Kachari language

According to LSI, Kachari language was divided into Plain Kachari or Bårå(Boro) and Hill Kachari or Dimasa.{{Cite web|title=Linguistic Survey of India|url=https://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/lsi/lsi.php?volume=3-2&pages=540#page/156/mode/1up|access-date=2020-08-25|website=dsal.uchicago.edu}}

Kachari consists of the 13 consonants shown below and three Non-syllabics,(Frictional: h, frictionless palatal: y, frictionless rounded velar: w{{Cite book|title=A Descriptive Analysis of the Boro Language|last=Bhattacharya|first=Pramod Chandra|publisher=The Pooran Press|year=1977|location=21 Balaram Ghose Street, Calcutta 700004}}) :

• Tone
• Kachari is a tonal language, consisting of 4 tones high, mid, low and neutral (1, 2, 3, 0)

Kachari uses many instances of "compound words" to denote meaning. For example, the word for "boy", is really the combination of the Kachari words for "male" and "child". This also correlates with Kachari verbs, which can be agglutinated to form "compound verbs".{{Cite book|title=A collection of Kachári folk-tales and rhymes|url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.5540|last=Anderson|first=J. D.|date=1895-01-01|publisher=Shillong|hdl = 2027/uc1.b4216782}} While Kachari is not polysynthetic, its verbs act as a stem for descriptive adjective, adverbs or affixes to change its meaning. For example, the "conjugation of the regular verb active, 'nu-nǔ.' to see" results in the following:{{Cite book|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=I6YTAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR28|title=Outline Grammar of the Kachari (Bara) Language as Spoken in District Darrang, Assam: With Illustrative Sentences, Notes, Reading Lessons, and a Short Vocabulary|last=Endle|first=Sidney|date=1884-01-01|publisher=Assam Secretariat Press|language=en}}

As can be seen from the chart above, the future tense is indicated with -gan, while -si- indicates that the future event will occur soon or in the near future. One example is "Bí faigan", he will come, as opposed to "Bí faisigan", he will come (almost at once) or he is about to come.

Present Tense

Present tense is shown through three affixes, "ǔ", "dong" and "gô". The first two forms represent indefinite and definite forms and are far more common that "gô", which is frequently only used to answer questions in the affirmative.

Most adjectives can be added both before or after the noun it is describing, though it gains the case ending if it follows the noun, rather than precedes it. This follows the identification of as a strongly suffixing language.{{Cite web|url=http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_kac|title=Language Kachari|website=wals.info|language=en|access-date=2017-03-09}} However, this classification goes against Konwar's description of Kachari and a related language, Karbi, as primarily prefixing to create adjectives.{{Cite journal|last=Konwar|first=Aparna|date=2002|title=Some Aspects of the Boro and the Karbi morphology|journal=Indian Linguistics|volume=63|pages=39–48}}

Numerical adjectives are always inserted after the noun it is describing. For example, "ten goats" is "Burmá má-zǔ" with "Burmá" meaning goat, "má" being the classifier for "animal" and the number ten being "zǔ".

Gender - Common nouns such as father, mother, brother or sister have distinct masculine and feminine words while other nouns including animals, will typically have the words for male and female, -jelá and -jeu respectively, added on as a suffix to denote gender. Other common masculine and feminine suffix forms that may be used include -zǎlá/-zǔ, -bundā/-bundi, -bóndá/-bóndi, -phántá/-phánti and -pherá/-pheri.

Kachari has a decimal system and counts to 10 with unique words, after which the number words combine to add to the larger number as shown in the chart below.{{Cite web|url=https://mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de/numeral/Bodo.htm|title=Sino-Tibetan Languages: Bodo|last=Brahma|first=Aleendra|date=2009|website=Numeral Systems of the World's Languages|access-date=2017-05-01|archive-date=2021-06-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210629120630/https://mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de/numeral/Bodo.htm|url-status=dead}}

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• {{Cite journal|last=Jacquesson|first=François|date=2008|title=Discovering Boro-Garo|url=http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ebhr/pdf/EBHR_32_02.pdf|journal=History of an Analytical and Descriptive Linguistic Category|access-date=23 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190803001248/http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ebhr/pdf/EBHR_32_02.pdf|archive-date=3 August 2019|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite journal |last1=DeLancey |first1=Scott |editor3-first=Mark |editor3-last=w. Post |editor2-first=Stephen |editor2-last=Morey |editor1-first=Gwendolyn |editor1-last=Hyslop |year=2012 |title=On the Origin of Bodo-Garo |journal=Northeast Indian Linguistics |volume=4 |pages=3–20 |doi=10.1017/UPO9789382264521.003 |isbn=9789382264521 }}
• Joseph, U.V., and Burling, Robbins. 2006. Comparative phonology of the Boro Garo languages. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages Publication.
• Wood, Daniel Cody. 2008. [http://hdl.handle.net/1794/9485 An Initial Reconstruction of Proto-Boro-Garo]. M.A. Thesis, University of Oregon.

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{{Sino-Tibetan languages}}

{{Sal languages}}

{{Languages of Northeast India}}

Category:Sal languages

Category:Languages of Assam

Category:Subject–object–verb languages