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The Karbi language (US: /kɑːrbi/ (listen)), also known as Mikir or Arleng, is spoken by the Karbi (Mikir, Arleng) people of north-eastern India and north-eastern Bangladesh. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, but its position is unclear. Shafer (1974) and Bradley (1997) classify the Mikir languages as an aberrant Kuki-Chin branch, but Thurgood (2003) leaves them unclassified within Sino-Tibetan. Blench and Post (2013) classify it as one of the most basal languages of the entire family.

There is little dialect diversity except for the Dumurali / Kamrup Karbi dialect, which is distinct enough to be considered a separate Karbi language.

Varieties

Konnerth (2014) identifies two main Karbi varieties.

• 
  Hills Karbi: Rongkhang or Ronghang dialect of Karbi Anglong district, Assam
  


• 
  Plains Karbi (Dumra Karbi): spoken in Kamrup district and Marigaon district, Assam, and in Ri-Bhoi district, Meghalaya.

Phonology

Data below are from Konnerth (2017).^[3]

Consonants

Initial consonants

• Palatal /ɟ~j/ constitutes free variation between a stop and a glide production.


• Also, allophonic alternations typical for the area include /pʰ~ɸ/ (within the same speaker) and /r~ɾ~ɹ/ (intergenerational and interdialectal).

Final consonants

Vowels

Syllable structure

Karbi syllables may be the open (C)(C)V(V) or the closed (C)(C)VC. Possible onset consonant cluster combinations are as follows: /pl pr pʰl pʰr tʰr kl kr kʰr/.

Geographical distribution

Karbi is spoken in the following areas of Northeast India (Ethnologue).

• 
  Assam:
  
  
  
  • Darrang district
  
  
  • 
    Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar district)
  
  
  • East Kamrup district
  
  
  • Kamrup Metropolitan district
  
  
  • Karbi Anglong district
  
  
  • Lakhimpur district
  
  
  • Marigaon district
  
  
  • Nagaon district
  
  
  • Sonitpur district
  
  
  • South Kamrup district
  
  
  • West Karbi Anglong district
  
  
  
  


• 
  Arunachal Pradesh:
  
  • 
    Papum Pare district (Balijan circle)
  
  


• 
  Meghalaya:
  
  
  
  • Jaintia Hills district
  
  
  • Ri-Bhoi district
  
  
  
  


• 
  Nagaland:
  
  • foothills around Dimapur
    
  
  

History

Like most languages of North East India, Karbi writing system is based on Roman script, occasionally in Assamese script. The earliest written texts in Karbi were produced by Christian missionaries, especially by the American Baptist Mission and the Catholic Church. The missionaries brought out a newspaper in Karbi titled Birta as early as 1903. Rev. R.E. Neighbor's Vocabulary of English and Mikir, with Illustrative Sentences published in 1878, which can be called the ‘first’ Karbi ‘dictionary’, Sardoka Perrin Kay's English–Mikir Dictionary published in 1904, Sir Charles Lyall and Edward Stack's The Mikirs in 1908, the first ethnographic details on the Karbis and G.D. Walker's A Dictionary of the Mikir Language published in 1925 are some of the earliest important books on the Karbis and the Karbi language and grammar.^[4]

The Karbis have a rich oral tradition. The Mosera (recalling the past), a lengthy folk narrative that describes the origin and migration ordeal of the Karbis, is one such example.

See also

• Thekar


• The Arleng Daily

Notes

References