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Rangpuri language

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Rajbanshi/Rajbongshi/Kamatapuri/Goalpariya
Native toIndia, Bangladesh, Nepal
Native speakers
2,982,280
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3

Rajbanshi is an Eastern Indic language spoken in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Rajbanshi belongs to the Indo-European language family. According to a 1991 census, it was spoken by 3 million people.[1]

Other names of the language are Kamtapuri, Rajbangsi, Rajbansi, Rajbongshi, and Tajpuri.

Dialects

The main dialects are Western Rajbanshi, Central Rajbanshi, Eastern Rajbanshi and Rajbanshi Hills (also known as Koch language).

The central dialect has the majority of speakers and is quite uniform. There are publications in this language. The western dialect has more diversity. Lexical similarity is 77% to 89% between the three dialects. The version spoken in the hills has some influence of the local tribal languages and differs quite a bit from the other three. Rajbonshi shares 48% to 55% of its vocabulary with Bangla, and 43% to 49% with Hindi and Nepali.

Habitation and Language

The Rajbongshi tribe is referred to as Koch Rajbongshi/Rajbanshi/Rajvanshi. The word Rajbongshi means literally "royal community". The homelands of this ancient tribe include West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and various North Eastern parts of India. Because of migration this community can be found in various parts of India and in other parts of the world. The Rajbanshi language is spoken by 2,982,280 people according to a 1991 census report for Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Malda, Murshidabad; Assam, Goalpara District; Bihar, Purnia District,Cachar District in India. The language is also spoken in Bangladesh and Nepal. Other names of the language are Kamtapuri, Rajbangsi, Rajbansi, Rajbongshi and Tajpuri. The Rajbanshi language has a complete grammar.

Notes and references