Dhaka, Feb. 21 -- 'Abbey koy ki?' -- The chances of hearing such Dhakaiya turns of phrases are becoming increasingly rare, even in the labyrinthine alleyways of Old Dhaka.

Although the 'Dhakaiya Kutti' dialect is widely thought of as an Old Dhaka variant of Bangla, it isn't the only one spoken in the area.

Natives of Old Dhaka also speak 'Shobbash' -- a fading yet extant sub-variant of the Dhakaiya dialect derived from the word 'Shukhbash'.

People fluent in 'Shobbash' are called the 'Shobbashi.'

Historically, the Mughal era in Bengal saw an influx of people from various Indian provinces in Dhaka, bringing an array of languages like Urdu, Persian, Hindi, and English to the region, which greatly influenced the Shobbash dialect, accordin...