Rohingya language

language
name=Rohingya
states=Burma, Bangladesh
region=Arakan region of Burma, south-eastern Chittagong region of Bangladesh
speakers=
familycolor=Indo-European
fam2=Indo-Iranian
fam3=Indo-Aryan
fam4=Eastern Zone
fam5=Bengali-Assamese
iso2=inc|iso3=rhg

Rohingya is a language spoken by the Rohingya Muslim people of Arakan (Rakhine), Burma (Myanmar). It is linguistically similar to the Chittagonian dialect spoken in neighboring south-eastern Chittagong region of Bangladesh ^{[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cit]} . It also has a large number of Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Burmese and English words.

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History

"Rohingyalish" is the modern writing system of Rohingya people. The word "Rohingyalish" is derived from the two words Rohingya and English due to the fact that it uses mainly Roman script which is completely different from that of the previously used scripts such as Arabic, Urdu, Hanifi-Script and Burmese.

Written in Arabic script, the first Rohingya language texts are more than 300 years old. While Arakan was under British rule (1826–1948), Rohingya people used mainly English and Urdu languages as basic means of written communication. Since the independence in 1948, the national language Burmese has been used in all official communications. Since early 1960s, Rohingya scholars have started to realize the need for a writing system for their own dialect which is different from that of Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Burmese.

In 1975 "Master Sultan" and his colleagues had developed a writing system using Arabic script. Due to major shortcomings in Arabic script to represent the dialect, some other scholars have soon adopted Urdu script to narrow the gap. Since Rohingya dialect is one of the most difficult Asian languages, the Arabic and Urdu scripts cannot produce all needed sounds. Therefore, most of the Rohingyas still find it quite difficult to read either Arabic or Urdu script versions of the language.

In other hand, "Molana Hanif" and his colleagues, have developed a new set of right-to-left oriented characters that are mainly based on Arabic script except a few from Latin and Burmese. This approach solved the reading problem in certain degrees and received appreciation from Rohingya Islamic scholars for whom media of study is purely in Arabic and Urdu. However, the new script got criticism for being very clumsy and the characters very similar to each other, requiring longer memorization time and careful writing to avoid confusion. More importantly, the major drawback is that it would require enormous work to standardize the new characters in today's computers and Internet media and the hassle to write in right-to-left direction.

Soon afterwards, "E.M. Siddique" has taken a complete radical approach to develop the Rohingya language using Latin letters only so as to eliminate all possible difficulties to write in today's electronic media such as Computers, Internet and mobile phones. The result is a quick to learn excellent writing system known as Rohingyalish that comprises 26 English letters, five accented vowels, and two other Latin characters carefully selected to represent the two distinguished Asian sounds known as the tongue rolling and the nasal sounds.

Alphabet

Rohingya Grammar

Definite Articles

1. If a noun ends with a vowel then the article is either án or wá if singular, or ún if plural or uncountable.
Usually wá is used for round-fatty objects, and án for flat-thin objects. ( singular ) ( plural ) Kéti án "(the farm)" Kéti ún "(the farms)" Fothú án "(the picture)" Fothú ún "(the pictures)" Fata wá "(the leave)" Fata ún "(the leaves)" boro wá "(the large)" boro ún "(the large)" Lou ún "(the blood)"

2. If a noun ends with a consonant then the article is the end-consonant plus án or wá for singular or ún for plural. Debal lán "(the wall)" Debal lún "(the walls)" Mes sán "(the table)" Mes sún "(the tables)" Kitap pwá "(the book)" Kitap pún "(the books)" Manúic cwá "(the man)" Manúic cún "(the men)"

3. If a noun ends with r, then the article is g plus án or wá for singular or ún for plural. Tar gán "(the wire)" Tar gún "(the wires)" Duar gán "(the door)" Duar gún "(the doors)" Kuñir gwá "(the dog)" Kuñir gún "(the dogs)" Faár gwá "(the mountain)" Faár gún "(the mountains)"

Indefinite Articles

Indefinite articles can be used either before or after the noun. Uggwá usually is used for roll/round/fatty shaped objects and ekkán is for thin/flat shaped objects.

( singular ) ( plural ) Uggwá fata "(a leave)" Hodún fata "(some leaves)" Ekkán fothú "(a picture)" Hodún Fothú "(some pictures)" -or- -or- Fata uggwá "(a leave)" Fata hodún "(some leaves)" Fothú ekkán "(a picture)" Fothú hodún "(some pictures)"

Sentence Syntax

Unlike English, Rohingya word order is Subject + Object + Verb. Subject Object Verb Aññí"(I)" bát"(rice)" hái"(eat)". Ite"(He)" TV"(TV)" saá"(watches)". Ibá"(She)" sairkél"(bicycle)" soré"(rides)". Ítara"(They)" hamot"(to work)" za"(go)".

Tenses

Rohingya Language can identify all 12 different forms of tenses as shown in the examples below. In these tenses, the helping verb félai shows perfect action like English "has/have" and félaat shows perfect continuous action like English "has/have been". The helping verb táki and táikki refer similar to that of English "be" and "been".

Verb-form-suffix (basic and/or helping verb) changes in two ways; by degree of person as well as by tense. The suffix ~ir, ~yi, ~lám, ~youm are used for the first person, the suffix ~or, ~yó, ~lá, ~bá for the 2nd person, and the suffix ~ar, ~ye, ~l, ~bou for the 3rd person.Similarly the suffix ~ir, ~or, ~ar refer present continuous tense, the suffix ~yi, ~yó, ~ye, refer to present perfect tense, the suffix ~lám, ~lá, ~l refer to past and the suffix ~youm, ~bá, ~bou refers to the future tense.

For 1st person ( I ): 1. Present (a)Aññí hái. (I eat.) (b)Aññí háir. (I am eating.) (c)Aññí hái félaiyi. (I have eaten.) (d)Aññí hái félair. (I have been eating.) 2. Past (a)Aññí háiyi. (I ate.) "Note: refer near past." Aññí háailam. (I ate.) "Note: refer far past." (b)Aññí háat táikkilám. (I was eating.) (c)Aññí hái félailám. (I had eaten.) (d)Aññí hái félaat táikkilám. (I had been eating.) 3. Future (a)Aññí háiyoum. (I will eat.) (b)Aññí háat tákiyoum. (I will be eating.) (c)Aññí hái félaiyoum. (I will have eaten.) (d)Aññí hái félaat tákiyoum. (I will have been eating.)

For 2nd person ( You ): 1. Present (a)Tuñí/Oñne hóo. [Tui hós.] (You eat.) (b)Tuñí/Oñne hóor. [Tui hóor.] (You are eating.) (c)Tuñí/Oñne hái félaiyó. [Tui hái félaiyós] . (You have eaten.) (d)Tuñí/Oñne hái féloor. [Tui hái féloor] . (You have been eating.) 2. Past (a)Tuñí/Oñne háiyo. [Tui háiyós.] (You ate.) "Note: refer near past." Tuñí/Oñne háailá. [Tui háailí.] (You ate.) "Note: refer far past." (b)Tuñí/Oñne háat táikkilá. [Tui háat táikkilí.] (You were eating.) (c)Tuñí/Oñne hái félailá. [Tui hái félailí.] (You had eaten.) (d)Tuñí/Oñne hái félaat táikkilá. [Tui hái félaat táikkilí.] (You had been eating.) 3. Future (a)Tuñí/Oñne háibá. [Tui háibí.] (You will eat.) (b)Tuñí/Oñne háat tákibá. [Tui háat tákibí.] (You will be eating.) (c)Tuñí/Oñne hái félaibá. [Tui hái félaibí.] (You will have eaten.) (d)Tuñí/Oñne hái félaat tákibá. [Tui hái félaat tákibí.] (You will have been eating.)

For 3rd persons ( He/She/They ): 1. Present (a)Ite/Ibá/Itará há. (He/She/They eats/eats/eat.) (b)Ite/Ibá/Itará hár. (He/She/They is/is/are eating.) (c)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félaiye. (He/She/They has/has/have eaten.) (d)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félaar. (He/She/They has/has/have been eating.) 2. Past (a)Ite/Ibá/Itará háaiye. (He/She/They ate.) "Note: refer near past." Ite/Ibá/Itará háail. (He/She/They ate.) "Note: refer far past." (b)Ite/Ibá/Itará háat táikkil. (He/She/They was/was/were eating.) (c)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félail. (He/She/They had eaten.) (d)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félaat táikkil. (He/She/They had been eating.) 3. Future (a)Ite/Ibá/Itará háibou. (He/She/They will eat.) (b)Ite/Ibá/Itará háat tákibou. (He/She/They will be eating.) (c)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félaibou. (He/She/They will has/has/have eaten.) (d)Ite/Ibá/Itará hái félaat tákibou. (He/She/They will has/has/have been eating.)

Pronouns

Number	Person	Gender	Pronouns				Possessive adjectives
			Subject	Object	Possessive	Reflexive
Singular	1st	m/f ( I )	aññí	añáre	añár	aññínize	añár
	2nd	m/f ( you )	tuñí tui oñne	tuáñre toré oñnoré	tuáñr tor oñnor	tuñínize tuinize oñnenize	tuáñr tor oñnor
	3rd	m ( he )	ite * te * uite ** íte **	itaré taré uitaré ítare	itar tar uitar ítar	itenize tenize uitenize ítenize	itar tar uitar ítar
		m/f ( he/she )	ibá * uibá ** íba **	ibáre uibáre íbaré	ibár uibár íbar	ibánize uibánize íbanize	ibár uibár íbar
		n1 ( it ) n2 ( it )	yián ibá	yiánóre ibáre	yiánór ibár	yiánnize ibánize	yiánór ibár
Plural	1st	m/f ( we )	añára	añáráre	añárár	añáránize	añárár
	2nd	m/f ( you )	tuáñrá	tuáñráre	tuáñrár	tuáñránize	tuáñrár
	3rd	m/f ( they )	itará * tará * uitará ** ítara **	itaráre taráre uitaráre ítararé	itarár tarár uitarár ítarar	itaránize taránize uitaránize ítaranize	itarár tarár uitarár ítarar
		n1 ( they ) n2 ( they )	iín * uiín **	iínóre uiínóre	iínór uiínór	iínnize uiínnize	iínór uiínór

Gender: m="male", f="female", n="neuter.", *="the person or object is near.", **="the person or object is far."

ee also

* Chittagonian
* Bengali language
* Chittagong
* Rohingya people
* Rakhine State

External links

For further information on Rohingya Language please refer the following links.
* [http://www.rohingyalanguage.com Rohingya Language Website] or [http://www.rohingyalish.com Rohingyalish]
* [http://www.youtube.com/sidqm Rohingya Language Video Training]

Other related links

* [http://www.freerohingyacampaign.org Free Rohingya Campaign]
* [http://www.rohingya.org Rohingya Website]
* [http://www.arcc-online.eu Arakan Rohingya co-operation Council in europe]