Sylhetis

The Sylheti () are an Indo-Aryan ethnocultural group that are associated with the Sylhet region in South Asia, specifically in northeast of Bengal presently divided between the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, and the Barak Valley of Assam, India. There are sizeable Sylheti populations in Hojai district of Assam, the Indian areas of Meghalaya, North Tripura and Manipur's Jiribam district. They speak Sylheti, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language, which is ambiguously considered as an independent language, or as a dialect of Bengali."Along the linguistic continuum of eastern Indic languages, Sylheti occupies an ambiguous position, where it is considered a distinct language by many and also as a dialect of Bengali or Bangla by some others."

Sylheti identity is associated mainly with a cultural, linguistic and a strong regional identity, while accompanied with a national (of either Bangladeshi or Indian) and a Bengali identity.

History

In September 1874, the British East India Company made Sylhet district a part of the non-regulation Chief Commissioner's Province of Assam (Northeast Frontier Province) for commercial development. The transfer led to the natives of Sylhet protesting against the British viceroy Lord Northbrook as they viewed themselves as a part of the Bengali people, and distinct from the Assamese. Leaders of both the Hindu and Muslim communities submitted a memorandum to Northbrook on 10 August 1874. Northbrook was eventually able to convince the people of Sylhet by assuring them that education and justice will still be administered under Bengal, and highlighting the economic opportunity for Sylhetis in Assam's tea industry. With the approach of the independence movement towards 1920, Sylhetis began forming organisations such as the ''Sylhet Peoples' Association'' and ''Sylhet-Bengal Reunion League'' which demanded Sylhet to be reincorporated to Bengal.

Culture

Sylheti folklore is influenced by Hindu, Sufi, Turco-Persian and native ideas. Chandra Kumar De of Mymensingh is known to be the first researcher of Sylheti folklore. Archives of old works are kept in Kendriya Muslim Sahitya Sangsad in Sylhet (also known as the Sylhet Central Muslim Literary Society) – the oldest literary organisation in Bengal and one of the oldest in the subcontinent.

Literature

It has been argued that the first Bengali translation of the ''Mahabharata'' was written by Sri Sanjay of Sylhet in the 17th century. The 18th-century ''Hattanather Panchali'' (Hattanath chronicles) written by Ganesh Ram Shiromani was a Bengali ballad of 36,000 lines which detail the early history of Sylhet though its authenticity is questionable. When Sylhet was under the rule of the Twipra Kingdom, medieval Sylheti writers using the Bengali script included the likes of Dwija Pashupati, the author of Chandravali – considered one of the earliest Sylheti works. Nasiruddin Haydar of Sylhet town wrote the Tawarikh-e-Jalali, the first Bengali biography of Shah Jalal. Gobind Gosai of Masulia wrote ''Nirbban Shongit'', Gopinath Dutta wrote ''Dronporbbo'', ''Dotto Bongshaboli'' and ''Nariporbbo'' and Nur Ali Khan of Syedpur wrote ''Marifoti Geet''. Songwriters and poets such as Radharaman Dutta, Hason Raja and Shah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to Bengali literature and their works remain popular across Bengal in present-times. Numerous Bengali writers emerged in Ita, such as Kobi Muzaffar Khan, Gauri Shankar Bhatta and Golok Chand Ghosh. Muslim literature was based upon historical affairs and biographies of prominent Islamic figures. Like the rest of Muslim Bengal, Bengali Muslim poetry was written in a colloquial dialect of Bengali which came to be known as Dobhashi, and has had a major influence on Sylheti. Dobhashi featured the use of Perso-Arabic vocabulary in Bengali texts. A separate script was developed in Sylhet for this popular linguistic register. Known as the Sylheti Nagri script, its most renowned writer was Sadeq Ali whose ''Halatunnabi'' was famed as household item amongst rural Muslim communities. Manuscripts have been found of works such as ''Rag Namah'' by Fazil Nasim Muhammad, ''Shonabhaner Puthi'' by Abdul Karim, and the earliest known work ''Talib Huson'' (1549) by Gholam Huson. Late Nagri writers include Muhammad Haidar Chaudhuri who wrote ''Ahwal-i-Zamana'' in 1907 and Muhammad Abdul Latif who wrote ''Pohela Kitab o Doikhurar Rag'' in 1930. In 2021, Shuvagoto Chowdhury was awarded the Bangla Academy Literary Award.

Other languages

Sylhetis have contributed to Sanskrit literature throughout history. In the 15th century, Jagadish Tarkalankar wrote several Sanskrit books, many of which were made up of numerous volumes. Tarlankar's ''Shabdashaktiprakashika'' was a famous textbook for Sanskrit learners. His contemporary, Advaita Acharya of Laur, wrote two medieval Sanskrit books, ''Yogabashishta-Bhaishta'' and ''Geeta Bhaishya''. In the 16th century, Murari Gupta wrote the first Sanskrit biography of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Raghunath Shiromani wrote 40 books in Sanskrit. Some works written by Sylhetis have also been translated into other languages. For example, Ashraf Hussain's ''Manipurer Ladai'' was translated into English by Dinesh Chandra Sen and included in the ''Eastern Bengal Ballads''.

Sylhet, in particular the Taraf, was also an esteemed centre for the study of Persian, an official language up until the British period, due to the high population of foreign missionaries from Central Asia and Persia following the Conquest of Sylhet. ''Ma'dan al-Fawaid'' was written in 1534 by Syed Shah Israil who is considered to be Sylhet's first author. Other prominent writers include Muhammad Arshad, Syed Rayhan ad-Din and Syed Pir Badshah. Reyazuddin of Taraf wrote a Persian book on "Dream Fruit". Ala Bakhsh Mazumdar Hamed was known to have written Tuhfatul Muhsineen and Diwan-i-Hamed. Collectively, the works of these two people belonging to the Mazumdar family of Sylhet, are regarded amongst the most creative literary works in the Sylhet region. Majid Bakht Mazumdar wrote an English book on the family history.

In the 19th century, Urdu