10 million

Spoken in: Bangladesh, India

Script: Sylheti, 35 letters/Bengali-Assamese, 36 letters

Grammatical cases: 4

Linguistic typology: fusional, SOV

Language family: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Eastern, Bengali-Assamese

Number of dialects: 2 main groups

History

16th century - the Sylheti alphabet starts being used

1870 - a Sylheti printing press is designed

Writing system and pronunciation

These are the letters that make up the Sylheti script:

These are the letters that make up the Bengali-Assamese script: অ আ ই ঈ উ ঊ এ ও ক খ গ ঘ ঙ চ ছ জ ঝ ট ঠ ড ড় ঢ ত থ দ ধ ন প ফ ব ভ ম র ল স হ.

There are two tones: high and level. The former is sometimes marked using an apostrophe and signals the loss of aspiration.

Grammar

Nouns have two genders (animate and inanimate), two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (nominative, objective, genitive, and locative). Only definite nouns are inflected for number.

Personal pronouns have different forms according to honor: very familiar, familiar, and polite. Adjectives do not inflect for case, gender, or number and are placed before the noun.

Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, aspect, person, and honor. There are different types of negation depending on the kind of verb and the tense.

Dialects