Chakma language : survival from being extinct in Bangladesh

Abstract

At present days, the world is marked by a discrepancy in language development. Language loss has become a common phenomenon throughout the world. There were almost 50,000 languages and among them only 10,000 languages currently are surviving. Almost, everyday the world is losing one language. It is likely to happen in those countries who have more than language in practice. In such situation the dominant language engulfs the minority languages. In Bangladesh several indigenous groups are living and practicing their own culture. However, because of various reasons they are unable to maintain their own culture. Thus, they are gradually losing their cultural heritage and language loss is its consequence. This paper focuses on Chakma community to explore the factors to language shift from Chakma to Bangla. In order to explore the reasons, a survey has been conducted on 60 Chakma people living in Rangamati and Dhaka region. Researcher will be comparing data collected from both regions. This paper concludes with some steps that can be used to save the Chakma language from language loss.