Digaro languages
Language family of Tibet and northeast India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Digaro (Digarish), Northern Mishmi (Mishmic), or Kera'a–Tawrã[1] languages are a possible small family of possibly Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by the Mishmi people of southeastern Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh.
| Digarish | |
|---|---|
| Northern Mishmic | |
| Geographic distribution | Arunachal Pradesh |
| Linguistic classification | possibly Sino-Tibetan or an independent family
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | mish1241 |
The languages are Idu and Taraon (Digaro, Darang). Lexical similarities are restricted to centain semantic fields, so a relationship between them is doubtful.[2]
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).
| Taraon name | Kaman name | Idu name | Assamese name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taraon people | da31 raŋ53 | tɕi31 moŋ35 | tɑ31 rɑŋ35 | Digaru; Digaru Mishmi |
| Kaman people | tɕɑu53 | kɯ31 mɑn35 | mi31 tɕu55 | Midzu |
| Idu people | dju55; dju55 ta31 rɑŋ53; dɑi53 |
min31 dɑu55; hu53 |
i53 du55 | Chulikata Mishmi |
| Zha people 扎人 | tɕɑ31 kʰen55 | tɕɑ31 kreŋ35 | — | — |
| Tibetan people | lɑ31 mɑ55; mei53 bom55 |
dɯ31 luŋ35; hɑi35 hɯl55 |
ɑ31 mi53; pu53; mi31 si55 pu53 |
— |
Registers
Idu, Tawra, Kman, and Meyor all share a system of multiple language registers, which are (Blench 2016):[3]
- ordinary speech
- speech of hunters: lexical substitution, the replacement of animal names and others by special lexical forms, and sometimes short poems
- speech of priests/shamans: more complex, involving much language which is difficult to understand, and also lengthy descriptions of sacrificial animals
- poetic/lyrical register (not in Idu, but appears in Kman)
- mediation register (only in Idu?)
- babytalk register
References
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