The Tanchangya language is one of the eleven indigenous languages in

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

in present-day Bangladesh, and an ethnic group in the

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

s of

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...

and

Mizoram Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from "Mizo", the self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo language means "lan ...

, as well as

Rakhine State Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Ben ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. It is categorized as an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

, despite some scholars having the opinion of it being

Tibeto-Burman language The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spe ...

.Rupak-Debnath (2008): 167 It is closely related to Chakma and Chittagonian.

Vocabulary

Tanchangya language is rooted in

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

, with mixture of

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

and other middle-Indo-Aryan languages.

Ancient Tanchangya language

Ancient Tanchangya's words are believed to be the original words of Tanchangya since those words have been handing down a long time ago. It is not simply due to its earlier usage but it is universally understood by every Tanchangya despite any geographical distribution. According to Roti Kanta Tanchangya's collection of some ancient Tanchangya words.Roti Kanta Tanchangya (2000): 62-65

Middle Indo-Aryan

The ancient Indo-Aryan language, Sanskrit is the most influential language impacting on most of the present middle-Indo-Aryan languages such as without Hindi, and with Odiya, Bengali, and Assamese and even in Tanchangya language with distorted and half assimilated form. Though Tanchangya language is thought to be the Indo-Aryan language family, due to its long gap of meeting with Pāḷi and Sanskrit, their vocabularies are almost untraceable distorted forms. According to ‘Tanchangya Parichiti’ written by Biro Kumar Tanchangya of the words originated from Indo-Aryan language.

Tibeto-Burman

Tanchangay language does not belong to Tibeto-Burman language family; however, till today there are many Buddhist religious’ terms are found in the Tanchangya Language. It is believed that after the establishment of first Myanmar Empire, the

Bagan Dynasty The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...

in 11th century CE, Myanmar language and its culture influence to the neighbouring tribes in many ways.

Foreign words

In Tanchangya language it could also find few vocabularies derived from Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Persian, French, English, and Hindi.

Opinions on Tanchangya language

Outside Tanchangya tribe, there is a common belief that there is no difference at all between Tanchangya language and Chakma language. Such an instance can be seen at Dr. Satyakam Phukan's article named “An Analysis of the Ethno-Linguistic Roots and Connections of the Chakma and Tanchangya People”. According to him, the similarity is much compared to the difference between the words between Chakma and Tanchangya.

References

External links

* * * * * {{Eastern Indo-Aryan languages Eastern Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Bangladesh