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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 Chittagong region of Bangladesh . It also has a large number of Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Bama and English words.

Script

History

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

Written in Arabic script, the first Rohingya Language was dated back 300 years ago. While the Arakan was under the British colony (until 1948) Rohingya people used mainly English and Urdu languages as basic means of written communication. After the independent in 1948, the national language Burmese has been used then for all official communication.

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

To solve this, Molana Hanif and his colleagues have developed a new set of right-to-left oriented alphabets designed based on Arabic script but a few characters from Latin and Burmese alphabets. His approach solved the reading problem in certain degrees and received appreciation from Rohingya Islamic scholars who studied in Arabic and Urdu. However some criticized the design of his script as being very complicated and needed longer time to memorize. Moreover, his alphabets are very similar to each other and one needs to write carefully to avoid confusion. In fact, the major drawback is that it would require enormous work to standardize the new alphabets in today's computers and Internet media and the hassle to write in right-to-left orientation.

Soon after Hanifi-script, a complete radical approach has been taken to develop the language using Latin alphabets only thus eliminating all possible difficulties arised to write Rohingya in todays electronic media. The result is Rohingyalish that uses 26 English alphabets in addition to five accented vowels and two other characters that represents the two distinguished Asian sounds known as the tongue rolling and the nasal sounds.

Alphabet

The writing system for Rohingya language uses Latin alphabet of A to Z along with two additional characters Ç and Ñ. Its character set table is shown below.

In addition to the normal vowels (AEIOU), the language also uses accented vowels (ÁÉÍÓÚ). To be able to type the accented vowels and the other two characters Ç and Ñ in your computer, configure your PC's Windows for US International keyboard instead of US-101 or US-102. Type a single quote( ' ) followed by A,E,I,O,U or C to get ÁÉÍÓÚÇ, or type (~) followed by N character to get Ñ.

Being one of the most difficult Asian dialects, it seems very hard to develop the Rohingya Language using Latin alphabets only. However, the designer's intuitive concepts have made the language not only perfect, but also, remarkably simple and easy to learn in minutes.

Use of C, Ç and Ñ

C is made equal to Sh. Unlike English, C is no more used to get the K sound (like Car) and S sound (like Cement). Instead of writing Shamish Rohingya Language writes as Camic (meaning spoon in Rohingya).

Ç is used for tongue-rolling-sound which can be closely represented by Rd and is one of the most widely used Asian sound. Instead of Sha-Rda, Rohingya Language writes as Caça (meaning mat in Rohingya).

Ñ is used for nasal sound which can be closedly represented as an'h and is also one of the most widely used Asian sound. Instead of Fan'h-s, Rohingya Language writes as Fañs (meaning five in Rohingya).

Vowels

For a word, Rohingya dialect may give two different meanings when pronounced in normal (soft) mode or when pronounced in stressed (emphasized) mode. For example if the word Ful is pronounced in stressed mode, its meaning is Flower, but in normal (soft) mode, its meaning is Bridge or hole.

Normal vowels

Vowels (aeiou) give you soft sounds such as Ful meaning flower.

Stressed vowels

Vowels (áéíóú) give you stressed sounds such as Fúl meaning bridge or hole.

Examples

Normal vowel usage        Stressed vowel usage
 Sal = roof,               Sál = tree bark
 Fan = betel leaf,         Fán = trap           
 Bet = cane (n.),          Bét = intention
 Tel = oil,                Thél= push            
 Tir = arrow,              Tír = up-right position
 Fir = person achieved     Fír =turn
       religious light,   
 Gor = do,                 Gór = home
 Zor = fever,              Zór = rain
 Ful = bridge or hole,     Fúl = flower
 Sul = hair,               Súl = skin (v.)

Phonemic vowel

As          All           Ask
Eye         Me            Men
Ice         Binary        Hit
Old         Son    Do     For 
Use         But           Put 

Rohingya language, unlike the English language, has fixed the sound of each vowel to a particular sound only, and thus maintain the same sound in all words. In the sound-example above, only words -Ask, Men, Hit, For and Put- in the last column carry the correct vowel sound that Rohingyalish chooses as shown in the fig right.

But, one disadvantage in doing so is that it missed one important sound that is the sound of true (o) as used in English word Old in the sound-example above. Solution to this problem seems to create a new vowel character, but instead, joint-vowels (ou) is used for representing the true (o) sound as drawn in the fig.

Rohingya vowel set

In all Rohingya has a total of six vowels in each vowel category (normal and stressed) as below.

Normal vowel set..:    a   e   i   o   u   ou
Stressed vowel set:    á   é   í   ó   ú   óu  

"América on full tour" is an easy to remember English phrase that shows the sound of each Rohingyalish vowel. Similarly, "Alemi modú houli" is an easy to remember Rohingya language phrase which means International Honey Center.

Examples

Fata    (Fa-tha)   = leaves (n.)
Melé    (MayLáy)   = can be opened 
Cíçi    (Shí-Rdi)  = ladder (note: "ç" gives tongue rolling sound)
Foró    (fawráu)   = read
Futú    (Fu-thú)   = baby
Gouru   (Go-Ru)    = cow
Ciñçí   (Shiñ-Rdí) = letter (note: "ñ" gives nasal sound)

Straight and Circular sounds

In Rohingya dialect, there are mainly two types of sound formations, the straight sound formations and the circular sound formations.

Straight sounds

Straight sounds are those that are formed by using a single vowel such as a, e, i, o, u and ou. As discussed before, Rohingyalish adapted mono-sound to these vowels.

Circular sounds

Circular sounds are those that are formed by using two vowels, the 2nd one being always (i) such as ai, ei, oi and ui. The sound of each vowel pair is explained below.

Ai: pronounced as āy or i or i?e.
For the sake of simplicity Rohingyalish considers the alphabet y as a consonent only. As a result My, By and etc. are not valid words any more, for y is used here as a vowel. To tackle this problem ai is used in place of y such as Mai and Bai. Similary the English words Hi and Fi are phonetically equal to Hai and Fai in Rohingyalish. Likewise English words Mile, Fine, Rise are phonetically expressed, in Rohingyalish, as Máil, Fáin, Ráis. These rules greatly reduce the ambiguity in vowel usages and make the language much easier.

Ei: pronounced as æi or aei or a?e.
Rohingyalish ei is almost equal to English ai. For example, English words main, fail, faik, tailor, mail, nail, rail, sail, tail are phonetically equal to méin, féil, féik, téilar, méil, néil, réil, séil, théil in Rohingyalsih. Similarly the words cane, sale, same, ate, plane can be phonetically written as kéin, séil, séim, éit, pléin in Rohingyalish.

Oi: pronounced as oui or oei (not wy, wai, oy, or y).
This is one of the most frequently used circular sound in Rohingya Language. Unfortunately, the sound of oi here is different from that of English one. English oi sounds like wy or oy such as in English words soil, coin, noice, rollroyce. But Rohingyalish oi sounds like oui or oei such as in Rohingya words Loi (=take), Boi (=sit), Ói (=yes), Goijjé (=done), Soil (=rice), Thoin (=tin), Moinna (=sharp) and so on. It is really hard to find an English word that can represent the Rohingya oi sound.

Ui: pronounced as wui.
This sound is the same as it is used in English words such as Quik, Quit, Buik. Some examples of Rohingya words are Kuissa (=worm), Tui (=you), Muillo (=value), Gúijja (=covered).

Examples

(1)Straight-Sound Words:
       Fatol (Fa-thol) = thin
       Meçi  (May-Rdi) = soil
       Bála  (Bha-la)  = good
       Salu  (Sa-lu)   = fast
       Bouli (Bo-li)   = fatty
(2)Circular-Sound Words:
       Gail   (Gy-il)   = scolding
       Beil   (Bay-il)  = sun
       Soil   (Sou-il)  = rice
       Tui    (Thui)    = you, you are
(3)Circular and Straight Sound together Words:
       Failla (Fy-illa) = dish 
       Mouloi (Mo-loui) = teacher 
       Balúic (Ba-lúish)= pillow
(4)A Rohingya sentense that gives all circular sounds.  
       Hailla Meillós Tui Óineh? 
      (Hylla May-il-loss thui óui-nayy?) = Yesterday opened, you, yes?

Long sounds and varients

Long sounds

In Rohingya dialect, the meaning of a word changes if you extend the sound of the vowel within the word. To make the extended sound different from the normal short sound Rohingyalish uses double vowels as illustrated below.

Normal Sound                 Extended Sound
do   (Dau)   = give,         doo   (Daw)    = knife
no   (Nau)   = nine(9)       noo   (Naw)    = small boat
zo   (Zau)   = go            zoo   (Zaw)    = lucky period
dhor (Dhau-r)= afraid        dhoor (Dhaw-r) = heavy rain
mana (Ma-na) = make agree    maana (Ma-a-na)= free
nek  (nay-k) = husband       neel  (nay-el) = leave
nil  (nil)   = bamboo-skin   biili (be-e-li)= birth given lady
mur  (Mu-r)  = deep          muu   (mu-wu)  = face

In the examples above, single o, a, e, i or u are used in the words (left side) for short sounds, while double oo, aa, ee, ii or uu are used in the words (right side) for long sounds.

Varients

The Rohingya dialect is very sensitive in extending the sound, as there are four ways of extending the sound. The first one, which is the simplest, has been discussed above where double vowels(i.e aa) are used. The other three variants differed on how the double vowels are replaced with the accented vowels, either the 1st one(áa), the second one(aá), or both vowels(áá) are accented as illustrated below with examples.

Four long vowels  Pronunciation   Meaning
  1. gaa            (Ga-a)       =   body
  2. gáa            (Gha-a)      =   infection
  3. gaá            (Ga-ah)      =   sing
  4. gáá            (Gha-ah)     =   expressing animal or natural sound 
  Rohingya example: Gaat mazé gáa óiye-dé manúic-cwá gana gaár. 
                    The man with the infection in the body is singing.    

In the example above, the 1st word has double normal vowels aa that gives normal steady extention of sound. The 2nd word is started with normal sound (normal a) and ended with raised sound (accented á). Th 3rd word is started with raised sound(á) but ended with normal(a) sound. The 4th word is both started and ended with raised sounds(áá) which is not actually used in normal Rohingya talks but rather embedded in the talks to simulate the animal or natural sounds such as Dúúm the falling sound.

Examples

fool (Fawl)  = mad ,     foól  (Fau-auhl)  = fault
hoor (Hawr)  = cloth,    hoór  (Hau-auhr)  = curse
muu  (Mu-u)  = face,     muúntu(Mu-uhn-tu) = in front of
neel (Ne-el) = out,      meél  (Me-ehl)    = factory
boól (Bo-ohl)= ball,     sóol  (sauh-aul)  = sheep

Dual Alphabets

There are some Rohingya sounds for which no direct alphabet exists, and usually, the solution to that problem is to use two (or more) joint-alphabets as shown below. For the natural easiness of Rohingya language, Rohingyalish has in some cases, interchanged the sound of the original alphabet with the sound of the joint-alphabets such as D with Dh, and T with Th. Therefore 'D' is pronounced as English 'The' and, 'Dh' is pronounced as English 'Di' (not Dy). Likewise, 'Ta' is pronounced as English 'Tha' and, 'Tha' is pronounced as English 'Ta' as seen below.

Rohingya   English     Examples                     Examples
Alphabets  equivalent  Rohingya words               English words
D        =   the       Dut(=milk), Dak(=mark)       Father, Gather
Dh       =   d         Dhañço(=thick), Dhak(=call)  Dome, Dog
H'       =   h         Háva(=air),Hát(=hand)        Hello
H        =   kh        Háiyi(=eaten), Hóro(=soar)   Khaled(name)
Kh       =   kh        Kháled(name), Khátu(name)    Khaled, Khatu(name)
N        =   n         Norom(=soft), Nun(=salt)     North, Noon
Ng       =   ng        Ngapúra(village name)        Ngapura(village name)
Ny       =   ny        Nyong-Cóng(village name)     Nyaung Chaung(village name) 
T        =   th        Tua(=search)                 Teeth, Thin 
Th       =   t         Thambu(=tent)                Tent, Tin
Ts       =   ts        Tsáni(=next in Arabic)       Tsunami

Rohingya Grammar

Articles (definite/indefinite)

 The (singular)                The (polural)
 Kitap pwá(The book)           Kitap pún(The books)

External links

For further information on Rohingya Language please refer the following links.

• Rohingya Language Website
• Rohingya Language Ezboard Service

Other related links

• Free Rohingya Campaign blog
• Rohingya Times Website
• Rohingya Website

• Languages of Asia