With the death of six peoples of an ethnic minority their Language, history, culture, heritage of an ethnic minority will be extinct.
Bangladesh has over forty tribes with some exceptions, around three million tribal people speak their own language. Renghmith cha is one of tribal language which used by Chittagong Hill tracts tribal people is on the verge of extinction. There are only six living Renghmith cha linguistic people and all of them are 60 years to 64 years old.
Shing ra mro (44) said, “For 12 years he only knew Renghmith cha language because everyone at home spoke this language. After his marriage and the death of his grandfather, Walok Mro, the language was no longer practiced at home. Mro people used to make fun of Rengmith cha language so gradually mro language replaced Rengmith cha language.”
The six survivors who speak Rengmith cha do not all live in the same neighborhood. Some live in the Krang Shi Para, and other lives in Men Ching Para, Alikadam upazila.
Mangpun mro of Krang shi neighborhood said, “There were 60 families to 80 families in each neighborhood of Rani para, Shangtong para, Kowa rao para, Boan chu para, all of them were Rengmith cha linguistic people, they didn’t know any other language. Outsider tends to hire people who knew the Rengmith cha language as interpreters, otherwise the outsiders would have got into trouble just because they didn't know the language. But 40 to 50 years ago everyone moved to Myanmar, India, and others harmonized with Mro people. Due to lack of practice of Rengmith cha language, such language speaking people decreased day by day and now on the verse of extinction.”
There was rhyme, fairytales and stories in Rengmith cha language, which got lost with the language.
Mro language researcher, author Yang ung mro said, “In 2013 there were 32 people in Rengmith cha language and now in 2022 there are six people and the rest have died.”
Mong Nu Ching, director of the Bandarban District Minority Cultural Institute, was asked what step has taken to preserve the language.
He replied, he did not know the details about Rengmith's language. He said there were ongoing activities of eight ethnic groups’ language, culture in Bandarban Hill District but there were no activities on Rengmith cha language.
Bandarban Hill District Council member Shing young mro said. In 2013, an attempt was made to work on the Rengmith cha language, “We tried to keep the Rengmith cha language alive by training others with the Roman alphabet if necessary, through those who know the Rengmith cha language well, but sadly the truth is that those who are Rengmith cha language speakers are not interested in working with the Rengmith cha language anymore.”
Language of the survivors should preserve in order to preserve the language. The new generation and their children need to be encouraged to speak the language.
