Shawdesh Desk:

At least 28 out of 41 ethnic languages in Bangladesh are in the risk of extinction as  the  number of some ethnic groups dropped sharply and many ethnic people hesitate to speak their own tongues, according to linguists and ethnic community leaders.

Displacement from their land motivated many ethnic people to leave the country in last 100 years while those stayed back speak their languages only within the confines of their homes or neighbourhoods, they said.

‘A language is considered vulnerable when less than 30,000 people speak it,’ said International Mother Language Institute director general professor Jinnat Imtiaz Ali.

A linguistic survey held by the institute from 2014 to 2017 revealed that 28 out of 41 ethnic languages of Bangladesh are spoken by less than 30,000 people.

New Age accessed the linguistic survey report that is yet to be published officially.

The ethnic languages that are gradually dying are Bom, Kondo, Chak, Hajong, Khashi, Kharia, Khiyang, Khumi, Koch, Kol, Lusai, Ahamiya, Monipuri Maitai, Monipuri Bishnupriya, Kanpuri, Pankhoa, Malto, Patro,

Rakhain, Soura, Madrasi, Gurkha/Nepali, Rengmitcha, Koda, Lingum, Uriya, Sadri and Malpahari.

The Rengmitcha language is spoken by only 40 Rengmitcha women and men who live in Ali Kadam in Bandarban.

And each of 11 other ethnic languages is  spoken by less than 1,000 people and these languages include Kondo, Kharia, Lusai, Ahamiya,  Kanpuri, Soura, Madrasi, Gurkha/Nepali, Koda, Lingum and Uriya.

Jinnat, who teaches linguistics at Dhaka University, said that many of the languages are on the verge of extinction in Bangladesh though many of them are widely spoken in India.

He said that the institute classified 14 ethnic languages as endangered as only the elders still speak them.

This year the UN took Indigenous Languages as the theme for the celebration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Bangladesh Adivasi Forum took a weeklong programme to celebrate the day with a call to preserve Bangladesh’s ethnic languages.

‘Dying language means a nation is dying as well,’ said Bangladesh Adivasi Forum general secretary Sanjeeb Drong.

In 2017, Rakhain author, researcher and leader Tahan, 80, had told New Age in an interview that by the 1st quarter of the 20th century the Rakhain population increased to over 50,000 in 242 coastal villages in Patuakhali and Barguna alone.

But their number dropped to 2,500 in 47 villages in Barguna and Patuakhali, said Tahan.

Rakhain rights activist Myentthein Promila said that her community people were driven out of their homes by land grabbers. She said that many of them left for Myanmar.

Rakhain is listed as one of the vulnerable language by the International Mother Language Institute.

The Kapaeeng Foundation documented a steady increase in attacks and torture on ethnic groups to destroy and plunder their properties since 2013 and since then many were illegally arrested and detained.

Between 2013 and 2017, 52 ethnic citizens of the country were killed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and in the plains, said Kapaeeng Foundation.

According to the Kapaeeng Foundation 53 ethnic women and girls were sexually assaulted in 2018,

The perpetrators were seldom brought to the book overlooking irrefutable evidences of their palpable complicity.

For instance, no action was taken against the police involved in attacking the Santals in Gaibandha in 2016 to remove them from land which they said was taken away from them illegally.

Jatiya Adivasi Parishad president Rabindranath Soren said that the Santal population fell to a  half in the northern Bangladesh since 1971.

‘Dozens of Santals villages have disappeared since the independence,’ said Rabindranath Soren.

‘I don’t think it would be long before the Santali language gets extinct in Bangladesh,’ he said.

Allegations of the state perpetrating demographic change in the CHT to outnumber the area’s ethnic population is an old story and that’s why ethnic leaders are reiterating the demand to reverse the process.

Besides political and historical reasons, there are socio economic factors behind ethnic languages becoming vulnerable or getting extinct, said linguists.

For instance, a large number of Garo people migrate to cities across Bangladesh every year to pursue careers, especially as beautifiers and many of them never return to the Garo villages for which their language is spoken only in their  families.

The government programme to impart primary education to five ethnic communities in their own languages proved counterproductive due to shortage of teachers.

Experts said only primary level education may not be enough to restore and preserve languages as long as access to social privileges, including employment, remains elusive to ethnic groups.

Sanjeeb Drong said, ‘It is important to remember that language stores a nation’s knowledge.’

‘A lost language is a lost trove of knowledge,’ said Sanjeeb.