Dehan, Dewan, Dheyan, Dhiyan or Cachari dialect is a regional
variety of
Assamese, spoken mainly in the
Cachar district
Cachar district is an administrative districts of Assam, district in the state of Assam in India. After independence, the pre-existing undivided Cachar district was split into four districts: Dima Hasao district, Dima Hasao (formerly North Cachar ...
of
Barak valley. More specifically, Dehan speakers
are mainly found in ten villages in the eastern part of Barak river namely Horinagar, Japirbon, Leburbon, Gororbon, Dewan (Labok) or Dewan Bosti, Narayanpur, Larchingpar, Thaligram, Lakkhichora, and Digli. Though Dehan speakers are located in the same district, however, they are scattered in different places. Out of ten villages, Japirbon is the
biggest and the populous one.
Other than
Assamese, Dehan shares its lexical items and linguistic features with
Sylheti and
Bishnupriya Manipuri as well, which is due to long language contact apart from being closely related. Dehan is closely related to the
Kamrupi and Standard dialects of Assamese.
History
Among the communities of Barak valley, the Dehans are one of the early settlers as their settlement dates back to 16th century. They entered Cachar during
Chilarai’s conquest of Cachar plains, but some of them didn't return to Brahmaputra valley and made Cachar their permanent home. Chilarai campaigned through
Maibong,
Manipur
Manipur () is a state in northeastern India with Imphal as its capital. It borders the Indian states of Assam to the west, Mizoram to the south, and Nagaland to the north and shares the international border with Myanmar, specifically t ...
,
Jaintia,
Srihatta and
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 ...
and finally the plains of Cachar were annexed to the
Koch kingdom as Khaspur kingdom in 1562. Later the Koch principality in Cachar was reduced to a small
zamindari in and around
Khaspur.
The Koch-Rajbongshis of Barak valley are better known as Dehans. They initially had their settlements around Khaspur but later, owning to different socio-political compulsions, they had to branch off to different villages.
Morphology
Pronouns
Grammatical cases
1 = Used after vowel-ending words.
Sample text
Notes
Reference
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Eastern Indo-Aryan languages
Languages of Assam
Assamese language