Bangladesh’s endangered languages get a digital lifeline

A new initiative is racing to preserve Bangladesh’s most at-risk languages by building a national, publicly accessible archive of speech, stories and phonetic records. 

The “Multilingual Cloud,” developed under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division and implemented by the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), is digitising the country’s linguistic diversity to keep it from disappearing under the pressures of modern life. 

At the sharpest edge of the crisis is Rengmitca, a Kuki-Chin language spoken by only six people—five over the age of 60 and one close to 50—living deep in the hill tracts of Bandarban: four in Alikadam and two in Naikhongchhari. Once these speakers are gone, the worldview encoded in the language could vanish with them. 

Backed by government funding, the Multilingual Cloud has so far digitised 42 languages and five sub-languages or dialects. The repository holds 7,177 topic-based samples, more than 12,000 minutes of audio recorded from 216 native speakers, and nearly 100,000 sentences transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)—capturing not just words, but cadence, rhythm and narrative. 

Mohammad Mamun Or Rashid, associate professor in the Department of Bangla at Jahangirnagar University and a consultant to the project, said a bespoke software system was built to record and store linguistic data directly from the field—ensuring material is captured and archived in one step. 

The team travelled across eight regions, including North Bengal, the Sylhet tea gardens, the Mymensingh–Sherpur–Netrokona belt and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, also documenting speech from the Bede community and Dhakaiya Urdu speakers. 

Research and content specialist Charu Haque said there was no ready model to follow; the tender was floated five times before a firm took on the work with full ICT Division support. To collect authentic speech, researchers embedded with families—eating, living and observing daily routines—so informants would speak naturally rather than perform for a recorder. 

The stakes are high. UNESCO estimates the world loses one language roughly every two weeks; in Bangladesh, a survey by the International Mother Language Institute has identified 14 languages on the brink of extinction. 

The project’s stated aim is not only to store words and structures, but to safeguard dignity, memory and identity—so future researchers and communities can draw on the archive to revitalise languages even if daily use fades.