ISO 639-3 sjp Native speakers 1.2 million Region Bihar, West Bengal | Glottolog surj1235 Native to India, Bangladesh, Nepal | |
Language family Indo-European languages, Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Iranian languages, Bihari languages | ||
Surjapuri is one of the Bengali dialects mainly spoken in Bihar (Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, Araria districts), in West Bengal (Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, and in Siliguri city of Darjeeling district – part of the North Bengal region within Jalpaiguri division), as well as in parts of eastern Nepal. It is one of the lesser known dialects of the Bengali language spoken in eastern India comprising today's West Bengal, lower part of Assam (The Barak valley) and Bangladesh. It had been wrongly included in the category of Bihari languages, such Bhojpuri and Maithili, spoken in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh. It is widely called Rangpuri, one of the major Bangla or Bengali dialects. It is known as the Kochrajbongshi dialect in Assam, as the Surjapuri dialect in the North Bengal region of West Bengal and in eastern Bihar.