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Garo language
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Garo language
Garo, also referred to by its endonym A·chikku, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Northeast Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam, and Tripura. It is also spoken in certain areas of the neighbouring Bangladesh. According to the 2001 census, there are about 889,000 Garo speakers in India alone; another 130,000 are found in Bangladesh.
Ethnologue lists the following locations for Garo:
Garo belongs to the Baric group, a member of the Tibeto-Burmese subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The Boro-Garo subgroup is one of the longest recognised and most coherent subgroups of the Sino-Tibetan language family. This includes languages such as Garo language, Boro, Kokborok, Dimasa, Rabha, Atong, Tiwa, and Koch. Being closely related to each other, these languages have many features in common; similarities are easily recognisable from a surface-level observation of a given dataset of words from the these languages.
Towards the end of the 19th century, American Baptist missionaries put the north-eastern dialect of Garo called A•we into writing, initially using the Bengali script. It was selected out of many others because the north-eastern region of Garo Hills was where rapid growth in the number of educated Garo people was taking place. In addition, the region was also where education was first imparted to the Garos. In course of time, the dialect became associated with educated culture. Today, a variant of the dialect can be heard among the speakers of Tura, a small town in the west-central part of Garo Hills, which is actually an Am•beng-speaking region. The political headquarters was established in Tura after Garo Hills came under the complete control of the British Government in 1873. This led to the migration of educated north-easterners to the town, and a shift from its use of the native dialect to the dialect of the north-easterners. Tura also became the educational hub of Garo Hills, and in time, a de facto standard developed from the north-eastern dialect (A•we) which gradually became associated with the town and the educated Garo speech everywhere ever since. As regards Garo orthography, the basic Latin alphabet completely replaced the Bengali script only[clarification needed] by 1924, although a Latin-based alphabet was developed by American missionaries in 1902.
The Latin-based Garo alphabet used today consists of 20 letters and a raised dot called raka (a symbol representing the glottal stop [ʔ]). In typing, the raka is represented by an interpunct. The letters ⟨f, q, v, x, y, z⟩ are not considered to be part of the alphabet and appear only in borrowed words. There are two ways in which the alphabet ⟨i⟩ is pronounced: one is /i/ (usually in the word-final position), while the other is the centralised vowel /ɨ/ (usually in the word-initial and word medial position). Therefore, although Garo may morphologically possess five vowels, phonetically, it actually has six.
In Bangladesh, a variant of the Bengali script is still used alongside its Latin counterpart. Bengali and Assamese had been the mediums of instruction in educational institutions until 1924, and they have played a great role in the evolution of modern Garo. As a result, many Bengali and Assamese words have entered the Garo lexicon. Recently there has also been a proliferation of English words entering everyday Garo speech, owing to media and the preference of English-medium schools over those conducted in the vernacular. Hindi vocabulary is also making a slow but firm appearance in the language.
The Garo language is sometimes written using the A•chik Tokbirim script, which was invented in 1979 by Arun Richil Marak. The names of each letter in this script were taken from natural phenomena. The script is used to some extent in the village of Bhabanipur in northwestern Bangladesh, and is also known as A•chik Garo Tokbirim.
Accordingly, the term dialect is politically defined as a 'non-official speech variety'. The Garo language comprises dialects such as A·we, Am·beng/A·beng, Matchi, Dual, Chisak, Ganching, and a few others. Marak (2013:134–135) lists the following dialects of Garo and their geographical distributions.
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Garo language
Garo, also referred to by its endonym A·chikku, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Northeast Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam, and Tripura. It is also spoken in certain areas of the neighbouring Bangladesh. According to the 2001 census, there are about 889,000 Garo speakers in India alone; another 130,000 are found in Bangladesh.
Ethnologue lists the following locations for Garo:
Garo belongs to the Baric group, a member of the Tibeto-Burmese subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The Boro-Garo subgroup is one of the longest recognised and most coherent subgroups of the Sino-Tibetan language family. This includes languages such as Garo language, Boro, Kokborok, Dimasa, Rabha, Atong, Tiwa, and Koch. Being closely related to each other, these languages have many features in common; similarities are easily recognisable from a surface-level observation of a given dataset of words from the these languages.
Towards the end of the 19th century, American Baptist missionaries put the north-eastern dialect of Garo called A•we into writing, initially using the Bengali script. It was selected out of many others because the north-eastern region of Garo Hills was where rapid growth in the number of educated Garo people was taking place. In addition, the region was also where education was first imparted to the Garos. In course of time, the dialect became associated with educated culture. Today, a variant of the dialect can be heard among the speakers of Tura, a small town in the west-central part of Garo Hills, which is actually an Am•beng-speaking region. The political headquarters was established in Tura after Garo Hills came under the complete control of the British Government in 1873. This led to the migration of educated north-easterners to the town, and a shift from its use of the native dialect to the dialect of the north-easterners. Tura also became the educational hub of Garo Hills, and in time, a de facto standard developed from the north-eastern dialect (A•we) which gradually became associated with the town and the educated Garo speech everywhere ever since. As regards Garo orthography, the basic Latin alphabet completely replaced the Bengali script only[clarification needed] by 1924, although a Latin-based alphabet was developed by American missionaries in 1902.
The Latin-based Garo alphabet used today consists of 20 letters and a raised dot called raka (a symbol representing the glottal stop [ʔ]). In typing, the raka is represented by an interpunct. The letters ⟨f, q, v, x, y, z⟩ are not considered to be part of the alphabet and appear only in borrowed words. There are two ways in which the alphabet ⟨i⟩ is pronounced: one is /i/ (usually in the word-final position), while the other is the centralised vowel /ɨ/ (usually in the word-initial and word medial position). Therefore, although Garo may morphologically possess five vowels, phonetically, it actually has six.
In Bangladesh, a variant of the Bengali script is still used alongside its Latin counterpart. Bengali and Assamese had been the mediums of instruction in educational institutions until 1924, and they have played a great role in the evolution of modern Garo. As a result, many Bengali and Assamese words have entered the Garo lexicon. Recently there has also been a proliferation of English words entering everyday Garo speech, owing to media and the preference of English-medium schools over those conducted in the vernacular. Hindi vocabulary is also making a slow but firm appearance in the language.
The Garo language is sometimes written using the A•chik Tokbirim script, which was invented in 1979 by Arun Richil Marak. The names of each letter in this script were taken from natural phenomena. The script is used to some extent in the village of Bhabanipur in northwestern Bangladesh, and is also known as A•chik Garo Tokbirim.
Accordingly, the term dialect is politically defined as a 'non-official speech variety'. The Garo language comprises dialects such as A·we, Am·beng/A·beng, Matchi, Dual, Chisak, Ganching, and a few others. Marak (2013:134–135) lists the following dialects of Garo and their geographical distributions.
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