Mountain Names of Bangladesh
Created [22/12/2024]
Saka Haphong, Zow Tlang/ Reang Haphong, Aiyang Tlang, Dumlong/ Msha Panji Haphong, Keokradong, Maithaijama Haphong, Thingdawlte Tlang, Mukhra Thuthai Haphong, Kapital Haphong, Kreikung Taung, Sippi Ar-suang, Taung Prai, Tazing Dong
The purpose of this article is solely for the purpose of etymology, not geography so descriptions about the mountains themselves will not be given. The list of names of mountains was obtained from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountains_of_Bangladesh
Immediately when looking at these names, we can notice certain words repeating often, such as: Haphong, Dong, Tlang
Repeating Titles
Haphong
Saka Haphong is spelt in Burmese in the Wikipedia page as ဆကးအဖောင်. The Burmese Wikipedia names it as ဆက်ခဟဖွန့် (transliteration: hcakkhahaphwan).
Hapong/ Haping means “mountain/ hill” in Kokborok. If we look at https://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/gnis?lexicon.lgiď1122 then we find ha-poŋ listed under Kokborok, with the citation:
Tripuri, Prashanta and Jurafsky, Dan. 1988. Kokborok dictionary. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT). Accessed via STEDT database <http://stedt.berkeley.edu/search/> on 2025-03-10.
Tlang
According to the Bawm dictionary app, tlang means “lump”. Kennet VanBik's book about Proto-Kuki-Chin directly gives us the term for mountain in the ancestor of Bawm with cognates in other Kuki-Chin languages: "[1263] HILL2 / MOUNTAIN PKC *klaaŋ; Mara tlà ‘a mountain, a hill’; H. Lai tlâaŋ ‘hill, mountain’; F. Lai tlǎaŋ ‘hill, mountain’; Mizo tláang ‘a mountain, a hill’; Thado Kuki hláaŋ ‘mountain, mountain range’; Paite taang ‘hill’; Asho kyan ‘a mountain, hill’. (2009, p.294)"
Dong/Taung
Mountain in Rakhine. In Burmese script it is တောင်.
After this, we will look at:
Individual Mountain Names
Zow Tlang
We can find the meaning of this term from the Wikipedia page about Zow Tlang
" In the Bawm language, "Zow" means Mizo, a term derived from Mizoram, India. This is probably due to the fact that Bangladesh was a part of greater India before 1947. "Tlang" means mountain." The reference given states the same thing:
"More about Zow Tlang". Retrieved 2024-12-22. httpsː//bd.top10place.com/zow-tlang-1824170910.html
If we go to the Burmese Wikipedia:
ဇိုးလန့်တောင်
ဝေါဟာရသမိုင်း
Bawn ဘာသာစကားတွင် ဇိုး (Zow) သည် မိဇို(Mizo) ဟု အဓိပ္ပာယ်ရသည်။ မိဇိုသည် အိန္ဒိယစကား မိဇိုရမ် (Mizoram) မှ ဆင်းသက်လာသည့် ဝေါဟာရတစ်ခု ဖြစ်သည်။
Reang Haphong
"The two other major dialects are Riang (or Reang) and Noatia. Smaller dialects are Jamatia, Koloi and Rupini." (dialects, Wikipedia, Kokborok, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokborok, resource: Bradley, David (2002). "The subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman". In Beckwith, Christopher I. (ed.). Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages. Brill. p. 83
So Reang Haphong is Reang (ethnic group) + mountain
Keokradong
In Bangla script: কেওক্রাডং keokraɖɔŋ, কেওকাড়াডং keokaɽaɖɔŋ
"কেওক্রাডং শব্দটি মারমা ভাষা থেকে এসেছে। মারমা ভাষায় কেও মানে ˈপাথরˈ, কাড়া মানে ˈপাহাড়ˈ আর এবং ডং মানে ˈসবচেয়ে উঁচুˈ। অর্থাৎ কেওক্রাডং মানে সবচেয়ে উঁচু পাথরের পাহাড়।"
From Bangla Wikipedia, the etymology is stated as from Marma (Rakhine), where keo = stone, k(a)ra = mountain, and dong = summit.
Stone is "ကျောက်" in Burmese, which is kyauk in transliteration and /ʧaʊʔ/ in pronunciation. If Marma does not palatalise ky- to /tɕ/, then the first component matches. And according to the STEDT database, searching "stone" yields /kyɔʔ/ for Marma. Second syllable? Unsure. kraʔ means "fowl/ chicken" in Marma, though does this name really mean "stone chicken summit"?
Tazing Dong
[6/05/2026]
If we go to the Bangla Wikipedia page, it gives us this information:
"স্থানীয় অধিবাসীদের ভাষায় "তাজিং" শব্দের অর্থ বড় বা সর্বোচ্চ[২৮] আর "ডং" শব্দের অর্থ পাহাড়"; "স্থানীয় অধিবাসী" means local people, but it never specifies a language. It states that it means "highest peak".
"স্থানীয় মারমাদের ভাষায় "তাজিং" শব্দের অর্থ হলো গাঢ় সবুজ এবং "ডং" শব্দের অর্থ হলো পাহাড়চূড়া বা পর্বতশৃঙ্গ।" Here it states Marma language and claims that Tazing means "deep green".
Green in Marma is အစီမ်းရောင် asī́mraung/aséimraung and that info was obtained from this video:
Though this does not account for the ta- in the first syllable.
Maithaijama Haphong
The Wikipedia page claims "The name "Maithai Jama Haphong" came from the Tripura language. which means, "Bad hilly place for vegetation."" But this is very weird. We know Haphong is from Kokborok/ Tripuri language but the first two words are simply Bangla for "clothes on the head".
Thingdawlte Tlang
The nearest settlement is Thingdawlte (Bawm) village, for which the peak is named. The name looks like Bawm. It’s very hard to find any information on name etymologies in Bawm, unfortunately.
Taung Prai
Wikipedia page claims "Taung prai is a Marma word which means "Ulta pahar"(উল্টা পাহাড়)"; in Bangla উল্টা generally means upside-down. In Burmese, according to the STEDT database, prai means effaced, wasted.
Kreikung Taung
From the Wikipedia page we get this information:
"Alternative name: Ngaramh Tlang (ন্যারা্ম্ ত্ল্যাং,বম); Kreikung Taung name originated from local Marma language.
Bengali meaning: মাছ পাহাড়"
The Bawm alternative name is a bit easier to research.
Proto-Kuki-Chin *ŋaa means fish, and can be traced back to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-ŋja fish
Where we can find Burmese ငါး nga: fish
ramh? is probably from the word for forest/ land/ country: "[953] PKC *ram Mara rà ‘land, country, kingdom’; H. Lai râm ‘land, country, forest’; F. Lai rǎm ‘land, country’; Mizo rám ‘country, forest, jungle, kingdom, domain, territory’" (VanBik, 2009, p.238). There is another entry in Proto-Kuki-Chin which is *ram but the meaning does not seem to match; "[930] PKC *ram DESTROY / ANNIHILATE / WASTE Mizo râm ‘to destroy, to damage, to lay waste to, ravage (as pigs, children, etc. can do to a garden)’" (VanBik, 2009, p.234). Therefore Ngaramh Tlang means "fish land mountain"
As for the Marma name, according to STEDT online database, krei is "star" in Arakanese, cf. Burmese ကြယ် kray. But the second syllable is harder. In the STEDT database, kuŋ in the Burmish branch gives an entry for Proto-Lolo-Burmese, but not Burmese itself. The Burmese term in the STEDT database starts with kh- so the consonants don't match.
Mukhra Thuthai haphong
The Bangla name is মুখরা থুতাই হাফং which is read mukhra thutai kaphong, so the issue is with the second word in English both t's are aspirated, but in Bangla only one is. Considering the name is from Tripuri/ Kokborok language, I am not sure what to trust. Regarding etymology, it's all guesswork.
I am using this as a source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381278072 A Grammar of Tripura
The word for place in Tripuri is tʰai, but again this is an aspirated t which does match with the English name but not with the Bangla transliteration. Apparently there are words with the form thu: "tʰù sleep", tʰu wear/slim", but I do not think they are related to the name of the mountain. The word for water is tui/ twi (Rashel, 2024, p.1). In this case the aspiration does not match, for some reason I still thought I should mention it. As for mukhra, this is the only phonological comparison I could find: [muˑk.hro] /mùkhrò/ ‘head’, [muˑk.hra] /mukhra/ ‘monkey’ (Rashel, 2024, p.57, p.247).
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the names of Aiyang Tlang, Dumlong/ Msha Panji Haphong and Sippi Ar-suang are unknown to me as I cannot find etymological information about them.
Reference List
Button, C. (2009). A reconstruction of Proto Northern Chin in Old Burmese and Old Chinese perspective.
Rashel, Md. M. (2024). A Grammar of Tripura. 18608946 Bytes. https://doi.org/10.26181/22433158.V1
VanBik, K. (2009). Proto-Kuki-Chin: A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages. Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Project, Dept. of Linguistics research unit in Univ. of California, Berkeley.









