Language Endangerment In Bangladesh

1. Introduction

Bangladesh, the country that rose form a blood bathed language movement, is also nestling language endangerment. Bengali is the state language and lingua franca of Bangladesh, but the country is not monolingual; there are many languages and dialects with bilingual and multilingual speakers. Language based nationalism would be a graceful concept for minor ethnic groups. It’s almost an accusation that the country is going to impose her hegemonic character for language planning. In truth, Bangladesh has no applicable language planning yet. So Bengali and English are going to be dominating medium in administrative, educational, religious and cultural purpose. Beside these, there are some other active factors or reasons for destroying

UNESCO’s Language Vitality and Endangerment framework on Basis of Intergenerational language transmission

The causes of language endangerment can be divided into four main categories (Nettle and Romaine 2000; Crystal 2000). These are, firstly, natural catastrophes, famine, disease; secondly, war and genocide; thirdly, overt repression or forcible resettlement; lastly, cultural, political, economic dominance. Fourth category, which is the most common, can be further sub­divided into five common factors (Grenoble, Chapter 2; Harbert, Chapter 20):

1. Economic: for example, rural poverty leads to migration to cities and further afield. If the local economy improves, tourism may bring speakers of majority languages

2. Cultural dominance by the majority community, for example, education and literature through the majority or state language only; indigenous language and culture may become ‘folklorized’

3. Political: for example, education policies which ignore or exclude local languages, lack of recognition or political representation, bans on the use of minority languages in public life

4. Historical: for example, colonization, boundary disputes, the rise of one group and their language variety to political and cultural

The Khumi live in remote area of Bandarban District. Rowangchari, Thanchi and Ruma upazilas are the main sattelment of Khumis. Accroding to the 1991 census, The number of Khumi was 1241 in Bangladesh. Present days, the number has increased to two thousands.

They have no alphabet of their own. The Khumi language is used by only oral form. They are fundamentalist on creating L2 speaker of Khumi language.

2.6.Khasi (Cossyah, Kahasi, Khasie, Khasiyas, Khassee, Khuchia, Kyi)

Khasi is the language of Nothern Mon-Khmer branch of Austro-Asiatic language family. Khasi has four dialects which are used in Bangladesh. These are : Pnar dialect,Nongwa dialect, lingam dialect and standard khasi. Khasi have no traditional script but in 1813, Khasi language was written by Bengali alphabet form Sylhet and in 1845 Roman Alphabet was used. Now-a-days, Roman alphabet is used for writing literature.

2.7. Kurux (Kurukh, Oraoan, Uraon)

Kurux are mainly spoken by Oraon. They addressed as kurukar. The word kurux means `human’. Anthropologically Oraon are Proto-Dravidian and kurux is a language dravidian language family. Kurux has more than fifty thousands speaker in Bangladesh. In spite of large number of speakers, the language is in