Linguistic Survey Of India Vol V Part I Indo Aryan Family Eastern Group

202 BENGALI,

Number
Name of District, of

Speakers,

Brought forward.....9,689,399

Noakhali (Island of Sandip)......, 100,000

Mymensiugh (Haijong Sub-dialect) «•••*. 5,000

Faridpur (Remainder) . 1,790,856

Jessorc , 1,884,624

Khulua .... 1,173,551

Total for East-Central Sub-dialect.....-1,855,031

TOTAL TOK, BENQU.....14^649,430

Sylhct (including Haijong).......2,033,000

Cachar...........228,221

TOTAL mi ASSAM.....2,2G1,22J

GRAND TOTAL.....16,910,651
The dialect spoken in East Sylhet is called by Europeans Sylhettia, So also the
dialect of Cachar (which is practically the same as that of Eastern Sylhct) is locally
known amongst the same as Kachaii. These local names do not connote any distinct
dialect. All that can be said about these two Districts is that their local dialects
are essentially the same as those of ^ the Districts of Eastern Bengal, but that the
peculiarities of speech affecting the latter, are carried to an extreme in the two
Assam Districts.
Nearly all the inhabitants of Eastern Bengal are Muhammadans, and hence the
dialect is sometimes called Musalmani Bengali, a sufficiently inaccurate title when we
consider that there are many Musalmans in other parts of Bengal who do not speak it,
The influence of the Muhammadan religion has, however, caused a number of Arabic
and Persian words to be introduced into the vocabulary of the Eastern Districts in a
more or less deformed shape. Numerous instances will be noticed in the following
specimens.
AUTHORITIES-
NO monographs have, so far as I have been able to ascertain, been specially demoted to the dialects of
Eastern Bengal On page 329 of Vol. xxxv of the Calcutta Review, there is a short account of the peculiar-
ities of ihe pronunciation of the dialect in the Tippera District, by Mr. H. C. Sutherland, B.O.S. In the year
1867 there were published by the Government of Bengal, a series of Reports on the History and Statistics
of various Districts of what was then the Province, There are short vocabularies of local words in the Reports
of Dacca, Baokergunge, Sylhet, and Cackar,