The national language of Bangladesh is Bengali—with 98% of the population identifying as ethnically Bengali and accordingly speaking the Bengali language, this makes sense. But that doesn’t mean Bengali is the only language native to the densely populated South Asian nation. Minority languages are spoken by millions of ethnic minorities in northern and southeastern parts of the country, with language communities that extend across the national borders into India or Myanmar. Despite Bengali being the native language of 98% of the Bangladeshi population, the minority languages, such as Chittagonian, still may be spoken by millions of people.
Chittagonian is one of the biggest minority languages in Bangladesh, spoken natively by an impressive 16 million people. The Chittagonian people have been well assimilated into the dominant Bangladeshi culture and even identify with the Bengali language, but they still proudly speak their native Chittagonian alongside it, which linguists consider a distinct language from Bengali even if some people claim it to be a dialect. However, with its status as a language or dialect unclear, Chittagonian tends to be overlooked by translation agencies, which would generally prefer to just focus on Bengali. At TranslatoinServices.com, though, we understand the unique value of Chittagonian—which is why we’re proud to present our Chittagonian translation team.
If you’re interested in Chittagonian translation services, feel free to reach out and request a free quote!
What makes the Chittagonian language special?
Chittagonian is, unsurprisingly, native to Bangladesh’s Chittagong Division, located in the country’s southeast, bordering Myanmar. While it’s indeed closely related to Bengali, the two languages are not mutually intelligible, prompting the official linguistic designation of Chittagonian as a fully fledged language. Chittagonian is, however, mutually intelligible with Rohingya in neighboring Myanmar, as well as, to a lesser degree, the Bengali dialect of Noakhailla. Chittagonian is typically written in the Bengali script, although the Latin alphabet is also possible. In the past, it was written in the Arabic script.
Chittagonian comes from the Indo–European language family, making it related to English—albeit very distantly. Unlike English, it uses a subject-object-verb word order, placing the verb at the end of a sentence, and it exhibits a significant degree of inflection. Chittagonian marks plural not by changing the noun itself but by changing the article that accompanies it—and the language is littered with many different articles, depending on the word it’s modifying. Interestingly, when the article is placed before the noun, it’s indefinite (“a/an”), but when it comes after the noun, it’s definite (“the”).
A passionate Chittagonian translation team ready to work with you
Overshadowed by Bengali and even classified by some as a dialect despite the mutual unintelligibility, Chittagonian is woefully overlooked on the global stage. At TranslationServices.com, we want to help change that—which is why we carefully scoured the Chittagong Division (and elsewhere in Bangladesh) to find the best Chittagonian translators we could. The professionals we identified are native-speaking Chittagonians who are proud of their language and who leverage their vast translation experience to help clients from around the world break down the language barrier.
If you need translation from English to Chittagonian, we can help. If you need translation from Chittagonian to English, we can also help. Indeed, we’ve worked hard to make our team maximally flexible and equipped to answer to the needs of a wide array of clients. With translators specialized in business translation, academic translation, literary translation, localization, and more, we’re certain that we can accommodate your Chittagonian translation needs. And yes, that still applies even if your document is filled with esoteric terminology that even the average Chittagonian translator would balk at. We’ve populated our team with experts in a variety of fields precisely so that we can seamlessly handle highly technical translations to and from Chittagonian.
Don’t let the language barrier between Chittagonian and English hold you back. Reach out to us today to get started with your Chittagonian translation!