Barman language

Barman Thar, where “thar” means language, is a highly endangered language. It is a Tibeto-Burman language that belongs to the Boro–Garo sub-group. The population of the Barman Kachari community is 24,237, according to a 2017 census. However, only a small part of this population speaks the language.

History

The Barman Kacharis are an indigenous Assamese community of Northeast India. They are mainly found in the districts of Lower Assam and some parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Barman Kachari is one of the ancient ethnic groups of North-East India. Since the 2002 Amendment act, many Barman Kacharis in Assam are referred to as 'Barman'. They are mainly found in the districts of Udalguri, Baksa, Chirang, Kokrajhar, Darrang, Kamrup, Goalpara, Nagaon, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji

Demographics

The Barman Kacharis of Assam are classified as a Scheduled Tribe in the valley of Barak. The Barman Kacharis number some 24,237 persons, according to a 2017 census. Out of this number, 12,555 are males and 11,503 are females. Their literacy rate is estimated at 4 percent. The level of literacy of males and females is 2.5% and 1.5%, respectively.

Documentation

The language of the Barman Kacharis had never been documented until 2019 when M.A. students in Linguistics and Language Technology of Tezpur University carried out field work for the first time on this language.

Phonology

The Barman Thar phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels, nine diphthongs, and twenty consonants.

Consonants

In Barman Thar, there are twenty consonants.
pʰ and z have idiolectal variations. They are, by some people, sometimes pronounced as ɸ and d͡z respectively. For example, the word pʰa is sometimes pronounced as ɸa and nɐmza is sometimes pronounced as nɐmd͡za.

Gemination

Gemination, which is the twinning of two consonants, is also found in the Barman language.

Phonemes	Example	English gloss
p+p	tʰɐppɐɾa	“ash”
t+tʰ	mɐttʰai	“big”
d+d	ɡɛddɛl	“new”
c+c	bicci	“egg”
k+k	nukkuruŋ	“eye”
k+kʰ	bɛkkʰuma	“dull”
m+m	dummua	“fever”
n+n	cunna	“cloth”
l+l	mulluk	“earth”

Consonant clusters

In the study of Barman Thar, carried out by the students of Tezpur University, they found only one word, i.e. bɾui, with a consonant cluster. It is a cluster of two consonants, b and ɾ. And they found no final cluster in any word.

Vowels

In Barman Thar, there are eight vowels and nine diphthongs.

Morphology and grammar

Case:

	Case	Marker	Examples
1.	Nominative Ergative	∅ a
2.	Accusative	kɔ
3.	Instrumental Comitative	ca nɛ nɔɡɛ
	Genitive	nɛ
	Locative	ou
6.	Intentive dative Destinational dative	nɛ nɛɡa ca
7.	Ablative	nɛ tukki

Tense and aspect

Three of the tenses are morphologically marked in Barman Thar.

Present:
Past:
Future:

In Barman Thar, the present tense is marked with the suffix “-a”, the past tense, with “-ja” and the future tense, with “-ɡɐn”. And the following are the four aspects:

Present perfect:
Present continuous:
Past perfect:
Future continuous:

Negation

In Barman Thar, verbs are negated by suffixing “-za” and “-zia” for present and past tense respectively.
For example, the root word for the verb “eat” in Barman Thar is “ca”. The negative form of the word in the present tense is caza, meaning “do/does not eat” and that in the past tense is cazia, meaning “did not eat”.
Again, in case of imperative sentences, the suffix -nɔŋ is use.
For example, mei canɔŋ means “Don't eat rice.”

Classifiers

In Barman Thar, there is one classifier, i.e. -ja.

Allomorphs

Another feature of this language that needs to be mentioned is the presence of allomorphs.
Allomorphs of the past tense marker:
-ja is the past tense marker. But when this morpheme is suffixed to a verb ending in, it becomes -maja. For example, cum + -ja = cummaja. When it is suffixed to a verb ending in, it becomes -naja as in dɛn + -ja = dɛnnaja. When it is affixed to a verb ending in, it becomes -aja, as in hiŋaja.
Therefore, it can be said that -maja, -naja and -aja are allomorphs of the morpheme -ja.
Allomorphs of the ergative case marker:
-a is the ergative case marker in Barman Thar. However, when it is affixed to a noun ending in a vowel, it becomes -ja. For example, sita + -ja = sitaja.
So, -ja is an allomorph of the ergative case marker -a.