TheGovernment of Tripura categorised Bishnnupriya Manipuri under the "Tribal Language Cell" of the State Council of Educational Research and Training.
Its speakers are given the "Other Backward Classes" status by theAssam Government and there is no legal status of the Bishnupriyas inManipur.[18] In the 2020s, Bishnupriya-speaking people started demanding that theAssam Government should give them the status of "indigenous people" of Assam and treat them the same as other indigenous communities of the state.[19]
KP Sinha, who has done considerable research on Bishnupriya Manipuri, disagrees with the theory of Bishnupriya being associated with theManipur (Mahabharata) and is of the opinion that the language originated fromMagadhi Prakrit. In his opinion, the language has retained dominant characteristics ofMagadhi. According to Sinha, pronouns and declensional and conjugational endings seem to be same as or closely related to those ofMaithili,Oriya andBengali. These forms of Oriya, Bengali, etc. are in part derived from Magadhi Apabhramsa coming from theMagadhi Prakrita.[26]
However, the Bishnupriya Manipuri language is not one of theTibeto-Burman languages, but is closer to the Indo-Aryan group of languages with remarkable influence fromMeitei both grammatically and phonetically. At a different stage of development of the language theSauraseni,Maharashtri andMagadhi languages and the Tibeto-Burman languages exerted influence on it as well. So it was probably developed from Sanskrit,Sauraseni-Maharashtri Prakrit andMagadhi Prakrita. The Sauraseni-Maharastri relation can be traced by observing some characteristics of pronouns. The Magadhi element is also remarkable, as the language retains many characteristics of Magadhi.[citation needed]
Conflict of classification as a dialect of Bengali and Assamese
According toPadma Shri–awardee Indian scholarNingthoukhongjam Khelchandra, "Bishnupriya" is a fragmentedBengali Hindu community, originally native toAssam-Bengal trans-border areas. When they migrated and lived inBishnupur, Manipur (formerly known as "Lamangdong"), they were known as "Bishnupuriyas", and later corrupted as "Bishnupriyas". Ethnolinguistically, they are Bengalis. Unlike the large number of Assamese-Bengali immigrants inManipur being assimilated intoMeitei ethnicity until the 18th century, they remain un-assimilated.[28]
According to American scholar William Frawley, Bishnupriya was once acreole language ofBengali andMeitei and it still retains its pre-Bengali features.[12] American linguist and professorColin Masica is of the same opinion.[13]
According toShobhana Chelliah, Bishnupriya Manipuri is amixed language spoken by former Bengali immigrants, having significant amount of Meitei lexicons. Bishnupriya still retains its basic Bengali structural and morphological features.[14]
Bishnupriya has 4000 borrowed root words fromMeitei language.[30]Bishnupriya Manipuri retains the old 18 sounds of Meitei. Of them, there were three vowels, such asɑ,i andu, thirteen consonants such as p, t, k, pʰ, tʰ, kʰ, c͡ʃ, m, n, ŋ, l, ʃ, h and two semi-vowels, such asw andj. Nine more sounds were later added to Meitei, but Bishnupriya is not concerned with them because the Bishnupriyas left Manipur during the first part of the 19th century. That is why Bishnupriya Manipuri retains the older sounds of Meitei, whereas in Meitei itself the sound system has undergone various changes.[31]
Like other Indic languages, the core vocabulary of Bishnupriya Manipuri is made up oftadbhava words (i.e. words inherited over time from older Indic languages, including Sanskrit, including many historical changes in grammar and pronunciation), although thousands oftatsama words (i.e. words that were re-borrowed directly from Sanskrit with little phonetic or grammatical change) augment the vocabulary greatly. In addition, many other words were borrowed from languages spoken in the region either natively or as a colonial language, including Meitei, English, and Perso-Arabic.[citation needed]
Inherited/native Indic words (tadbhava): 10,000 (Of these, 2,000 are only found in Bishnupriya Manipuri, and have not been inherited by other Indic languages)
Words re-borrowed from Sanskrit (tatsama): 10,000
Words re-borrowed from Sanskrit, partially modified (ardhatatsama): 1,500
^abCardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, eds. (2003), "The historical context and development of Indo-Aryan",The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge language family series, London: Routledge, pp. 46–66,ISBN0-7007-1130-9
^abSouth Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203
^"Bishnupriya Manipuris demand satellite autonomous council - Sentinelassam".www.sentinelassam.com. 24 November 2020. Retrieved19 July 2022.The Tripura government has categorised and placed the Bishnupriya Manipuri language under the Tribal Language Cell of the State Council of Educational Research and Training, while in Assam they are considered among Other Backward Classes (OBC), whereas in Manipur from where these people originated remains status-less
^"Meitei | Ethnologue".Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved3 May 2023.Used as L2 by Bishnupuriya [bpy].{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
