Between Global Vitality & Local Vulnerability : A Multidimensional Reassessment of Language Endangerment in Bengali

Abstract

Bengali is, by every conventional demo-linguistic measure, one of the world’s major languages, ranked among the top ten to fifteen most-spoken languages globally with an estimated 230–300 million speakers across Bangladesh, India, and a substantial diaspora. On this basis, standard sociolinguistic typologies classify it as ‘safe.’ Yet a purely numerical reading of vitality obscures a more complex reality: several closely related varieties within the greater Bengali-Assamese dialect continuum are formally classified as vulnerable or endangered by UNESCO; standard Bengali itself is experiencing measurable domain loss in higher education, judiciary, science, and digital infrastructure; heritage transmission is visibly weakening across second and third-generation diaspora communities; and the language remains classified as ‘low-resource’ in natural language processing despite its speaker base. This paper argues for a domain-specific, multidimensional model of endangerment—drawing on Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale and UNESCO’s nine vitality factors—that can hold Bengali's demographic robustness and its structural vulnerabilities in the same analytical frame. Using the 1952 Bengali Language Movement as a historical counter-case of successful reversal of language shift, the paper concludes with policy recommendations for language planning in education, digital infrastructure, and diaspora heritage programs.