Sylheti language/Adjectives

Adjectives in Bengali, similar to their English counterparts, do not inflect for gender or case. Additionally, they do not inflect for number either! This means that once you know an adjective, you can apply it to any noun(s) without any consideration.

To take an example, consider the adjective tall'; the Sylheti word for it is "lampa"'. Observe how the adjective (in bold letters) remains the same in the example below:

English	Sylheti Bengali
the tall boy	lampa fua-gu
the tall girl	lampa furi-gu
the tall boys	lampa fua-in/fua-int okhol
the tall girls	lampa furi-n/furi-nt okhol

Notice how only the definite markers (indicating singular/plural noun) change in the example above.

Demonstrative Adjectives

We have already seen how demonstrative pronouns (see chapter on pronouns for details) function in Sylheti. Demonstrative adjectives follow exactly the same pattern with only one difference: the definite article is attached to the noun instead of the adjective. Let's look at some examples:

English	Sylheti Bengali
This is mine	igu amar
This book is mine	i kitab-gu amar
That is mine	ogu amar
That book is mine.	ou kitab-gu amar

So while the pronouns 'this' and 'that' translated to igu and ogu, the demonstrative adjectives translate to i and ou, with the definite singular/plural markers attached to the noun following these adjectives. So "this book" is ou kitab-gu, "these books" is ou kitab-okhol; "this boy" is ou fua, and "these boys" is ou fuain/fuaint okhol.