A language of its own
Sylheti carries its own code in the international standard for language names, ISO 639-3: syl. 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. 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. Comparative grammar records both shared features and real departures from standard Bengali.
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. The earliest known Nagri manuscript, Talib Huson, is often dated to 1549, though readings of the date it gives vary. 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.
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.
Researchers have shown how this process can make distinct mother tongues disappear from the published record. The result is a language spoken by millions that does not appear as itself in the tables that shape education and language policy.
A history drawn across borders
In 1874 the Government of India moved Sylhet out of Bengal and into the new Chief Commissionership of Assam. 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.
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. Bengali became an official language of the Barak Valley. Sylheti itself was never recognised.
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. 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. One study values its products and services at about ₹561 million a year, most of it from fishing.
The Sutarkandi land port in Karimganj, on the border with Bangladesh, handled about ₹410.6 crore of trade in 2022-23. In our view, the people whose livelihoods depend on it should have a real say in its future.