The Karbi language (US: /kɑːrbi/ ⓘ) is spoken by the Karbi (also known as MikirorArleng) people of Northeastern India.
| Karbi | |
|---|---|
| Arleng | |
| Region | Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh |
| Ethnicity | Karbi |
Native speakers | 528,503 (2011)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:mjw – Karbiajz – Plains Karbi (Amri) |
| Glottolog | karb1240 |
| ELP | Karbi |
It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, but its position is unclear. Grierson (1903)[2] classified it under Naga languages, Shafer (1974) and Bradley (1997) classify the Mikir languages as an aberrant Kuki-Chin branch, but Thurgood (2003) leaves them unclassified within Sino-Tibetan. Blench and Post (2013) classify it as one of the most basal languages of the entire family.
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, in Roman script, 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.[3]
The Karbis have a rich oral tradition. The Mosera (recalling the past), a lengthy folk narrative that describes the origin and migration ordeal of the Karbis, is one such example.
There is little dialect diversity except for the Dumurali / Kamrup Karbi dialect, which is distinct enough to be considered a separate Karbi language.
Konnerth (2014) identifies two main variations of the Karbi language:
Data below are from Konnerth (2017).[4]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | c | k | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ~j | |||
| Aspirated | pʰ~ɸ | tʰ | kʰ | |||
| Fricative | β~w | s | h | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Rhotic | r~ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | l | ɟ~j | ||||
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t | k | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Rhotic | r~ɾ~ɹ | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | /i/ | /u/ | |
| Close-mid | /e/ | /o/ | |
| Low | /a/ |
| Diphthongs of Karbi | (ei) | ai | oi | ui |
|---|
Karbi syllables may be the open (C)(C)V(V) or the closed (C)(C)VC. Possible onset consonant cluster combinations are as follows: /pl pr pʰl pʰr tʰr kl kr kʰr/.
Karbi is spoken in the following areas of Northeast India (Ethnologue).
An estimate 1500 Karbi live in Bangladesh.[5]
