Petition For the Recognition and Promotion of the Sylheti Language

We, the Sylheti Language community, campaign for the recognition and promotion of Sylheti. With respect, we bring to your attention the following urgent facts for your favourable consideration.

Why Does Recognition Matter?

- UNESCO warns that 40% of people worldwide lack education in their own language. Sylheti is at risk.

- Spoken by an estimated 20 million people in Bangladesh, India, the UK, and across the diaspora, Sylheti is still denied official status. Bengali is recognised as the sole official language in Bangladesh; India recognises 22 other languages, but not Sylheti.

“LANGUAGE IS NOT JUST COMMUNICATION. IT IS IDENTITY, HERITAGE, HISTORY, AND DIGNITY.”

Sylheti has its own grammar, phonology, oral and literary traditions, and the Syloti Nagri script. To reduce it to a dialect is linguistically false and unjust. Languages with far fewer speakers, such as Maltese, are recognised. Sylheti deserves the same respect.

End Language Racism

Sylheti speakers face stigma and discrimination in Bangladesh and India, often silenced or punished for using their mother tongue. Such practices attack our heritage and identity.

Support Human Rights and Children’s Education

Language rights are human rights. Forcing Sylheti children to declare Bengali as their mother tongue erases their identity. Denying education in Sylheti violates children’s rights and suppresses culture.

Notable Event 1:

As the United Nations defines:

 “Any deliberate act committed with the intent to destroy the language.”

On 1^st March 2022, the Honourable Fabian Hamilton MP, of the UK Parliament, also said that it is a clear breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Fair Trial and Justice

In Bangladesh and India, Sylheti defendants are rarely given interpreters. Court rulings delivered in Bengali exclude Sylheti speakers from justice. By contrast, the developed countries provide Sylheti interpretation, exposing systemic discrimination in our homeland.

Stop Cultural Erosion

The exclusive promotion of Bengali has eroded Sylheti identity. Children are told and learn in textbooks that they are Bengali and their language is Bangla; as a result, they are indirectly taught that their mother tongue cannot be Sylheti.

Notable Event 2:

Also, one of our reputed and knowledgeable speakers, Apsana Begum, started her parliamentary speech in the Sylheti language on 1^st March, 2022, by saying that:

“EKTA BASHA KUNO-DINO JOTHESHTO OY NA”

And it means in English that,

“ONE LANGUAGE IS NEVER ENOUGH.”

Safeguard Sylheti Heritage

Preserving Sylheti requires:

- Teaching and learning in schools.

- Adding the Sylheti language for visa and other asylum applications from other countries.

- Wider public use in offices, media, and technology.

- Protection and digitalisation of Syloti Nagri.

- Investment in archives, research, and literature.

Our Special Appeals

To the Governments of Bangladesh and India

- Recognise Sylheti as an official language.

- End discrimination and guarantee use in public life.

- Introduce Sylheti as a compulsory subject in schools.

To the United Kingdom

- Teach Sylheti in schools (most British Bangladeshis are Sylheti).

- Recognise Sylheti in the census, media, and broadcasting.

- Stop mislabelling Sylheti as Bengali.

To the UN, EU, USA, Canada, Australia and International Bodies

- Officially recognise Sylheti as a distinct language.

- Protect and fund Syloti Nagri.

- Support Sylheti education, justice, and culture.

- Add the Sylheti language for visa and other asylum applications.

To Sylheti Leaders Worldwide

Speak proudly in Sylheti, promote it publicly, and pass it to the next generation. Silence accelerates its decline.

To Technology and AI Companies

- Recognise Sylheti as a separate language.

- Fully integrate Syloti Nagri into operating systems, apps, and AI tools.

- Provide Sylheti in translation, speech, and education platforms.

To the Unicode Consortium

We are grateful for Unicode for already encoding the alphabet and urge the encoding of Syloti Nagri numerals to complete our script.

Our Demands

- Official recognition of Sylheti as an independent language.

- Inclusion of Sylheti in schools in Bangladesh, India, and the UK.

- Recognition in census and media representation.

- Protection and development of the Syloti Nagri script.

- Global recognition and support from UN, EU, NGOs, and tech providers.

- Investment in research, archives, training, and digital resources.

- Sylheti as a language as well as an ethnicity.

Appeal For Support

Sylheti is a language, not a dialect. With 20 million speakers, its survival depends on recognition, teaching, and development. Without action, it risks being silenced within a generation.

We appeal for funding, donations, and signatures to preserve Sylheti heritage, develop teaching materials, train educators, and build digital tools.

We do not ask for privilege, only for justice: the right to speak, learn, and write in our mother tongue without shame. Recognition of Sylheti is long overdue.

We most humbly and firmly appeal to you to support this cause and to join our campaign by signing this petition (those who sign but do not receive are to support this petition).

“TOGETHER, LET US PRESERVE SYLHETI, SAFEGUARD SYLOTI NAGRI, AND SECURE ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD.”

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