Language

First Generation: Vast Majority speak Sylheti

• The vast majority of the community (80% to 85%) would be Sylheti speakers
  
  
• Sylheti is a dialect/colloquial form of Bengali but is quite different
  
  
• Only a minority of the Sylheti speakers would also understand spoken Bengali well, and around half of those (less than 10%) would understand written Bengali

Sylheti Speakers

• A minority would be “good” to “fluent” at spoken English with a majority of the first generation having either “poor” to “very poor” spoken English
  
• With written English this dropped to around half good to fluent

• Bengali (or Bangla) is the sixth most spoken language in the world with around 196 million speakers (United Nations Department of Public Information). It is the national language spoken by Bangladeshis (Ah-Lin Abelehkoob (1996))
  
  
• Sylheti, is a dialect which is different to Bengali. It is spoken in the Sylhet region in the North-east of Bangladesh, where most migration to the UK originates (Viv Edwards (1996)).
  
  
• Sylheti is spoken and does not have a well developed written tradition3 meaning the vast majority of Sylheti speakers would not use Sylheti in its written form
  
  
• Service users from this community may require an interpreter.