For the Rohingya community, language represents far more than a means of communication. It carries historical memory, religious values, oral traditions, and cultural belonging. Through generations of displacement, persecution, and statelessness, Rohingya has remained a central element of communal identity.

Even in exile and refugee settings, the language continues to connect families and communities across borders. Its persistence demonstrates how language can function as a form of cultural resistance, preserving identity in circumstances where political and social systems attempt to erase it.

Linguistically, Rohingya belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family (Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2016). It shares strong similarities with Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi, particularly in vocabulary and grammatical structure.

Most scholars identify the Chittagonian dialect of southeastern Bangladesh as the closest linguistic relative of Rohingya. Studies suggest that the two varieties share approximately 70–80% mutual intelligibility (Mahmud, 2018). Nevertheless, Rohingya has evolved independently over centuries and developed distinctive phonetic patterns, expressions, and grammatical features that separate it from neighboring languages.

Its evolution reflects both geographical separation and the unique social experiences of the Rohingya people within the historical region of Arakan.

The historical development of Rohingya was deeply influenced by Arakan’s strategic location between South Asia and the wider Islamic world. Between the 8th and 15th centuries, Arab and Persian traders frequently interacted with the region through trade, migration, and religious exchange (Leider, 2013).

These contacts introduced numerous Arabic and Persian loanwords into Rohingya, especially in areas connected to religion, law, administration, and culture. Many of these terms remain active in contemporary speech and traditional literature.

Islamic educational traditions also influenced the language’s writing systems. Arabic-based writing methods became common in religious contexts, while later intellectual efforts led to the development of the Hanifi script by Mohammad Hanif during the late twentieth century. The script was designed to provide Rohingya with a more unified and culturally rooted written form (Hanif, 1983).

Unlike officially recognized national languages that typically possess a single standardized script, Rohingya has historically existed through multiple writing systems. This diversity emerged largely because the language lacked state recognition and institutional support.

Several scripts have been used across different periods and communities:

The coexistence of these systems reflects both the adaptability of the language and the fragmented historical conditions under which it developed.

The survival of Rohingya cannot be separated from the political realities faced by its speakers. In Myanmar, Rohingya communities have long experienced exclusion from citizenship, education, media, and public institutions. Restrictions on cultural expression and language use contributed to the weakening of formal literacy in Rohingya (Human Rights Watch, 2020).

Burmese became the dominant language in schools and official administration, limiting opportunities for Rohingya to develop within formal educational systems. As a result, the language survived primarily through informal spaces such as homes, religious schools, and community interactions.

In refugee camps in Bangladesh and within global diaspora communities, renewed efforts have emerged to preserve the language through teaching initiatives, literary projects, and cultural programs. These efforts demonstrate the continuing importance of Rohingya as a symbol of identity and belonging.

Digital technology has become one of the most powerful tools in the modern preservation of Rohingya. Social media, online dictionaries, educational videos, and mobile applications have expanded access to the language, especially among younger generations born in displacement.

Organizations such as the Rohingya Language Foundation and the Rohingya Project have contributed significantly to language standardization, digital literacy, and literary development. A major breakthrough occurred in 2019 when Google Translate officially incorporated Rohingya into its translation system, increasing the language’s international visibility and accessibility (Google, 2019).

The digital sphere has therefore become an important space where Rohingya continues to evolve and gain recognition beyond geographical boundaries.