iRRRd Glossary: Rohingya-Bangla-English

This glossary has been developed by and for the purposes of the NYU-TIES Longitudinal Prenatal and Birth Cohort Study in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The words in this glossary were collected over several years from surveys, semi structured interview, free listing, key informant interviews, and training sessions. These words and their definitions are reflective of this study and thus may differ from general definitions. Where applicable, some sociocultural explanations are provided in the Notes column for words or concepts that need further explanation. This glossary also has a few limitations. Since the Rohingya language does not have a standard script of its own, we used both Latin and Bangla script for transliteration. However, these scripts do not capture all Rohingya phonemes (sounds) and its tonal system, which will hinder accurate pronunciation of the Rohingya translations. The Rohingya language also has many synonyms because the Rohingya language borrow many words from other languages; these borrowings are dependent on the socioeconomic background of the speaker. Here, we try to use terms that are mostly understood by our study's participants. This means we do not use highly Urdu-derived or Myanmar terms, which are often used by more educated members of the Rohingya community. Where possible, we try to use more colloquial Bangla terms as well (instead of highly erudite/formal Bangla), which our local enumerators may not be too familiar with. And lastly, this is a "live glossary", as in, we are expecting to expand the list according to the project's needs.