Login
Login

Digaro languages

{{Short description|Language family of Tibet and northeast India}}

{{Infobox language family

|name=Digarish

|altname=Northern Mishmic

|region=Arunachal Pradesh

|familycolor=Sino-Tibetan

|fam1=possibly Sino-Tibetan or an independent family

|fam2=Greater Siangic ?

|child1=Idu Mishmi

|child2=Taraon

|glotto=mish1241

|glottorefname=Digarish

}}

The Digaro (Digarish), Northern Mishmi (Mishmic), or Kera'a–Tawrã{{cite book|last=DeLancey|first=Scott|title=The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia|chapter=Classifying Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages|publisher=De Gruyter|date=2021|doi=10.1515/9783110558142-012|pages=207–224|isbn=9783110558142|s2cid=238722139}} languages are a possible small family of possibly Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by the Mishmi people of southeastern Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh.

The languages are Idu and Taraon (Digaro, Darang). Lexical similarities are restricted to centain semantic fields, so a relationship between them is doubtful.Blench, R.M. 2024. The ‘Mishmi’ languages, Idu, Tawrã and Kman: a mismatch between cultural and linguistic relations. In: Movements through Time and Space: Ecology and Lingua-Cultural Change in South and Southeast Asia. Nishant Choksi ed. Guwahati: Pragjyotish Centre for Cultural Research.

External relationships

They are not related to the Southern Mishmi Midzu languages, apart from possibly being Sino-Tibetan. However, Blench and Post (2011) suggests that they may not even be Sino-Tibetan, but rather an independent language family of their own.

Blench (2014) classifies the Digaro languages as part of the Greater Siangic group of languages.

Names

Autonyms and exonyms for Digaro-speaking peoples, as well as Miju (Kaman), are given below (Jiang, et al. 2013:2-3).

class="wikitable"

|+Names of Mishmi peoples

!

!c=01| Taraon name

!c=02| Kaman name

!c=03| Idu name

!c=04| Assamese name

Taraon people

|c=01| da31 raŋ53

|c=02| tɕi31 moŋ35

|c=03| tɑ31 rɑŋ35

|c=04| Digaru;
Digaru Mishmi

Kaman people

|c=01| tɕɑu53

|c=02| kɯ31 mɑn35

|c=03| mi31 tɕu55

|c=04| Midzu

Idu people

|c=01| dju55;
dju55 ta31 rɑŋ53;
dɑi53

|c=02| min31 dɑu55;
hu53

|c=03| i53 du55

|c=04| Chulikata Mishmi

Zha people 扎人

|c=01| tɕɑ31 kʰen55

|c=02| tɕɑ31 kreŋ35

|c=03| —

|c=04| —

Tibetan people

|c=01| lɑ31 mɑ55;
mei53 bom55

|c=02| dɯ31 luŋ35;
hɑi35 hɯl55

|c=03| ɑ31 mi53;
pu53;
mi31 si55 pu53

|c=04| —

Registers

Idu, Tawra, Kman, and Meyor all share a system of multiple language registers, which are (Blench 2016):{{cite web| url = https://www.academia.edu/20110685| title = (PDF) Mishmi language development {{!}} Roger Blench - Academia.edu| last1 = Blench| first1 = Roger}}

  1. ordinary speech
  2. speech of hunters: lexical substitution, the replacement of animal names and others by special lexical forms, and sometimes short poems
  3. speech of priests/shamans: more complex, involving much language which is difficult to understand, and also lengthy descriptions of sacrificial animals
  4. poetic/lyrical register (not in Idu, but appears in Kman)
  5. mediation register (only in Idu?)
  6. babytalk register

References

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

  • Blench, Roger (2011) [https://web.archive.org/web/20130526230734/http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/South%20Asia/NEI/General/Lingres/Declassifying%20Arunachal.pdf (De)classifying Arunachal languages: Reconstructing the evidence]
  • Blench, Roger (2014). [https://www.academia.edu/8136744/Fallen_leaves_blow_away_a_neo-Hammarstromian_approach_to_Sino-Tibetan_classification Fallen leaves blow away: a neo-Hammarstromian approach to Sino-Tibetan classification]. Presentation given at the University of New England, Armidale, 6 September 2014.
  • Blench, Roger. 2017. [https://www.academia.edu/31295058/The_Mishmi_languages_Idu_Tawra_and_Kman_a_mismatch_between_cultural_and_linguistic_relations The ‘Mishmi’ languages, Idu, Tawra and Kman: a mismatch between cultural and linguistic relations].
  • Jiang Huo [江获], Li Daqin [李大勤], Sun Hongkai [孙宏开] (2013). A study of Taraon [达让语研]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House [民族出版社]. {{ISBN|9787105129324}}
  • van Driem, George (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.

{{refend}}

{{Sino-Tibetan languages}}

{{language families}}

{{Eurasian languages}}

{{Arunachal languages}}

Category:Greater Siangic languages

*

Category:Languages of India

Category:Proposed language families