Noakhailla Language

Noakhali or Noakhalian, endonym ''Noakhailla'' (), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by an estimated 7 million people, primarily in the Greater Noakhali region of Bangladesh, as well as in southern parts of Tripura in India. Outside of these regions, there are substantial numbers of Noakhali speakers in other parts of Bangladesh and a diaspora population in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

Noakhali has no presence in formal settings, neither in Bangladesh nor India, though its standardisation has been proposed.

Etymology

Noakhailla is eponymously named after the district of Noakhali. It is in the transformed Vangiya form of the archaic Noakhaliya (), where "''-iya''" is a suffix, commonly used in Bengali as a demonym, having gone through a linguistic process called Apinihiti (), a form of epenthesis, to become Noakhailla (). It may also be known in English as Noakhalian, a relatively recent term which has gained prominence as a locative demonym since at the least the Pakistan period. "''-an''" is a suffix, commonly used in English to denote an action or an adjective that suggests ''pertaining to'', thereby forming an agent noun.

History

Noakhali, the area which it is named after, emerged in the 13th century as a center of regional territorialism by the name of Bhulua. The kings of Bhulua patronised the Sanskrit language. The arrival of Muslims in Bhulua affected the local language to such a level that several Hindu rulers of Bhulua even took the Turkic title of Khan. Muslim migration was extended following the Mughal conquest of Bhulua in which the local language became influenced by Arabic and Persian. The great lexical influence of Arabic among the Muslim people can still be found in Noakhali today.

Its strong folk tradition dates back several centuries. During colonial rule, Irish linguist George Abraham Grierson collected two Noakhali folk poems; one from the island of Hatia, which is off the coast of the Noakhali mainland, and another from Ramganj, presently in Lakshmipur District. The Portuguese merchants and Roman Catholic missionaries who settled in Noakhali adopted the local language as late as the 1920s.

In December 2019, a mass demonstration was organised by some Noakhali's activists in Maijdee in response to a private television channel airing the ''Noakhali Bibhag Chai'' (We Want Noakhali Division) comical drama. They considered the drama to be an insult to the regional language, history and tradition of Noakhali district.

Status and usage

Noakhali has no formal recognition or use in courts or in the legislature like the existent standard Bangla. The educated, elite, political and influential groups of Bangladesh bearing Noakhali homogeneity, usually prefer Bengali for their wider communication. They generally use Noakhali only for communication with other Noakhali-speakers.

The usage of Noakhali is now in decline as more and more families of Noakhali are opting to raise their children to speak in Standard Bengali due to it being the official medium in the country and the negative stereotypes relating to Noakhali district held by other parts of Bengal. It is often becoming the case that Generation Z urban Noakhali-speakers cannot speak in Noakhali though it is commonly spoken by their grandparents in their homes. In contrast to speakers of Chittagonian and Sylheti, it is reported that some speakers of Noakhali feel a linguistic inferiority complex. Sultana, Dovchin and Pennycook have also highlighted the stigmatisation of Noakhali-speakers within Bangladeshi society.

Classification

grouped the language of Noakhali under ''Southeastern Bengali'' dialects, alongside the languages of Chittagong and Rohingya. places Noakhali in the eastern Vanga group of dialects and notes that all Bengali languages were independent of each other and did not emanate from the historical literary register of Bengali called "sadhu bhasha". Along with other Eastern Bengali languages, Noakhali has developed phonetic and morphological characteristics that are not present in western dialects of Bengali. Linguist Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah placed Noakhali under the Prachya branch as opposed to the Pashchatya branch of Bengali. By referring to this classification, linguist Paresh Chandra Majumder (1992) placed Noakhali under the "Purbadeshi" division of the Prachya (Vangiya) branch, the other branch being Pashchatya(Gourhi). According to Dr.Muhammad Shahidullah, the Noakhali language is a result of the fusion of other Bengali languages of that region.

Geographical distribution

Noakhali is the primary language of Greater Noakhali which today comprises the Bangladeshi districts of Noakhali, Feni and Lakshmipur, and some parts of the sub-district of Hajiganj. It is also spoken by the Noakhaillas in the southern part of India's Tripura state, specifically in some parts of the South Tripura district. In this district, along with Standard Bengali, it serves as a lingua franca among some indigenous communities such as the Tripuri/ Reang, the Chakma and the Mog/ Marma in addition to the Noakhali. Mainland Noakhali is mutually intelligible with neighbouring Sandwipi dialect, which is spoken in Sandwip, an island in the Bay of Bengal. Some have stated that it is also mutually unintelligible with the Dinajpur dialect.

Before and after the Partition of India, Noakhali-speaking Bengali Hindus from Greater Noakhali migrated to West Bengal, Assam and Tripura also. Outside of the subcontinent, the largest diaspora population from Noakhali reside in Europe (most notably Italy) and North America. Significant Noakhali-speaking Bengali diaspora population reside in the Middle East of which most are migrant workers, and in many other countries throughout the world.

Writing system

In the past Noakhailla was written with the Arabic script. Nowadays Latin and Bengali alphabets are used.

In Bangladesh, regional languages are not used for official purposes. With Standard Bengali written in the Bengali script as the medium of instruction in Bangladesh, some may therefore write in Noakhali using the Bengali script, however it is viewed as more formal to write in standard Bengali.

Features and lexical comparison

Noakhali is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language with a large amount of Persian and Hindustani vocabulary. The most notable feature differentiating it from Standard Bengali and other Indo-Aryan languages is that words using the ''p'' sound in the latter languages are pronounced as ''h'' in Noakhali. An example is the Bengali word for water (pani) which is ''hãni'' in Noakhali. Another notable characteristic is the presence of the /x/ sound (akin to '' خ'' in Arabic), which is not found in Standard Bengali.

Variations

There are some differences of Noakhali dialects in accent, spoken in different parts of the Greater Noakhali region. In the Linguistic Survey of India, conducted in the early 20th century, the Irish linguist George Abraham Grierson used the phrase '' a man had two sons'' to show dialectic diversity of Bengali language in Bengal region.
*Bengali: ækjon manusher duţi chhele chhilo.
*Noakhali (Grierson): ekzon mainsher duga hola asil.
*Noakhali of Chhagalnaiya: ækzôner dui hola asil.
*Noakhali of Feni: egga mainsher duga hut/hola asilo.
*Noakhali Hatiya Island: ækzôn mainsher duga hola asil.
*Noakhali of Ramganj: ekzôner dui hut asil.

Grammar

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Noakhali personal pronouns are somewhat similar to English pronouns, having different words for first, second, and third person, and also for singular and plural (unlike for verbs, below). Noakhali pronouns, like their English counterparts, do differentiate for gender. In addition, each of the second- and third-person pronouns have different forms for the familiar and polite forms; the second person also has a "very familiar" form (sometimes called "despective"). It may be noted that the "very familiar" form is used when addressing particularly close friends or family as well as for addressing subordinates, or in abusive language. In the following tables, the abbreviations used are as follows: VF=very familiar, F=familiar, and P=polite (honor); H=here, T=there, E=elsewhere (proximity), and I=inanimate.

The nominative case is used for pronouns that are the subject of the sentence, such as "''I'' already did that" or "Will ''you'' please stop making that noise?"

The possessive case is used to show possession, such as "Where is ''your'' coat?" or "Let's go to ''our'' house". In addition, sentences such as "''I have'' a book" (আঁর কিতাব আছে) or "''I need'' money" (আঁর টিয়া দরকার) also use the possessive (the literal translation of the Standard Bengali versions of these sentences would be "There is ''my'' book" and "There is ''my'' need for money" respectively).

Further reading

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Bibliography

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References

{{Indo-Aryan languages

Bengali language in Bangladesh
Bengali dialects
Languages of Tripura
Languages of Assam
Languages of West Bengal