Chakma - Orientation

Identification. The Chakma speak a dialect of Bengali or Bangla, live in southeastern Bangladesh, and are predominantly of the Buddhist faith. Although they are generally known in the anthropological literature as Chakma—and are officially so termed in Bangladesh—they usually call themselves Changma.

Location. Bangladesh is located between 20° 34′ and 26° 38′ N and 88° 01′ and 92° 41′ E. Chakma (and another eleven ethnic minority peoples) occupy three hilly districts of Bangladesh—Rangamati, Bandarban, and Khagrachhari. This hill region is cut by a number of streams, canals, ponds, lakes, and eastern rivers; it covers a total area of about 13,000 square kilometers. Some Chakma also live in India.

Demography. According to the 1981 census the total Chakma population in Bangladesh was 212,577, making them the largest tribal group in Bangladesh. In 1971 a further 54,378 Chakma were enumerated in neighboring Indian territory. They constitute 50 percent of the total tribal population of the southeastern hill region, although there are also many Bengali-speaking (nontribal or originally plains) people in the region who migrated there at various times in the past. As a result, Chakma now constitute less than 30 percent of the total population of that region. In 1964, this region lost its officially designated tribal status, and as a result many People from the plains migrated there.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Chakma speak a dialect of Bangla (Bengali), which they write in the standard Bangla script. (This is the mother tongue of almost 99 percent of the total population in Bangladesh—i.e., of some 110 million people.) However, it seems likely that the Chakma once spoke an Arakanese (Tibeto-Burman) language, which they later abandoned in favor of the Indo-European tongue of their Bengali neighbors. The Chakma writer Biraj Mohan Dewan gives a figure of 80 percent for the Bangla-derived Chakma vocabulary.