Chittagonian ( ''saṭgãia'' or ''siʈaiŋga'') is an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

spoken in parts of the

Chittagong Division Chittagong Division, officially known as Chattogram Division, is geographically the largest of the eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh. It covers the south-easternmost areas of the country, with a total area of and a population at the 2 ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

. Its speakers identify with Bengali culture and the

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

language, but Chittagonian and Bengali are not

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...

. Chittagonian is considered to be a separate language by many linguists. It is mutually intelligible with

Rohingya The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

and to a lesser extent with

Noakhailla Noakhailla (), also known by the exonym Noakhalian, is a dialect of Bengali, spoken by an estimated 7 million people, primarily in the Greater Noakhali region of Bangladesh as well as southern parts of Tripura in India. Outside of these regions, t ...

. It is estimated (2009) that Chittagonian has 13–16 million speakers, principally in Bangladesh.

Classification

Chittagonian is a member of the Bengali-Assamese sub-branch of the Eastern group of

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, P ...

, a branch of the wider Indo-European language family. It is derived through an Eastern

Middle Indo-Aryan The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA ...

from Old Indo-Aryan, and ultimately from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

. grouped the dialects of Chittagong under ''Southeastern Bengali'', alongside the dialects of

Noakhali Noakhali ( bn, নোয়াখালী, , New canal), historically known as Bhulua ( bn, ভুলুয়া), is a district in southeastern Bangladesh, located in the Chittagong Division. It was established as district in 1821, and officia ...

and

Akyab Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers emp ...

. places Chittagonian in the eastern Vangiya group of

Magadhi Prakrit Magadhi Prakrit (''Māgadhī'') is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali and Sanskrit. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit. H ...

and notes that all Bengali dialects were independent of each other and did not emanate from the literary Bengali called " sadhu bhasha". Among the different dialect groups of these eastern dialects, Chittagonian has phonetic and morphological properties that are alien to standard Bengali and other western dialects of Bengali.

Phonology

Consonants

* Approximants are only heard as allophones of vowels . * can have a post-alveolar allophone of . * can have an allophone of . * can have a bilabial allophone of .

Vowels

* Nasalization occurs for seven vowels . * is heard as an allophone of .

Writing system

The

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

has historically been used to write this language. The

Bengali script Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

(Bangla Lipi) and

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

are used to write this language.

Gboard Gboard is a virtual keyboard app developed by Google for Android and iOS devices. It was first released on iOS in May 2016, followed by a release on Android in December 2016, debuting as a major update to the already-established Google Keyboa ...

for Android has added Chittagongian Keyboard.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

{{Languages of Bangladesh Languages of Bangladesh Eastern Indo-Aryan languages Subject–object–verb languages Articles citing Nationalencyklopedin Chittagong District Bengali dialects