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Chittagonian language

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Chittagonian (?????????? satgãia or ????????? sitainga) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Chittagong Division in Bangladesh. Its speakers identify with Bengali culture and the Bengali language, but Chittagonian and Bengali are not mutually intelligible. Chittagonian is considered to be a separate language by many linguists. It is mutually intelligible with Rohingya and to a lesser extent with Noakhailla. It is estimated (2009) that Chittagonian has 13 million speakers, principally in Bangladesh.


Table of contents

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1. Classification
2. Phonology
• Consonants
• Vowels
3. Writing system
4. See also

Classification

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Chittagonian is a member of the Bengali-Assamese sub-branch of the Eastern group of Indo-Aryan languages, a branch of the wider Indo-European language family. It is derived through an Eastern Middle Indo-Aryan from Old Indo-Aryan, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European. Grierson (1903) grouped the dialects of Chittagong under Southeastern Bengali, alongside the dialects of Noakhali and Akyab. Chatterji (1926) places Chittagonian in the eastern Vangiya group of Magadhi Prakrit and notes that all Bengali dialects were independent of each other and did not emanate from the literary Bengali called "sadhu bhasha". Among the different dialect groups of these eastern dialects, Chittagonian has phonetic and morphological properties that are not present in standard Bengali and other western dialects of Bengali.


Phonology

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Consonants

• Approximants [w j] are only heard as allophones of vowels /i u/.
• /ts/ can have a post-alveolar allophone of [t?].
• /?/ can have an allophone of [ç].
• /f/ can have a bilabial allophone of [?] .

Vowels

• Nasalization occurs for seven vowels /i e æ ã ? õ u/.
• [e] is heard as an allophone of /æ/.

Writing system

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The Arabic script has historically been used to write this language.

The Bengali script (Bangla Lipi) and Latin script are used to write this language.

Gboard for Android has added Chittagongian Keyboard.


See also

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• Chittagong
• Rohingya language
• Chittagong Division
• Chittagong Hill Tracts

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