Excerpt from change request document:

The Rohingya people claim to be indigenous to Rakhine State of Myanmar. They claim descent from Arab traders who settled on the coast well over 1,000 years ago and their local Muslim converts, and were the ruling class of the ancient Kingdom of Arakan which until the mid 18th century covered part of Bangladesh's Chittagong Division as well as Rakhine State. Proof of their long presence in Myanmar is found in the ruins of many ancient mosques in Rakhine State, some over 500 years old. The Myanmar government, however, claims that the Rohingya are recent immigrants from Bangladesh, and has suppressed their language and attempted to drive the entire population to Bangladesh whose government has not accepted them. The language is Indo-Aryan, with an admixture of Persian, Arabic and some Burmese vocabulary. Tonal distinctions exist, a feature of Burmese but not usual in Indo-Aryan languages. Rohingya is closely related to but distinct from Chittagonian, which is reported to be understood by most men but not by most women.