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Dobhashi (Bengali: দোভাষী, romanized: Dobhaśi lit. 'bilingual') is a neologism used to refer to a register which had the Middle Bengali language as its dialectal basis but was shifted to a highly Persianised format. Traditionally, it was the most customary form of writing in Bengali prior to the language's reformation during the colonial period.[1][2] This style evolved in not only the Eastern Nagari script, but also in Sylheti Nagri as well as the modified Arabic script used in Greater Chittagong, West Bengal and Arakan.[3] The register has had a major influence to the modern Bengali dialects of Eastern and Southeastern Bengal, particularly Chittagonian and Noakhailla among others.[4]

Dobhashi Bengali
দোভাষী
Region	Bengal, Arakan
Era	14th-19th century
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali-Assamese Middle Bengali Dobhashi Bengali
Writing system	Bengali-Assamese Sylheti Nagri Perso-Arabic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Part of a series on the
Bengal Sultanate
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Subdivisions Mint Towns: Pandua Sonargaon Gaur Khalifatabad Satgaon Chatgaon Tanda Fatehabad Hajo Cuttack Jaunpur Mrauk U Realms: Chandradwip Orissa Pratapgarh Rohang Srihat Tripura
Architecture Adina Mosque Sixty Dome Mosque Firoz Minar Choto Sona Mosque Baro Shona Masjid Bagha Mosque Pathrail Mosque Panbari Mosque Shankarpasha Mosque Goaldi Mosque Jamaluddin Mosque Darasbari Mosque Eklakhi Mausoleum Muazzampur Mosque Qasba Mosque Kusumba Mosque Sura Mosque Nine Dome Mosque Nasrat Gazi Mosque
Culture Literature Dobhashi Yusuf-Zulekha Persian influence Indo-Persian culture Persianate society Education Ghiyathiyyah Madrasah
Economy Currency History of the taka
Warfare Ekdala (1353-1359) Jaunpur (1415-1420) Reconquest of Arakan (1429-1430) Kamata (1498) Mrauk U (1512–1516) Mughal invasion of Bengal Ghaghra (1529) Tukaroi (1575) Rajmahal (1576)
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Islam in Bangladesh
History Muslim conquest Islamic rule Bengal Sultanate Bengal Subah Anjuman-i-Ulama-i-Bangala
Culture Architecture Bangladeshi Bengali Indo-Islamic Indo-Saracenic Mughal Literature Arabic Bengali Dobhashi Jangnama Kissa Marsiya Puthi Persian Urdu Music Ghazal Hamd Nashid Naat Qawwali Zari Zikir
Major figures Bakhtiyar Khalji Shah Jalal Khan Jahan Ali Shah Makhdum Titumir Shariatullah Karamat Ali Jaunpuri Sher-e-Bangla Siraji Nazrul Bhashani
Communities Bengali Muslims Dhakaiyas Kan Mahimal Shershabadia Sylhetis Rohingyas Bihari Muslims Pangals
Ideology/schools of thought Ahl-i Hadith Barelvi/Rezvi Deobandi/Qawmi Fultali Maizbhandari Shia
Educational organizations Alia Madrasah Qawmi Madrasah Islamic University, Bangladesh International Islamic University Chittagong
Political parties Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish Bangladesh Khilafat Andolan Islami Andolan Islami Front Islami Oikya Jote Jamaat-e-Islami Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Khelafat Majlish Muslim League Nizam-e-Islam Party Tariqat Federation
Influential bodies Anjuman Mufidul Islam Hefazat-e-Islam Islamic Foundation Bangladesh Tablighi Jamaat Tamaddun Majlish
Other topics Bishwa Ijtema Mosques in Bangladesh (Baitul Mukarram) Muslim nationalism in South Asia Muslim chronicles for Bangladeshi history Sufism in Bangladesh
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Name

No name has been recorded for this register during its development and practice. In the 19th century, an Anglican priest called James Long coined the term Musalmani Bengali,[5] which was also adopted by linguists such as Suniti Kumar Chatterji in the early 20th century. Sukumar Sen referred to it as Muslim Bengali. In 1921, the Islam Darshan monthly published an article on Bengali Muslim literature which referred to the register as Islami Bangla and considered its literature to be the "national literature" of Bengali Muslims. In 1968, Muhammad Abdul Hye and Syed Ali Ahsan published their History of Bengali literature where they coined the name Dobhashi, meaning ‘bilingual’, which came to be the most popular name for the register.[2] Kazi Abdul Mannan was an advocate for the name Dobashi, as he opines that the register's usage was not limited to Muslims.[6]

Characteristics

Dobhashi was a very versatile vernacular, and in poetry, it could grammatically change to adapt to Persian grammar without sounding odd to the reader. Dobhashi was also used for forms of story-telling like Puthi, Kissa, Jangnama, Raag, Jari, Hamd, Na`at and Ghazal. Dobhashi writers were multilingual and multi-literate enabling them to study and engage with Persian, Arabic and Bengali literature.[7] Dobhashi manuscripts are paginated from right to left, imitating the Arabic alphabet-tradition.

The following is a sample text in Dobhashi Bengali of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations:

Dobhashi Bengali in the Bengali alphabet

দফা ১: তামাম ইনসান আজাদ হয়ে সমান ইজ্জত আর হক লইয়া পয়দা হয়। তাঁহাদের হুঁশ ও আকল আছে; এই কারণে জরূরী আছে যে একজন বেরাদরী মন লইয়া আরেক জনের সাথে মিলিয়া মিশিয়া থাকে।

Dobhashi Bengali in phonetic Romanization

dofa ek: tamam insan azad hoye shôman izzôt ar hôk lôiya pôyda hôy. tãhader hũsh o akôl achhe; ei karôṇe zorūrī achhe je ekjôn beradôrī môn lôiya arek jôner shathe miliya mishiya thake.

Gloss

Point 1: All humans free manner-in equal dignity and right taken birth be. Their conscience and intelligence exist; this reason-in important is that one-person brotherhood-ly mind taken another person's with matching mingling remains.

English Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They possess conscience and reason. Therefore, everyone should act in a spirit of brotherhood towards each other.

History

The arrival of merchants and traders from Arabia, Persia and Turkestan to the Buddhist Pala Empire from as early as the 7th century gave birth to the Islamic influence in the modern-day Bengal region. Starting with Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest in the 13th century, the subsequent Muslim expeditions to Bengal greatly encouraged the migratory movements of Muslim Turco-Persians and Arabs, who settled among the native population and greatly influenced the local language.[8] Thus Bengali derived a large number of words from Persian and Arabic,[9] which cultivated a form of Islamic culture on the language.[10]

Dobhashi-style poetry (poetry using a mixed, off-Bengali language) is rarely produced today, but was in fact the most customary form of writing in Middle Bengali literature during the Sultanate and Mughal eras of Bengali history.[1][2] Dobhashi was practised and taught culturally among households but was also promoted and supported by the Muslim dynasties who ruled over Bengal, establishing Bengali as an official language alongside Persian and Arabic.[11] This period displayed the earliest emergence of Bengali Muslim literature, featuring Islamic terminology such as Allah, Rasul and Alim for the first time.[12]

The late 14th-century Sultan of Bengal, Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah, Turco-Persian in origin, was a patron of literature and poetry. His court poet, Shah Muhammad Saghir, a Bengali Muslim, was a pioneer in the emergence of Dobhashi literature. His works included Yusuf-Zulekha and he is considered to be the first Bengali Muslim and Dobhashi writer. 15th-century works included Zayn ad-Din's Rasul-bijoy, Syed Sultan's Shab-i-Miraj and Bahram Khan's Laily-Majnu. By the end of the 15th century, it could be seen that the use of this register was not limited to Muslims. Hindus such as Bipradas Pipilai and the Chandimangal poets had begun implementing the "mixed language".

According to the 19th-century historian and scholar of Persian, Hamidullah Khan, the contemporary 17th-century Arakanese poet Alaol borrowed many linguistic techniques and ideas from Persian literature despite not using the Dobhashi register just like Dawlat Qazi of Arakan (author of Chandrani Sati Maina). Alaol's works included Padmavati, Saif al-Mulk Badi uz-Zaman, Haft Paikar and Sikandarnama. Alaol gained recognition from other Arakanese poets such as Quraishi Magan Thakur.[7]

In the Sylhet and Bankura areas, the use of a modified Kaithi script became popular, which in the former area would be standardised in the 19th century and become known as Sylheti Nagri.[13] This is thought to have happened during Bengal's 15th-century Hindu and Sanskrit reawakening led by Krishna Chaitanya.[14]

Bharatchandra Ray, referred to the language as "jabônī miśal", meaning a Yāvanī-mixed language. He says:[15]

মানসিংহ পাতশায় হইল যে বাণী, উচিত যে আরবী পারসী হিন্দুস্থানী;

পড়িয়াছি সেই মত বৰ্ণিবারে পারি, কিন্তু সে সকল লোকে বুঝিবারে ভারি,

না রবে প্রসাদ গুণ না হবে রসাল, অতএব কহি ভাষা যাবনী মিশাল।

mansingh patshay hôilô je baṇī, uchit je arôbī, parsī, hindustanī
poriyachhi shei môtô bôrṇibare pari, kintu she shôkôl loke bujhibare bhari
na rôbe prôshad guṇ na hôbe rôshal, ôtôeb kôhi bhasha jabônī mishal

This translates to: "The appropriate language for conversation between Mansingh and the Emperor are Arabic, Persian and Hindustani. I had studied these languages, and I could use them; but they are difficult for people to understand. They lack grace and juice (poetic quality). I have chosen, therefore, the Yāvanī-mixed language".[16]

There were many other 17th-century poets who were polyglot in a number of languages such as Abdul Hakim of Sandwip and Heyat Mahmud of Ghoraghat.

Shah Faqir Gharibullah of Howrah was a very prominent Dobhashi writer who is said to have introduced its use in Western Bengal. He initiated the trend of Muslim puthis with the puthi Amir Hamza and his successors even transcribed his Bengali works using the Arabic script.[17][18] Another notable example of the use of Arabic script is a late 19th-century Bengali theological work, which is now kept in the Bangladesh National Museum.[19]

Medieval tales of Persian origin such as Gul-e-Bakavali were being translated to Dobhashi and being popularised in Bengal. Dobhashi puthis about the latter tale were written by the likes of Munshi Ebadat Ali in 1840. Muhammad Fasih was also a renowned Dobhashi puthi writer who was known to have written a 30-quatrain chautisa (poetic genre using all letters of the alphabet) using Arabic letters, totalling 120 lines.[20]

The famous Bangladeshi academic, Wakil Ahmed, states that Jaiguner Puthi (Puthi of Jaigun), written by Syed Hamzah of Udna, Hooghley in 1797, is "one of the finest examples" of puthis in Dobhashi. It took inspiration from earlier Bengali Muslim works such as Hanifar Digbijoy by Shah Barid Khan and Hanifar Lorai by Muhammad Khan (1724). Muhammad Khater was a late Dobhashi writer who wrote a puthi about ill-fated lovers in 1864, taking inspiration from the 16th century Bengali poet Dawlat Wazir Bahram Khan.[21]

The English Education Act 1835 banned the use of Persian and Arabic in education. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, an employee of the East India Company, wrote books on Bengali language and considered the Perso-Arab vocabulary as pollutants and dismissed them from his works. Dobhashi is considered to have lost popularity as a highly Sanskritised Shadhu-bhasha was institutionalised by the British, who worked alongside the educated Brahmins that had chosen to accept English as the official language. In reaction to Sanskritisation, many Bengali Muslims that refused to learn English took to the initiative to revive Dobhashi literature hoping to maintain their identity and linguistic traditions. The dialect came to be known as Musalmani Bengali by the Christian Missionaries in Bengal, who had begun translating the Bible in order to reach that community. This was achieved by William Goldsack who composed the first Mussalmani Bengali-English dictionary.[22] In the mid-nineteenth century, printing houses in Calcutta and across Bengal, were producing hundreds and hundreds of Musalmani Bengali literature. On the other hand, many Hindus such as Rabindranath Tagore also opposed the highly Sanskritised variant and opted for a standard based on the colloquial dialect of Nadia.[23] In 1863, Nawab Abdul Latif founded the Mohammedan Literary Society, which also rejected the idea of a single Standard Bengali and promoted the separation of Bengali based on religious background.[24][25]

Nowadays, traditional Dobhashi is mostly used for research purposes though it is sometimes used to achieve particular literary effects. Remnants of the register are present in regional Bengali dialects, in particular amongst rural Muslim communities in eastern Bengal. The 20th century educationist and researcher, Dr Kazi Abdul Mannan (d. 1994), wrote his thesis on The Emergence and Development of Dobhasi Literature in Bengal (up to 1855 AD) for his PhD from Dhaka University in 1966.

See also

• Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad, historian who discovered hundreds of lost medieval literature and writers
• Bengali Kissa, popular genre found in Dobhashi literature
• Bengali poetry
• Puthi, popular genre found in Dobhashi literature
• Yusuf-Zulekha, an early Dobhashi work

References

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