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This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) phonology on second language (L2) early reading skills in Sylheti‐English bilinguals (N = 58; 48% girls; British Bangladeshi) and their monolingual‐English peers (N = 43; 45% girls; 96% White British, 4% multiethnic British) in a diaspora context. Language‐specific phonological awareness and nonword repetition were tested at two time points (6;2–7;8 years‐old). At Time 1, the bilinguals had lower productive accuracy for phonological sequences that violated their L1 phonology (d =.56;.84), and these skills accounted for a significant amount of variance in their reading accuracy. At Time 2, the language‐specific effects were no longer present. These findings highlight the importance of considering language structure in multilingual early literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sylheti Bangla, a variety of Bangla language is primarily spoken in the Sylhet District of Bangladesh, Barak Valley of Assam, Tripura, especially in North Tripura. The systematic perusal on English spoken by Sylheti Bangla speakers demonstrates that it carries a huge difference with English (RP) specially in respect to pronunciation, syllable structure, stress, intonation. The disparities between Sylheti English and English (RP) are because of a number of divergent variances between Sylheti Bangla and English which often makes the acquisition of English an arduous job for the Sylheti speakers. The errors committed by Sylheti speakers during their speaking in English can be attributed to the interference of the rule of mother tongue in learning the second language. This interference can be of phonological, morphological and sentence structure. However, the domain of this paper is exclusive to phonological interference of L1 on L2 through the contrastive analysis of the phonological aspects of Sylheti Bangla and English (RP). This paper intends to improve the status of English teaching-learning process compared to contemporary practices. Thus, it aspires to contribute to the theory of second language acquisition with a particular focus on learning English by the Sylheti speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extant literature (Smith, 2000a,b, 2001, 2002) on differences between nouns versus verbs in phonology has shown that nouns enjoy a privileged status in exhibiting phonological contrasts and processes at the expense of verbal domains. In this paper, we show from original work on Sylheti tones that verbs exhibit exceptionally marked tonal polarity and dominant suffixes which are not seen in nouns. This does not lead to more contrasting patterns in nouns but nouns are faithful. Noun faithfulness can be taken care of by a general faithfulness constraints. Verbs however, need a conjoined markedness and faithfulness constriant ranked higher than the general Faithfulness and Markedness constraints, showing the presence of a putative marked structure in verbs than in nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sylheti is one of the dialects of Bengali which is mainly spoken in the Sylhet district of present Bangladesh. It is also spoken in the Northeastern part of India particularly in the Barak Valley of South Assam, Tripura, United Kingdom, United States and some of the Gulf countries in the Asian sub-continent. There are 11 million speakers of Sylheti throughout the globe, including 8,000,000 speakers in Bangladesh (Mikael, 2007). Like many other languages/dialects of the world, the contemporary Sylheti borrowed a large number of loanwords from English language in different semantic domains particularly name of objects, cultural, administrative, official, and technical terms to fulfill their day to day communication. However, when they borrow lexical items from English, lot of phonological changes has taken place to fit into the phonological structure of the Sylheti. So the present paper is a humble attempt to discuss the phonological adaptation of English loanwords in Sylheti spoken in Karimganj district of South Assam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of bilingual speech research has focused on simultaneous bilinguals. Yet, in immigrant communities, children are often initially exposed to their family language (L1), before becoming gradually immersed in the host country's language (L2). This is typically referred to as sequential bilingualism. Using a longitudinal design, this study explored the perception and production of the English voicing contrast in 55 children (40 Sylheti-English sequential bilinguals and 15 English monolinguals). Children were tested twice: when they were in nursery (52-month-olds) and 1 year later. Sequential bilinguals' perception and production of English plosives were initially driven by their experience with their L1, but after starting school, changed to match that of their monolingual peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigated the production of the heritage language (L1) and the host language (L2) in an immigrant community. Specifically, the study focused on the production of Sylheti (L1) and English (L2) stops and vowels by speakers from the London-Bengali community. Speakers had been resident in the UK for similar lengths of time, but had arrived in the host country at different ages. Speakers were recorded producing Sylheti and English bilabial, alveolar and velar stops in word-initial stressed position and Sylheti and English monophthongal vowels. Acoustic analyses of stop consonants (VOT) and monophthongal vowels (formants and duration) are reported. The results demonstrated that the Late arrivals produced Sylheti stops and vowels in a native-like way, but that their English categories reflected their Sylheti productions. In contrast, the Early arrivals and speakers who were born in the UK (second-generation) used native-like categories for Sylheti vowels but not for Sylheti stops. For English their production was similar to that of the Standard Southern British English speakers. These findings provide an insight into the phonetic organization of speakers from immigrant communities such as the London-Bengali community. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper aims to give an Optimality Theoretic account of the consonant cluster simplification process which occurs in Sylheti Bangla (henceforth SHB), a dialectal variety of Bengali Language, by the emergence of epenthetic vowel before and between the initial consonant clusters in the adaptation of loan words. The study of the Syllable structure of this dialect makes it clear that native Sylheti words are free from initial consonant cluster which compels Sylheti speakers to simplify word initial consonant clusters in loan words through two processes--to insert a vowel medially when clusters consist of obstruent+sonorant sounds, called anaptyxis. For example, /…/ is simplified as /…/ 'fast' and a vowel is put initially when clusters start with sibilant[s]+stop, for example, /steiʃn/ is pronounced as /…/ 'station' as well as when it starts with sibilant[s]+nasal[m], for example, /smouk/ is articulated as /is.mouk/ 'smoke', known prothesis. The Optimality account of these two processes gives us a clear picture that in Sylheti dialect markedness constraint *COMPLEX[sup ONS] is undominated which dominates faithfulness constraint DEP-IO. However, a detailed picture of the Optimality Theoretic account of these two processes is given in the main paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partition of the Indian subcontinent not only created new state boundaries, but also forged or altered cultural identities. It left a lasting legacy in Sylhet, a Bangla-speaking, Muslim majority district of Assam, which was partitioned in July 1947. Like other partitioned groups in the subcontinent, Sylhetis too are spread across international borders and boundaries, in this case in Bangladesh as well as India. This essay shows how modern state-dictated contours of political geography more often than not create spaces of anxiety and conflict where multiple identities, mostly fluid and contested, emerge, dwell and play politics. Beginning with the colonial history of Sylhet, particularly since 1874 when the district was separated from Bengal Presidency and attached to Assam, the essay moves across 1947 to map the process by which the distinctly fused colonial Sylheti identity stood re-constructed in post-colonial India. Divided into three sections, it begins with the political history of colonial Sylhet until referendum and partition, followed by a contemporary account of the community, its middle class in particular. The third and final part of the essay attempts to map the trajectory of Sylheti identity discourse in colonial and contemporary India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]