Languages of Bangladesh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although there are 38 different languages of Bangladesh,^[1] Bengali is far and away the most widely-spoken language in in the country - an estimated 98% of the population can speak it,^[2] and it enjoys the status of official language and the lingua franca of the nation.

1 Bengali and its dialects
2 Regional and tribal languages
3 Foreign languages
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Bengali and its dialects

Bengali is spoken by almost all people across Bangladesh, which shares the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal with the Indian state of West Bengal. The language also composes of regional and urban dialects:

Chittagonian language: spoken in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and neighbouring Myanmar by more than 14 million people, it shares numerous characteristics with the Burmese language and is considered a nonstandard dialect of Bengali.
Sylheti language: spoken in the Sylhet region by more than 7 million people, it is closely related to the Assamese language of the neighbouring Indian state of Assam.

[edit] Regional and tribal languages

Arakanese language: spoken by approximately 200,000 people, mainly residing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region.
Bishnupriya Manipuri: spoken by an estimated 40,000 people residing in the areas neighbouring the Indian state of Manipur.
Chakma language: spoken by the 300,000 people of the Chakma tribe.
Garo language: spoken by the 100,000 people of the Garo tribe.
Ho language: spoken by an indeterminate number of people.
Kokborok: spoken by approximately 100,000 people living in the region neighbouring the Indian state of Tripura.
Kurukh: spoken by Oraon people living in Rajshahi.

[edit] Foreign languages

A variety of foreign languages are spoken and used in Bangladesh. English is widely spoken and understood, especially by people in urban areas. Bangladesh's Muslims frequently use Arabic for religious purposes. Languages such as Burmese and Assamese are also spoken by smaller communities. Urdu is spoken by the small community of Bihari people, who migrated from the Indian state of Bihar with the partition of India in 1947.