SYMI Sylheti Youth Movement of India
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The case

The case for Sylheti.

Millions of Indians grow up speaking Sylheti. It has its own international language code, its own script and centuries of written literature. It has never been recognised as a language in India, and census classification keeps it out of sight. This is the case for changing that.

What we are asking for Draft · list pending B8

  1. Count it

    Classify and publish Sylheti as a mother tongue in its own right in the census, so that the people who report it can be seen in the results.

  2. Recognise it

    Open a path to the inclusion of Sylheti in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

  3. Teach it

    Offer Sylheti Nagri as an optional subject in Barak Valley schools, and support its use in libraries and archives.

  4. Hear it

    Give Sylheti a place in public signage and broadcasting in the Barak Valley.

  5. Invest in the valley

    Lasting flood protection, and budgets for the valley decided closer to the people they affect.

What we are not asking for

  • We are not against Bengali, Assamese or any other language, or the people who speak them. Sylheti and Bengali are sibling languages.
  • This is not a question of citizenship or borders. We speak as Indian citizens about an Indian language.
  • We do not ask anyone to give up a language they use. Most Sylheti speakers live in several languages, and that is a strength.[5]

The evidence

A language of its own, hidden in the count.

Sylheti has its own ISO 639-3 code, syl, and its own script.[1] Scholars still debate whether to call it a language or a variety of Bengali. We argue it is a language, and we say so openly.[3]

Siblings, not parent and child

A simplified view: Sylheti and Bengali grew from the same eastern family, side by side.

Magadhi Prakrit Eastern Indo-Aryan Odia Maithili, others Sylheti Bengali Assamese

Simplified. Classification is debated.[2]

How a mother tongue disappears

What happened to the census answers in 2011.[9]

  1. 19,569different names people gave for their mother tongue
  2. 1,369"rationalised" mother tongues after grouping
  3. <10,000speakers? Then it is published only as "others" under a larger language

This is why we ask for Sylheti to be classified and published in its own right.

A language of its own

Sylheti carries its own code in the international standard for language names, ISO 639-3: syl.[1] A 2020 scholarly estimate puts the number of speakers at about 11 million worldwide, concentrated in the Surma and Barak river basins and in diaspora communities.[2] In India, Sylheti is the everyday language of the Barak Valley (Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi), and is spoken in Hojai, in North Tripura, Unakoti and Dhalai, in Shillong and in Jiribam.

Scholars do not all agree on how to classify it. Some describe Sylheti as a minoritised language in its own right; others treat it as a variety of Bengali, and recent research in the Barak Valley describes the question as unsettled.[2][3] Comparative grammar records both shared features and real departures from standard Bengali.[4]

Our position is that Sylheti should be recognised as a language. We make that case openly, alongside the debate, because a case that hides disagreement is easy to dismiss.

A script of its own

Sylheti Nagri has 32 letters: 5 vowels and 27 consonants.[6] The earliest known Nagri manuscript, Talib Huson, is often dated to 1549, though readings of the date it gives vary.[7] The script carried puthi poetry, Sufi texts and popular ballads, and printing presses kept it in use into the twentieth century. In 2005 it was added to the Unicode standard, so it can now be typed on any modern phone.[8]

Hidden in the count

The census asks people for their mother tongue, then groups the answers. In 2011, 19,569 raw answers were reduced to 1,369 "rationalised" mother tongues, which were then placed under larger languages. Since 1971, mother tongues with fewer than 10,000 speakers have been published only as "others" under the language they were grouped with.[9]

Researchers have shown how this process can make distinct mother tongues disappear from the published record.[10] The result is a language spoken by millions that does not appear as itself in the tables that shape education and language policy. Draft · Sylheti-specific 2011 treatment pending R02

How the Census 2027 mother-tongue question works →

A history drawn across borders

In 1874 the Government of India moved Sylhet out of Bengal and into the new Chief Commissionership of Assam.[11][12] It stayed in Assam until 1947, when a referendum divided the historic district. Part of Karimganj remained in India, and the Barak Valley became the centre of Sylheti life in India.[13]

On 19 May 1961, eleven people were killed at Silchar railway station during the Barak Valley's movement for Bengali as an official language, a movement carried by the valley's Sylheti-speaking people.[14][15] Bengali became an official language of the Barak Valley. Sylheti itself was never recognised. Draft · framing pending B10

In November 2024, the state government renamed Karimganj district "Sribhumi". Announcing it, the Chief Minister said the name Karimganj did not have any historical explanation.[16] For many in the community, the renaming was a turning point, and it helped bring this movement together.

A valley overlooked

The case for recognition sits beside the valley's material needs. Floods return year after year. In Karimganj, Son Beel, the largest freshwater wetland of the Indian sub-Himalayas, supports thousands of farming and fishing families who face growing flood and water stress.[17] One study values its products and services at about ₹561 million a year, most of it from fishing.[18]

The Sutarkandi land port in Karimganj, on the border with Bangladesh, handled about ₹410.6 crore of trade in 2022-23.[19] In our view, the people whose livelihoods depend on it should have a real say in its future.

Sources

  1. SIL International, ISO 639-3 Registration Authority, ISO 639-3 code syl (Sylheti) (current). Link ↩
  2. Simard, Dopierala & Thaut, Language Documentation and Description, Introducing the Sylheti language and its speakers, and the SOAS Sylheti project (2020). doi:10.25894/ldd83 ↩
  3. Bhattacharya & Dey, Ethnography, Vernacular bureaucracies and the discursive constitution of a Bengali region (2026). doi:10.1177/14661381261461389 ↩
  4. Das, University of Naples Federico II (doctoral thesis), A Comparative Study of Bangla and Sylheti Grammar (2017). doi:10.6093/unina/fedoa/11892 ↩
  5. Blackledge et al., Applied Linguistics 29, Contesting 'Language' as 'Heritage': Negotiation of Identities in Late Modernity (2008). doi:10.1093/applin/amn024 ↩
  6. Banglapedia, Sylheti Nagri (current). Link ↩
  7. Sylheti Translation and Research, The Siloṭi Nagri script (current). Link ↩
  8. codepoints.net, Syloti Nagri block (introduced in Unicode 4.1, 2005) (current). Link ↩
  9. Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, C-16: Population by mother tongue, India, 2011 (statement and notes) (2018). Link ↩
  10. Jolad & Agarwal, SocArXiv, Mapping India's Language and Mother Tongue Diversity and its Exclusion in the Indian Census (2021). doi:10.31235/osf.io/sjxc6 ↩
  11. Parliament Digital Library (eparlib), Proceedings of the Council of the Governor-General of India, 2 September 1874 (1874). Link ↩
  12. Hossain, Modern Asian Studies 47, The Making and Unmaking of Assam-Bengal Borders and the Sylhet Referendum (2012). doi:10.1017/s0026749x1200056x ↩
  13. Bhattacharjee, South Asian History and Culture 3, 'We are with culture but without geography': locating Sylheti identity in contemporary India (2012). doi:10.1080/19472498.2012.664436 ↩
  14. Khan, Shankar & Shokeen, Contemporary South Asia, Language as a site of identities, opportunities and conflicts (2025). doi:10.1080/09584935.2025.2575162 ↩
  15. Frontier Weekly, vol. 48 no. 32, Remembering Barak Language Martyrs (2016). Link ↩
  16. The Week (PTI), Assam's Karimganj district renamed as Sribhumi (2024). Link ↩
  17. Hazarika et al., Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, Socio-ecological vulnerability to climate change among farmers in Son Beel (2025). doi:10.1016/j.indic.2025.100897 ↩
  18. Singha, Singh & Singh, Indian Journal of Natural Products and Resources, Economic valuation of wetland products and services: Sone Beel (2024). doi:10.56042/ijnpr.v15i1.4483 ↩
  19. DD News (Land Ports Authority of India figures), Indian land ports drive trade valued at Rs 76,000 crore in 2023 (2024). Link ↩