The

Zomi The Zomi are an ethnic group which can be found in India, Myanmar and in Chittagong hill tracks of Bangladesh. The word Zomi is used to describe an ethnic group, which is also known as the Chin, the Mizo, the Kuki, or a number of other names ...

are an ethnic group which can be found in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

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 ...

and in Chittagong hill tracks of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. The word Zomi is used to describe an ethnic group, which is also known as the Chin, the Mizo, the Kuki, or a number of other names based on geographic distribution, that is a member of a large group of related

Tibeto-Burman 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 spea ...

peoples spread throughout the northeastern states of India, northwestern

(Burma) and the

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 northeastern India, they are present in

Chin State Chin State (, ) is a state in western Myanmar. The Chin State is bordered by Sagaing Division and Magway Division to the east, Rakhine State to the south, Bangladesh to the south-west, and the Indian states of Mizoram to the west and Ma ...

Nagaland Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...

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 ...

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...

and

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

. The dispersal across international borders resulted from a British colonial policy that drew borders on political, rather than ethnic, grounds. They speak more than fifty dialects.

Names

Various names have been used for the Zomi peoples, but the individual groups generally acknowledge descent from ancestral Chin-Kuki. Among the more prominent names given to this group are "Chin" and "Zomi" generally in Myanmar, and "Mizo","Chin", "Kuki" and "Zomi", generally in India. In the literature, the term ''Kuki'' first appeared in the writings of Rawlins when he wrote about the tribes of the

. It referred to a "wild tribe" comprising numerous clans. These clans shared a common past, culture, customs and tradition. They spoke in dialects that had a common root language belonging to the

group. The origin of the name "Chin" is unknown . Later the British used the compound term "Chin-Kuki-Mizo" to group the

Chin Kuki language The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible ( mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a well-developed chin is considered to be one ...

speaking people, and the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

inherited this. Missionaries chose to employ the term Chin to christen those on the Burmese side and the term Zomi on the Indian side of the border. Chin nationalist leaders in Burma's

popularized the term "Chin" following Burma's independence from Britain. Beginning in the 1990s, the generic names Chin and Zomi have been rejected by some for "Zomi", a name used by a group speaking

Northern Zomish languages Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

, including the

. The speakers of the Northern Chin-Kuki languages are sometimes lumped together as the Zomi's.Some Zomi nationalists have stated that the use of the label Chin would mean subtle domination by Burmese groups. The term "Mizo" (poetic version of "Zomi"), was incorporated in the name of the Indian state

Geography

They are spread out in the contiguous regions of

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

, Northwest

Burma 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 ...

(Myanmar), and the

. In India, they are most prominent in

and

. Some fifty Zo peoples are recognised as scheduled tribes.

Popular culture

The first Zomi-language movie to receive a full-length theatrical debut was a 2021 English-Zomi bilingual film, written and directed by Burmese refugee Thang Mung, called ''Thorn in the Center of the Heart''. The film first premiered in Michigan, where Mung was resettled by U.S. refugee services as a teenager.

Notable Chin people

(note*, the word Zomi is the name of a community and a region under Chin. Chin is the name of a state in Burma/Myanmar. There are many communities under Chin. Each community speaks a different language (not accent, as in a whole new language).) *

Mary Kom Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom (born 01 March 1983) is an Indian amateur boxer, politician, and former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. She is the only woman to win the World Amateur Boxing Championship six times, the only female boxer to ha ...

* Henry Van Thio * Zoramthanga *

Lalthlamuong Keivom Lalthlamuong Keivom (15 July 1939 – 28 November 2021) was an Indian diplomat, writer and composer of Mizo literature and Hmar language, Hmar literature. Keivom was nicknamed Zoram Khawvel Pa after his treatise ''Zoram Khawvel'' and for his c ...

Khai Kam Khai Kam (1864–15 September 1919) was a leader of the Chin people in Myanmar. Two years after the British Indian Army invaded and conquered Chin State's Chin Hills in the late nineteenth century, he headed an insurrection against British rule ...

Pau Cin Hau Pau Cin Hau is the founder and the name of a religion followed by some Tedim, Hakha in Chin state and Kale in Sagaing division in the north-western part of Myanmar. Pau Cin Hau was born in the Tedim (Tiddim) in 1859; and lived until 1948. He sta ...

Chin Sian Thang Cin Sian Thang (6 April 1938 – 31 July 2021) was a Burmese politician who was chairman of the Zomi Congress for Democracy, formerly the Zomi National Congress, a political party in Myanmar (formerly Burma). Biography Elected as a member of ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zomi people Ethnic groups in Bangladesh Ethnic groups in Manipur Ethnic groups in Myanmar Tribes of Assam Ethnic groups in Northeast India Ethnic groups in South Asia Hill people

Names

Geography

Popular culture

Notable Chin people

See also

References