Digaro languages

Digaro
Northern Mishmi
Geographic
distribution		 Arunachal Pradesh
Linguistic classification possibly Sino-Tibetan or an independent family
Subdivisions
Glottolog mish1241[1]

The Digaro (Digarish) or Northern Mishmi (Mishmic) languages are a 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).

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).

Names of Mishmi peoples
Taraon name Kaman name Idu name Assamese name
Taraon people da˧˩raŋ˥˧ tɕi˧˩moŋ˧˥ tɑ˧˩rɑŋ˧˥ Digaru;
Digaru Mishmi
Kaman people tɕɑu˥˧ kɯ˧˩mɑn˧˥ mi˧˩tɕu˥ Midzu
Idu people dju˥;
dju˥ta˧˩rɑŋ˥˧;
dɑi˥˧		 min˧˩dɑu˥;
hu˥˧		 i˥˧du˥ Chulikata Mishmi
Zha people 扎人 tɕɑ˧˩kʰen˥ tɕɑ˧˩kreŋ˧˥ — —
Tibetan people lɑ˧˩mɑ˥;
mei˥˧bom˥		 dɯ˧˩luŋ˧˥;
hɑi˧˥hɯl˥		 ɑ˧˩mi˥˧;
pu˥˧;
mi˧˩si˥pu˥˧		 —

Registers

Idu, Tawra, Kman, and Meyor all share a system of multiple language registers, which are (Blench 2016):[2]

  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

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mishmic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ https://www.academia.edu/20110685/Mishmi_language_development

  • Blench, Roger (2011) (De)classifying Arunachal languages: Reconstructing the evidence
  • Blench, Roger (2014). 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. 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.
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