PART 3 TIBETO-BURMAN LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS C11 p. 1 CHAPTER ELEVEN THE TIBETO-BURMAN LANGUAGES OF NORTHEAST INDIA1 Mark W. Post and Robbins Burling 1 INTRODUCTION “Northeast India”, or “(the) northeast” as it is usually called in India, typically refers to the “seven sister” states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura. These seven states are relatively small in area and low in population, but very high in ethnolinguistic diversity. Northeast India is comparatively isolated from the rest of the country, connected as it is only by a narrow (20km wide) strip of land bordered on three sides by Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Northeast India as an ethno-political region is a recent construction. Prior to Indian independence in 1947, administration of this “frontier” area was slight, as was post-independence administration, at least until the “Chinese aggression” of 1962 (Guyot-Réchard 2012 ms); the state of Arunachal Pradesh was inaugurated as recently as 1987. Its geopolitical borders are similarly recent, and in some cases (for example, between Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet) remain disputed. Many ethnolinguistic groups of our region also live in neighbouring states; for example, Tshangla speakers are in Arunachal Pradesh and in Bhutan, Garo speakers are in Meghalaya and in Bangladesh, Idu speakers are in Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet, and Tangkhul speakers are in Manipur and Myanmar. Nevertheless, geography, history and geopolitics have conspired to endow our region with a sort of “unity in diversity”, such that, with the above caveats regarding its recent origins and porous nature in mind, Northeast India can nevertheless be usefully studied as a whole. And it is in the Northeast Indian 1 The goal of this chapter is to update Burling’s (2003) chapter by taking account of recent scholarship, while maintaining as much of its original structure and spirit as was possible. Burling (2003) acknowledged a fellowship from the Fulbright Foundation, which funded seven months’ research in Northeast India during 1996–7, and further acknowledged discussions with N. K. Achumi, David Bradley, Thangi Chhangte, Bibhash Dhar, Frederick S. Downs, George van Driem, François Jacquesson, U. V. Joseph, Boyd Michailovsky, Dipankar Moral, Rajesh Sachdeva, L. Mahabir Singh, R. W. Sprigg, Jackson T-S. Sun and Graham Thurgood (also absolving them from any errors). Post additionally acknowledges the following individuals, who were consulted (in some cases extensively!) in the preparation of this revision: Roger Blench, Timotheus Bodt, Daniel Bruhn, HUZIWARA Keisuke, Gwendolyn Hyslop, Linda Konnerth, Ismael Lieberherr, Yankee Modi, Zilpha Modi, Stephen Morey, Amos Teo, and Scott DeLancey. We are aware that not all of their advice has been followed, no doubt to this chapter’s ultimate cost, but are nonetheless grateful for their contributions. Finally, a note regarding the terms “Tibeto-Burman” and “Sino-Tibetan”: acknowledging the controversial nature of these terms and the potentially better fit of the alternative label for this phylum “Trans-Himalayan”, we nonetheless retain “Tibeto-Burman” in this chapter to avoid a potentially confusing discontinuity with its earlier version, as well as in this volume overall. C11 p. 2 region that we find the epicenter of phylogenetic diversity within Tibeto-Burman, at a scale which is perhaps only now beginning to be truly appreciated. Northeast India has traditionally been host to three major language families other than Tibeto-Burman: Austroasiatic (Khasian, 3-6 languages2), Tai-Kadai (Southwestern Tai, 3-4 varieties), and Indo-European (primarily Eastern Indo-Aryan, 2-4 languages). In recent years, this list has grown to also include Hindi, Nepali, English, and Dravidian languages. In addition, we find a handful of Indo-Aryan-based creoles (at least Nagamese and Arunachali Hindi, and there may well be others) and a handful of possible language isolates, about which more below. However, this already substantial phylogenetic diversity is overshadowed by the extraordinary diversity of Tibeto-Burman in our region, with perhaps 20 independent subgroups, and anywhere from 100 to 300 individual languages (depending on definitions) spoken here. Geographically, Northeast India centres on the Brahmaputra River, which begins as the Tsangpo in Tibet, descends through the Eastern Himalaya as the Siang, and finally carves out the massive, fertile floodplain of Assam before turning southward and draining into the Bay of Bengal. Surrounding Assam are six “hill states” - a modest way to describe the often towering peaks that rise from the Assam plains to divide India from Myanmar and Tibet at altitudes ranging from 2000 to 6000 metres. Geography thus neatly divides our region into “hills” and “plains”, a distinction with important, if sometimes imprecise, ethnolinguistic consequences. The Assam floodplain has long been an ethnolinguistic melting pot. At least two thousand years ago, Boro- Garo languages spread and diversified within this region from their likely initial position in the modern-day India/Myanmar northern border region (DeLancey 2012). However, they may have been preceded by speakers of Austroasiatic languages, as suggested by a number of toponyms and areal loanwords (Kakati 1995, Diffloth 2005, Konnerth 2014). The Tai-speaking Ahom invaded and conquered most of modern-day Assam after 1200 AD; they were later followed by a small number of Shan and Jingpho groups, most of whose descendants remained in the river deltas of Upper Assam (Morey 2005). The Eastern Tani language Mising coalesced in later centuries as a result of progressive southward migrations of Siang-area Tani groups following the course of the Brahmaputra River. Other groups have found their way into Assam and its surrounding foothills as a result of first British and later Indian administrative and resettlement policies. In modern times, however, Assam is dominated by several million speakers of Eastern-Indo-Aryan-languages, the outcome of waves of migration 2 Munda languages are also reportedly spoken among tea garden labourers in Assam, although we are not aware of any published descriptions. C11 p. 3 from the Bengali-speaking Jamuna/Padma delta region which began in the 4th century AD and continue to the present day (Baruah 1960 [1933]). This has resulted in the emergence of Assamese, a close relative of Bengali which has been considerably reshaped due to its adoption by millions of non-native (mostly Tibeto-Burman) speakers. In modern times, Assamese is spoken by almost everyone in the state of Assam, even if in many cases as a second language; however, significant enclaves of tribal minorities are still found throughout Assam, numbering perhaps more than two million individuals overall. A similar process has recently, but even more quickly and profoundly, re-shaped the linguistic landscape of Tripura. Two or three generations ago, Tripura State was also predominantly Tibeto-Burman. However, so many Bengalis have now settled there that the indigenous Tibeto-Burman speaking Kok Borok, once the dominant group, have been reduced to a minority in their own homeland. Meghalaya, a small remnant hill region sandwiched between the plains of lower Assam and Bangladesh, is the only Northeast Indian hill state with a substantial and long established non-Tibeto-Burman population. Khasian groups occupy the eastern three-fifths of this state, forming a bit over half of its population, and speak what may count as four Austroasiatic languages: Khasi, Pnar, War and Lyngngam. Except for the Khasi, the largest group of people in Meghalaya is the Tibeto-Burman Garo, who occupy the western two-fifths of the state together with their Boro-Garo relatives. Mizoram (< Mizo mi-zo-ram ‘person-hill-land’) is dominated by speakers of Kuki-Chin languages, including the namesake Mizo language, but also related languages such as Mara, Lai and Hmar; many of these groups also spill over into the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar, which surround Mizoram on every side except for its much narrower borders with Tripura, Assam and Manipur in the northwest. Manipur has a more substantial internal diversity. Meitheilon, the language of the “non-tribal” Meithei, is spoken in and around the state capital Imphal. However, the surrounding hills are dominated by “tribal” Kukis and Nagas, speaking languages which mostly fall linguistically within Kuki-Chin, but also a few which are seemingly outside it. Nagaland has a very high level of ethnolinguistic diversity. While the majority of people in this state are notionally “Naga” in a very loose ethno-politico-linguistic sense, they speak several languages from perhaps four distinct subgroups within Tibeto-Burman (Coupe 2010). They include the Ao, Angami and Sumi, among many others. C11 p. 4 The highest level of phylogenetic diversity in our region seems to lie in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Long a miscellaneous backwater on the fringes of the Ahom and Tibetan empires - though never a formal possession of these or any other regimes - portions of this area were annexed by the British colonial administration in the mid-19th century, and reverted to independent India as the “North East Frontier Agency” in 1947. Thereafter, “NEFA” was administered first from Delhi and later from Shillong and Guwahati, but gained statehood with a capital established at Itanagar-Naharlagun in 1987. Most of modern-day Arunachal Pradesh is still claimed by China, on the basis of the latter’s rejection of the Simla Accord treaty of 1914 between Tibet and British India; China invaded in 1962, and low-intensity border skirmishes still regularly occur. That said, Arunachal Pradesh is internally peaceful, and could not present a more welcoming or more fascinating environment for ethnolinguistic field research. At least twelve independent subgroups of Tibeto-Burman seem to be found inside Arunachal Pradesh, most of them significantly underdocumented. In part due to this high diversity, a Hindi- based creole has been rapidly sweeping the state in recent years. This has led to the sudden and in some cases severe endangerment of several of the state’s indigenous languages (Modi 2006).