Indo-European · ISO 639-3 syl
Sylheti Language সিলেঢী
Sylheti is an Indo-European language spoken by about 14 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Bangla, Latin and Syloti Nagri scripts.
Where Sylheti is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Sylheti
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Indo-Iranian
- Indo-Aryan
- Middle-Modern Indo-Aryan
- Continental Indo-Aryan
- Indo-Aryan Eastern zone
- Oriya-Gauda-Kamrupa
- Gauda-Kamrupa
- Gauda-Banga
- Eastern Bengali
- Sylheti
Writing system
Bangla, Latin and Syloti Nagri scripts
Related languages
About the Sylheti language
Sylheti (সিলেঢী) is spoken by about 14 million people, which makes it the 93rd most spoken language in the world — just behind Zulu (14 million) and ahead of Kazakh (13 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Eastern Bengali group within the Indo-Iranian branch.
Where is Sylheti spoken?
Sylheti is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Bangladesh (8.4 million).
Sylheti is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Sylheti is written in the Bangla, Latin and Syloti Nagri scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Bengali, Chittagonian, Rohingya, Assamese, Rangpuri, Surjapuri and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 syl.
Frequently asked questions about Sylheti
How many people speak Sylheti?
Where is Sylheti spoken?
What language family does Sylheti belong to?
What is Sylheti called in Sylheti?
Is Sylheti an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.