Rohingya Language News

Jeddah Aug 9, 2007:

Rohingya/Rohingya language has been officially recognized and registered by ISO, International Organization for Standardization, as being one of the world unique languages. This official announcement has been done by SIL.ORG on its website ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=rhg ) which says effective from July 18, 2007 Rohingya/Rohingya Language has been approved as an active individual living language and hence assigned a unique identifier ISO-639-3 "RHG" as being among the recognized Languages of the world. SIL.ORG is the official site of the ISO 639-3 language Registration Authority and thus is the only one authorized by ISO as stated in their website ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/default.asp ).

Thanks to SIL ethnologue editor Mr. Conrad Hurd, who has made ample efforts to study about Rohingya people and their writing systems namely of Arabic Script, Hanifi Script and Latin Script (Rohingyalish). On 10 Jan 2007,  he has submitted a proposal ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2006-048.pdf )  to abrogate the ISO language code "cit" but split it into two; "ctg" for Chittagonian and "rhg" for Rohingya as the two are distinct living people in two different countries and having different languages, cultures and writing systems. He has also submitted another  proposal (http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2006-048_rhg.pdf ) to create a Rohingya/Rohingya language record among the world language list as can be seen in the links ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_detail.asp?id=2006-048 ) and ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=rhg ).

Also thanks to Eng. Mohammed Siddique who, on 28 March 2007, has submitted comments ( ftp://ftp.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/CurrentComments/2006-048_cm1.pdf ) about the development history of all our writing systems from Arabic script to Hanif script to Rohingyalish script, and described the progressive improvements achieved in each stage. Since Rohingyalish has got distinct superiority over all others,  he has  requested ISO to recognize the Modern Rohingya Writing System (Rohingyalish) and hence to assign an appropriate ISO code for it. After more than 6 months of study over the issue, ISO has finally announced the recognition of Rohingya people, their language and their modern writing system (Rohingyalish) on 18 July 2007 with immediate effect. The final approval can be viewed with its approval stamp on the first page, at SIL website link  (http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2006-048.pdf ). The approval for the language part was generally based on his contributions to the Rohingya language website ( http://www.rohingyalanguage.com ) but particularly based on the article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_language ) contributed to the world famous online free encyclopedia known as Wikipedia. 

Copyright August 2007,   Rohingya Language Foundation

http://www.rohingyalanguage.com      http://www.rohang.com    http://www.rohingyalish.com