Karbi language


The Karbi language, is spoken by the Karbi people of Northeastern India
. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, but its position is unclear. Shafer and Bradley classify the Mikir languages as an aberrant Kuki-Chin branch, but Thurgood leaves them unclassified within Sino-Tibetan. Blench and Post classify it as one of the most basal languages of the entire family.
There is little dialect diversity except for the Dumurali / Kamrup Karbi dialect, which is distinct enough to be considered a separate Karbi language.

History

Like most languages of Northeast India, Karbi writing system is based on Roman script, occasionally in Assamese script. The earliest written texts in Karbi were produced by Christian missionaries, especially by the American Baptist Mission and the Catholic Church. The missionaries brought out a newspaper in Karbi titled Birta in the year 1903, Rev. R.E. Neighbor's 'Vocabulary of English and Mikir, with Illustrative Sentences' published in 1878, which can be called the first Karbi dictionary. Sardoka Perrin Kay's 'English–Mikir Dictionary' published in 1904, Sir Charles Lyall and Edward Stack's The Mikirs in 1908, the first ethnographic details on the Karbis and G.D. Walker's 'A Dictionary of the Mikir Language' published in 1925 are some of the earliest known books on the Karbis and the Karbi language and grammar.
The Karbis have a rich oral tradition. The Mosera, a lengthy folk narrative that describes the origin and migration ordeal of the Karbis, is one such example.

Varieties

Konnerth identifies two main Karbi varieties.
Data below are from Konnerth.

Consonants

Initial consonants

Vowels

Diphthongs of Karbi

Syllable structure

Karbi syllables may be the open V or the closed VC. Possible onset consonant cluster combinations are as follows:.

Geographical distribution

Karbi is spoken in the following areas of Northeast India.