The Boro–Garo languages are a branch of

Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

, spoken primarily in

Northeast India Northeast India, officially the North Eastern Region (NER), is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political Administrative divisions of India, administrative division of the country. It comprises eight States and ...

and parts of

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. The Boro–Garo languages form four groups: Boro, Garo, Koch and Deori. Boro–Garo languages were historically very widespread throughout the Brahmaputra Valley and in what are now the northern parts of

, and it is speculated that the proto-Boro-Garo language was the lingua franca of the Brahmaputra valley before it was replaced by Assamese, to which it has made major contributions.

Branches

The Boro-Garo languages were identified in the Grierson's Language Survey of India, and the names of the languages and their modern equivalents are given below in the table.

Sub groups

The Boro-Garo languages have been further divided into four subgroups by Burling. *

Koch languages The Koch languages are a small group of Boro-Garo languages a sub-branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Northeast India Northeast India, officially the North Eastern Region (NER), is the easternmost region of India representing both ...

: Atong, Koch, Ruga, Rabha * Garo languages: Garo, Megam *

Bodo languages The Boroic languages (also simply Boro languages in a wider sense) are a group within the Boro-Garo languages which are spoken in and around the Brahmaputra basin, Barak valley and Tripura of present-day northeast India. They are: * Boro * Dimas ...

Bodo Bodo may refer to: Ethnicity * Boro people, also called ''Bodo'', an ethno-linguistic group mainly from Northwest Assam, India * Bodo-Kachari people, an umbrella group from Nepal, India and Bangladesh that includes the Boro people Culture an ...

, Dimasa, Barman,

Tiwa Tiwa and Tigua may refer to: * Tiwa Puebloans, an ethnic group of New Mexico, US * Tiwa (Lalung), an ethnic group of north-eastern India * Tiwa language (India), a Sino-Tibetan language of India * Tiwa languages, a group of Tanoan languages of the ...

Kokborok Kokborok (or Tripuri) is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Indian state of Tripura and neighbouring areas of Bangladesh. Its name comes from ''kók'' meaning "verbal" or "language" and ''borok'' meaning "people" or "human", It is one of the anci ...

(Tripuri), Kachari, Moran * Deori language Old Hajong may have been a Bodo–Garo language. Barman is a recently discovered Bodo–Garo language.A brief linguistic sketch of the Barman Thar (Language)
Tezpur University. Boro is an associate official language of the state of

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

(Tripuri) is one of the official languages of the state of

Tripura Tripura () is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a populat ...

. Garo is an associate official language of

Meghalaya Meghalaya (; "the abode of clouds") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeast India. Its capital is Shillong. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the Assam: the United Khasi Hills an ...

. Megam has been strongly influenced by

Khasic languages The Khasic or Khasian languages are a family of Austroasiatic languages native to the Shillong Plateau and spoken by the Khasi, Pnar and other related ethnic groups. Most of them reside in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya where Kha ...

, while Deori-Chutia by the Idu Mishmi language. Languages of the family feature verb-final word order. There is some flexibility in the order of the arguments, but a nominative–accusative distinction is marked with post-nominal

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic ( , backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

s. The languages also prefix classifiers to numerals modifying nouns. tense, aspect and mood are indicated using verbal

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

es.

Origins

The linkage of the Boro–Garo languages with Konyak and Jingphaw languages suggest that proto-Boro-Garo entered Assam from somewhere to the northeast. It has been proposed that the ''proto''-Boro-Garo language was a ''lingua franca'' of different linguistic communities, not all of who were native speakers, and that it began as a creolized lingua franca. This would account for the highly reduced morphology of Boro–Garo, with what morphology is present mostly being regular, loosely bound, and with transparent etymology, typical signs of recent origin.

Classification

Joseph & Burling (2006)

Joseph & Burling (2006:1-2) classify the Boro–Garo languages into four major groups. Wood (2008:6) also follows this classification. * Deori * Boro languages: Boro,

* Garo *

: Koch, Rabha, Wanang, Atong, and Ruga

Jacquesson (2006)

Jacquesson (2017:112)Jacquesson, François and van Breugel, Seino (2017). "The linguistic reconstruction of the past: The case of the Boro-Garo languages." In ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', 40, 90-122. [Note: English translation of the French original: Jacquesson, François (2006). ‘La reconstruction linguistique du passé: Le cas des language Boro-Garo’. ''Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris'' 101(1): 273–303.] classifies the Boro-Garo languages as follows, and recognizes three major branches (Western, Central, and Eastern). The

and Garo are grouped together as Western Boro-Garo. *Western ** Garo, ** Rabha, Koch * Central ** Boro, Mech **Bru ** Dimasa, Moran **

*Eastern ** Deori Jacquesson (2017) believes that the Boro–Garo languages had arrived in their present location from the southeast, and notes similarities shared with

Zeme languages The Zemeic, Zeme, Zeliangrong or Western NagaMortensen, David R. (2003). �Comparative Tangkhul” Unpublished Qualifying Paper, UC Berkeley. are a languages branch of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken mostly in Indian state of Nagaland, Assam and Ma ...

and

Kuki-Chin languages The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most notable Kuki-Chin-speaking ...

Reconstruction

Proto-Boro–Garo has been reconstructed by Joseph and Burling (2006) and by Wood (2008).

Notes

References

* *Joseph, U.V., and Burling, Robbins. 2006. ''Comparative phonology of the Boro Garo languages''. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages Publication. *