The People

Anthropology
• It is said that the origin of human beings is in Africa;
• Some of them moved into the Northern part of the Middle East and then
dispersed across the world from areas in the Northern part of the Middle
East;
• In this dispersal the people who went to Southeast Asia and Australia,
more than 50,000 years ago, are surmised to have traversed the country
that is now Bangladesh. Some of them may have remained behind but as
yet we have no evidence of that;
• Among the people who walked into the valleys and floodplains of
Southeast Asia some developed languages which are known as Austric
languages;
• Austric is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in
Southeast Asia and Pacific. It includes the Austronesian language family of
Taiwan, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the Austroasiatic
language family of mainland Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
The hypothesis of a genetic relationship between these two language
families is not widely accepted among linguists.
 Anthropology
• From the evidence of a few words in Bangla, some artifacts, and
some agricultural crops we may surmise that these people speaking
Austronesian languages came from the east in the area of
Bangladesh several thousand years ago;
• Certain very early finds of Bronze tools and rice seeds in northeast
Thailand suggests that these people may have also introduced rice
cultivation into our area;
• At the same time or somewhat after some other people, whom we
now classify as early Mongoloid also entered Bangladesh and
spread mainly into the uplands and hilly areas;
• Though some of the early groups who made a significant impact
came from the east, the main peopling of this land was by those
who came from the Southern and Western parts of the South Asian
subcontinent, and they are known as Dravidians;
 Anthropology
• Initially, Bangladesh has a physically diverse people, probably
speaking different languages, which may have all belonged to the
Dravidian family of languages;
• It is said that in ancient time people in Bangladesh spoke a language
related to Telegu, which is Dravidian language;
• Physical features of the majority of the present day people shows
an affinity with those of eastern India who have a more definite
Dravidian background;
• Dravidian people are mostly Caucasoid people, which means in hair
form and other physical features they resemble the people of the
Middle East more than they resemble the people of East Asia.
However, they are generally darker than the different peoples to
the east and west of South Asia;
 Anthropology
• The latest arrivals were a people well known as the Aryans;
• They spoke a language of the Indo-European family of languages
and they are said to have originated from the Northern parts of the
Middle East and the Eastern parts of Europe;
• They came in to South Asia around 1200 B.C. and flourished in the
area now known as Haryana ‘Land of the Aryans’;
• Over the centuries they mixed with the Dravidians and settled in
the relatively drier parts of the Ganges Valley;
• The mixed population of Aryo-Dravidians moved in to the Bengal
Basin some time after 600 B.C.;
• They in turn mixed with the Austric and Mongoloid peoples already
in Bangladesh and produced the physical types which are so
common nowadays;
 Anthropology
• The cultivation of wet-rice, where fields have to be levelled and
dyked and the swampland varieties of rice cultivated in watery
conditions, enabled the immigrants to adapt to the wet monsoon
conditions of Bangladesh and at the same time to obtain sufficient
food to feed large families. They also exploited the abundant fish
stocks of the land;
• These resources encouraged rapid growth of population and parts
of the country became quite thickly populated;
• For the past one thousand years Bangladesh has been known as
one of the densely populated parts in the world;
• The commercial opportunities of this area also attracted many
immigrants such as the Arab merchants, the Turks and Pathans;
• These people also added their individual varieties in the physical
features of Bengali people;
 Anthropology

“The Bengali ancestry includes the Austric-

speakers, the Mongoloids, the Dravidians and
Aryans, the Turk and the Pathan”
 Anthropology
• Within the polity of Bangladesh there are also small
groups of people who retain their distinctiveness and
have not merged into the mainstream Bangla-speaking
group ( the Tribals);
• Most of these groups are mainly of Mongoloid origin
and they speak languages of the Tibeto-Burman family
of Languages. The major tribes are Polia, Garo, Hajong,
Tripra, Chakma, Lushai, Mru, Tanchanga, Marma,
Rakhine, and other smaller groups;
• Some other group belong to Austric Mone-Khmer
group, such as Khasia, or to the Dravidian group, such
as the Saontal and Oraon;
 Present Population Structure of
Bangladesh
• Bangladesh is largely ethnically homogeneous, and its name
derives from the Bengali ethno-linguistic group which
comprises 98% of the population. The Chattogram Hill Tracts,
Sylhet, Mymensingh and North Bengal divisions are home to
diverse indigenous peoples. There are many dialects of
Bengali spoken throughout the region. The dialect spoken by
those in Chittagong and Sylhet are particularly distinctive. The
population is estimated at 167 million (2019). About 90% of
Bangladeshis are Muslims, followed by Hindus (9%), Buddhists
(0.6%) and Christians (0.3%) and others (0.1%);
• Bangladesh is the 8th largest populated country in the world;
• Population Density: 1,291 persons per square kilometer, and
ranked 12th in the world;
 Present Population Structure of
Bangladesh

Age group Male (%) Female (%) Total (%)

0-14 35.1 31.8 33.4

15-64 58.3 63.7 61.0
65+ 6.6 4.5 5.6

• Median age of the People in Bangladesh is 26 years;

• Population Growth rate 1.0% per annum;
• Life expectancy at birth is 72.49 years;
 Population – Blessing or Curse
• Forestland and trees are being destroyed by Human
– Bangladesh has only 9% of forestland of the total area
whereas a country must have 25% of forestland;
– People destroying forest to increase the area of cultivable
land and to make furniture, paper etc.
• Food, Health & Sanitation Problem
– About 9% of Bangladesh live in Extreme poverty level with
less than $1.90 per day
– Population is growing but food production is limited
– There are an estimated 3.05 physicians per 10,000
population and 1.07 nurses per 10,000 population
 Population – Blessing or Curse
• Education Problem
– About 30% people are not literate
• Environment Pollution
– Imbalance in the Environment
• Unemployment Problem
– Only 60% of the overall population is employed
 Population – Blessing or Curse
• Boosted Economic Development
– Agriculture (About 41% contribution in GDP)
– Manpower (About 60% of the overall population
consists of working class people)
– Garments Industry
• 2nd largest producer of garments;
• 2nd largest exporter of western fashion brands;
• 80.7% of total export from Bangladesh comes from
garments industry which is about 12.36% of the overall GDP
– Migration (about $13.53 billion in 2017)
• Cultural Development
 Culture
• Bangladesh has a rich cultural heritage.
– Literary culture: There are numerous literary masterpieces
produced in this region. The earliest literary text in Bengal
is the 8th century charyapada. Bengali literature reached its
full expression in the 19th century with its greatest icons
being poet Rabindranath tagore, Michael Madhushudan
Dutt, Kazi Nazrul Islam.
– Musical Culture: The traditional music of this region is
mainly lyrics based (bani prodhan) with minimum use of
instruments. “Baul” song is the main form of folk song of
the country along with other types such as Gombhira,
Bhatiali, Bhawaiya.
 Culture
• Culinary Tradition: The culinary tradition of
bangladesh has close relations with that of North
east India and Middle eastern cuisine. The main
food is rice and fish, meat, vegetables.
• Architectural culture: Bangladesh has numerous
historical monuments, forts, mosques, temples
that bear testimony to the rich history and
heritage of the region and its previous occupants.
• i.e Lalbagh fort, Ahsan Monjil, Bhawal Razbari,
Sat gombuj mosque, Jagannath temple, Kantojiu
temple, mohasthangor, moynamoti etc.