Dialect Studies: Muhammad Abdul Hai

Muhammad Abdul Hai has created a legacy of remarkable accomplishments in Bengali linguistics. He pioneered phonology as a practice in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. His well-known book, Dhanivijnan o Bangla Dhvanitattwa, is rich in information and well-written using contemporary approaches. Muhammad Abdul Hai, on the other hand, worked on the analysis of many Bengali dialects as well as phonology. He focused mostly on the dialects of Dhaka, Sylhet, and Chittagong. He has written about these three languages in both Bengali and English. Muhammad Abdul Hai analysed the structural characteristics of these three dialects, which has been invaluable in the practice of Bengali dialects. The essays on Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylheti dialects of Muhammad Abdul Hai are addressed in this article. The major goal of this paper is to provide the linguistic aspects of these three dialects documented in the 1960s and demonstrate how important and relevant these analytical writings are for current dialect research.