The evolution of language is a continuous progression, flowing with civilisation through the ages. Languages develop and change as big cosmopolitans and metropolitan cities become melting pots of ethnicity, culture, and diversity. This mix of people gives their own accent and dialect to the native language of the city they all migrate to, seeking a living.

Now, this was quite a big thought for me to contemplate. I sat down with scholar and researcher Hashem Sufi, who, among other things, is a life member of Bangla Academy, Asiatic Society, founder trustee of Dhaka Nagar Jadughar, and CEO of Dhaka History Research Centre, to talk about "Dhakaiya Bangla". I wanted to know how this popular accent and dialect came about.

"To know how Bangla evolved in Dhaka, the dateline of its history is very important," he says.

Dhaka is more than 2,000 years old, and was always a hub of trade that attracted many kings and their armies to come and rule. 750AD to 1160AD Dhaka was a Buddhist Janapad or habitation. Then, from 1160AD to 1229 AD, it was under the Sen dynasty.

The Sultanate dynasty, spanning from 1229AD to 1608AD came from Central Asia such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Afghanistan and Pakhtoonkhoa. Persian was their Lingua Franca (common or spoken language) besides their own individual Mother Languages and Arabic was their religious language.

Followed by the Mughal dynasty from 1608AD to 1757AD, however, 1757 to 1857 was a dual period of Mughal rule and the East India Company. So, historians refer to that time frame as company rule. 1857 to 1947 was solely British rule and then, up until 1971, it was under Pakistani rule.

So many conquests and such diversification of religion, linguistics, and background took the Bangla lingua through a checkered trajectory, as is the nature of any multi-ethnic, multi-cultural urbanisation.

"The Mughals and British royals sponsored Urdu as their spoken and written language, while general people spoke in Bangla and established 'Hindustani' as the Lingua Franca, which was neither Urdu nor Arabic or Persian. Hindustani was colloquial and informal, without any grammar, and it was adopted between speakers whose native languages were different. The East India Company mostly used Hindustani as their trade and travel language.

"Thus, Mughals introduced Hindi and Urdu languages as Lingua Franca of India. British introduced Hindustani as new Lingua Franca. Dhakaiya Hindustani and not Urdu and Dhakaiya Bangla were the colloquial and dialects of Dhakaiyas, the original inhabitants of Dhaka," Hashem Sufi explains.

Ancholik Dhakaiya Bangla is an impromptu linguistic mix of many languages and sub-languages.

Examples of Dhakaiya accent include; "koi gechili?" (where did you go?), "baith gechilam" (I went home), baith, meaning house, is a pure Arabic word, "ami bi or bhi" (me too) is from Hindustan, "mogor" (but) is "magar" from Persian, and so on. Around 75 percent of people in Dhaka today are outsiders, people from other districts or pocket zones, bringing in their regional language, and adding their accent and pronunciation to the dialect.

The Bangla language was developed during the Sultanate dynasty. Allauddin Hossain Shah sponsored Bangla, though the state language then was Persian.

Now, a clarification is needed regarding the misinformation and wrongly put general perception circling around Dhakaiya Kutti and Dhakaiya Bangla.

Dhakaiya Kutti, as defined generally in texts, was said to be the house help of the Nawabs or brick layers, but from a research aspect, these versions are not true. Kuttis were a group of separate professionals.

"In 1770, during the famine caused by the political and administrative failure of East India Company, millions couldn't eat and migrated to Dhaka. However, they could not join the mainstream workforce, which was dominated by local Muslims and Hindus then, who did not want to share or teach their professional expertise or secrecy with these new migrants. Since these people were farmers, the merchants who exported the rice employed them to clean the husk from the grains by using dhekis or rice pounders, and this process is called kuta in Bangla. And so, the term Kutti," Sufi explained.

"While going through East India Company records in the British Library during 1986, I stumbled upon many facts that were known, but distorted or not even known," Sufi added.

And so, one of my most memorable evenings ended with cups of milk tea, crumb chops, and a visit to old publishing houses in Bangla Bazar, dotted with Hashem Sufi's brand of witty sarcasm.