Deori language

Deori^[2] is a Tibeto-Burman language in the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken by the Deori people of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.^[3] Out of three, only one clan of the Deori tribe, the Dibongya, have retained the language. The others, Tengaponia and Borgoyan, have shifted to Assamese, but among the Dibongya it is vigorous. It was the original language of Upper Assam.^[4] As per the Linguistic Survey of India(1898-1928), the Deori(referred to as Chutia) language represents the most archaic stage of the Bodo-Kachari language family. It is most closely connected with the Dimasa language, but is certainly more primitive in its grammatical system.^[5] According to PRT Gurdon (1903), the Deori-Chutia language is very similar to the Moran dialect of Assamese and it can well be stated that the Moran language was nothing but a transitional language between Deori and Assamese language. Although the writers of colonial era termed the language as "Chutia language"(Deoris were formerly known as Deori-Chutias), the Chutia people today speak Assamese. Therefore, at present, there is no evidence of closeness of the language with the Chutia community. ^[6]

Distribution of Deori-Chutiya Language in Upper Assam, as reported in the Language Survey of India 1903

Deori is spoken in Lohit district, Arunachal Pradesh, and in Lakhimpur district, Dhemaji district, Tinsukia district, and Jorhat district of Assam. It was once the original language of Upper Assam.

The Deori language is one of the most influential languages which has helped develop the Assamese language in Upper Assam.

The Chutia/Deori word for water is "Di/Dji", which apparently forms the first syllable of all major rivers of Upper Assam including Dibang, Disang, Dikhou, Dikrong River, Dikarai, Dihing, Digaru, Difolu, which shows that this group of people were the dominant tribe in the entire region with their seat in Sadiya, the earliest known power and civilisation of Chutia.^[7] However, the word for water has a similar form in many other languages of the Sal branch of Sino-Tibetan to which Deori belongs, so it is not conclusive evidence that Deori speakers were the first to occupy this area.^[8]

Vocabulary[]

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Some of the words of Deori language present in Assamese derived from the dictionary Chuperemago^[9] are:

Further reading[]

• Acharyya, Prarthana & Shakuntala Mahanta. 2019. Language vitality assessment of Deori: An endangered language. Language Documentation & Conservation 13: 514-544.
• Acharyya, Prarthana & Shakuntala Mahanta. (2018). Production and perception of lexical tone in Deori. Sixth International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL), June 18–20, 2018, Berlin, Germany. 93–97. doi:10.21437/TAL.2018-19.
• Goswami, Upendranath. (1994). An introduction to the Deori language. Guwahati: Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art, and Culture.
• Jacquesson, François. (2005). Le Deuri: Langue Tibéto-Birmane d’Assam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers.
• Mahanta, Shakuntala, Indranil Dutta, & Prarthana Acharyya. (2017). Lexical tone in Deori: loss, contrast, and word-based alignment. In Honeybone, Patrick, Julian Bradfield, Josef Fruehwald, Pavel Losad, Benjamin Ress Molin- eaux, & Michael Ramsammy (eds.), Papers in Historical Phonology 2. 51–87. doi:10.2218/pihph.2.2017.1906.
• Nath, Arup Kumar. (2010). A lexico semantic study of Tiwa and Deori: Two endangered languages of the Tibeto Burman Family. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (Doctoral dissertation). http://hdl.handle.net/10603/31796.
• Saikia, Sangeeta. (2012). A socio-linguistic survey of Deori speech community. Gauhati: Gauhati University (Doctoral dissertation).
• Saikia, Sangeeta. (2013). Deuri Asomar Bhasha. In Devy, Ganesh Narayandas (ed.), Peoples Linguistic Survey of India 5(2). 3-15. India: Orient Blackswan Private Limited.

References[]