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| Garo | |
|---|---|
| A·chikku | |
| Native to | India andBangladesh |
| Region | Meghalaya,Assam,Bangladesh |
| Ethnicity | Garo |
Native speakers | 1,145,323 (2011)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin script Bengali-Assamese script A-Chik Tokbirim | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | grt |
| Glottolog | garo1247 |
| ELP | Garo |
 Map of Garo speaking areas | |
 Garo is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2] | |
Garo, also referred to by its endonymA·chikku, is aTibeto-Burman language spoken in theNortheast Indian states ofMeghalaya,Assam, andTripura. It is also spoken in certain areas of the neighbouringBangladesh. According to the 2001 census, there are about 889,000 Garo speakers inIndia alone; another 130,000 are found in Bangladesh.
Ethnologue lists the following locations for Garo:
Garo belongs to theBaric group, a member of theTibeto-Burmese subgroup of theSino-Tibetan language family. The Boro-Garo subgroup is one of the longest recognised and most coherent subgroups of the Sino-Tibetan language family.[3] This includes languages such as Garo language,Boro,Kokborok,Dimasa,Rabha,Atong,Tiwa, andKoch. Being closely related to each other, these languages have many features in common; similarities are easily recognisable from a surface-level observation of a given dataset of words from the these languages.
Towards the end of the 19th century, American Baptist missionaries put the north-eastern dialect of Garo called A•we into writing, initially using theBengali script. It was selected out of many others because the north-eastern region of Garo Hills was where rapid growth in the number of educated Garo people was taking place. In addition, the region was also where education was first imparted to the Garos. In course of time, the dialect became associated with educated culture. Today, a variant of the dialect can be heard among the speakers of Tura, a small town in the west-central part of Garo Hills, which is actually an Am•beng-speaking region. The political headquarters was established in Tura after Garo Hills came under the complete control of the British Government in 1873. This led to the migration of educated north-easterners to the town, and a shift from its use of the native dialect to the dialect of the north-easterners. Tura also became the educational hub of Garo Hills, and in time, a de facto standard developed from the north-eastern dialect (A•we) which gradually became associated with the town and the educated Garo speech everywhere ever since. As regards Garo orthography, the basic Latin alphabet completely replaced the Bengali script only[clarification needed] by 1924, although a Latin-based alphabet was developed by American missionaries in 1902.
The Latin-based Garo alphabet used today consists of 20 letters and a raised dot calledraka (a symbol representing theglottal stop [ʔ]). In typing, theraka is represented by aninterpunct. The letters⟨f, q, v, x, y, z⟩ are not considered to be part of the alphabet and appear only in borrowed words. There are two ways in which the alphabet⟨i⟩ is pronounced: one is/i/ (usually in the word-final position), while the other is the centralised vowel/ɨ/ (usually in the word-initial and word medial position). Therefore, although Garo may morphologically possess five vowels, phonetically, it actually has six.
In Bangladesh, a variant of the Bengali script is still used alongside its Latin counterpart. Bengali and Assamese had been the mediums of instruction in educational institutions until 1924, and they have played a great role in the evolution of modern Garo. As a result, many Bengali and Assamese words have entered the Garo lexicon. Recently there has also been a proliferation of English words entering everyday Garo speech, owing to media and the preference of English-medium schools over those conducted in the vernacular. Hindi vocabulary is also making a slow but firm appearance in the language.
The Garo language is sometimes written using the A•chik Tokbirim script,[4] which was invented in 1979 by Arun Richil Marak. The names of each letter in this script were taken from natural phenomena. The script is used to some extent in the village of Bhabanipur in northwesternBangladesh, and is also known as A•chik Garo Tokbirim.[5]
Accordingly, the termdialect is politically defined as a 'non-official speech variety'. The Garo language comprises dialects such as A·we, Am·beng/A·beng, Matchi, Dual, Chisak, Ganching, and a few others. Marak (2013:134–135) lists the following dialects of Garo and their geographical distributions.[6]
Speakers of these dialects can generally understand one another, although there are occasions where one who is unfamiliar with a dialect from another region requires explanation of certain words and expressions typical of that dialect. Research on the dialects of Garo, with the exception of A·we and Am·beng, is very much neglected. Many Garo dialects are being subsumed by either the Standard or A·we or Am·beng. Although the de facto written and spoken standard grew out of A·we, they are not one and the same; there is marked variation in the intonation and the use of vocabulary between the two. It would be proper, therefore, to make a distinction between Standard A·we (spoken mainly in Tura) and Traditional A·we (still heard among the speakers in the north-eastern region of Garo Hills). There is also a great misconception among Garos regarding Atong, Ruga, and Me·gam. These languages are traditionally considered dialects of Garo. The speakers of Atong and Ruga languages are indeed Garos, ethnically; but their languages lack mutual intelligibility with the dialects of Garo and therefore linguistically distinct from the Garo language. Me∙gam people are ethnically Garo but Me.gam people of Khasi Hills has been influenced by Khasi language and hence the Me.gam of Khasi Hills is linguistically similar to Khasi.[original research?]
Greetings and wishes
Family
Astronomy and meteorology
In 1996, at the inception of its Tura campus, theNorth-Eastern Hill University established a Department of Garo. It claims to be “the only one of its kind in the world”. The department offers M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Garo.[7]
1.Sa
2.Gni
3.Gittam[citation needed]
4.Bri
5.Bonga
6.Dok
7.Sni
8.Chet
9.Sku
10.Chiking,chikung
11.Chi sa
12.Chi gni
13.Chi gittam[citation needed]
14.Chi bri
15.Chi bonga[citation needed]
16.Chi dok
17.Chi sni
18.Chi chet
19.Chi sku
20.Kol grik
Garo is asubject–object–verb (SOV) language, which means that verbs will usually be placed at the end of a sentence. Any noun phrases will come before the verb phrases.
All nouns in Garo can be inflected for a variety ofgrammatical cases. Declension of a noun can be done by using specific suffixes:
| Case | Garo suffix | Example withbol | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | — | Ia bol dal•gipa ong•a. | This tree is big. |
| Accusative | -ko | Anga bolko nika. | I see the tree. |
| Genitive | -ni | Bolni bijakrang ga•akenga. | The tree's leaves are falling. |
| Dative | -na | Anga bolna aganaha. | I talked to the tree. |
| Locative | -o/-chi (-chi is only used to refer to space;bolchi'in the tree' would be valid, butwalchi'in the night' would not) | Bolo/Bolchi makre mangbonga ong•a. | There are five monkeys in the tree. |
| Instrumental | -chi | Anga ruachi bolko den•aha. | I cut the tree with an axe. |
| Comitative | -ming | Anga bolming tangaha. | I lived with the tree. |
Some nouns naturally end in a vowel. When declining the nouns into a non-nominative case, the final vowel is typically removed: e.g.do•o'bird' will becomedo•ni when declined into the genitive case.
Additionally, casing suffixes can also be combined.-o and-na combine to form-ona, which means'towards' (lative case).-o and-ni combine to form-oni, which means'from' (ablative case). An example usage could beAnga Turaoni Shillong-ona re•angaha, which means'I traveled fromTura toShillong'.
Garo has pronouns for first, second, and third person in both singular and plural, much like in English. Garo also considersclusivity and has two separate first-person plural pronouns for both inclusivewe and exclusivewe. However, Garo does not considergrammatical gender, and has one pronoun for third person singular. The following table displays the subjective inflection of each pronoun (i.e. when the pronoun is used assubject).
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | exclusive | anga | an•ching |
| inclusive | chinga | ||
| 2nd person | na•a | na•simang | |
| 3rd person | ua | uamang | |
In written Garo,bia is often replaced withua, which literally means'that' in English.
In the Am•beng dialect,an•ching isna•ching, andna•simang anduamang arena•song andbisong, respectively.
Prounouns can also be declined as other nouns. One exception isna•a. When declined, the stem noun becomesnang'.'Your' translated to Garo would benang•ni.
Verbs in Garo are only conjugated based on thegrammatical tense of the action. There are three main conjugations:
| Tense | Garo suffix | Example withcha•a | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | -aha | Mi cha•aha. | [I] ate rice. |
| Present | -a | Mi cha•a | [I] eat rice. |
| Future | -gen | Mi cha•gen. | [I] will eat rice. |
However, there are a diverse range of verb suffixes that can be added to Garo verbs. Some of these suffixes include:
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p (pʰ) | t̪ (t̪ʰ) | t͡ɕ | k (kʰ) | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d̪ | d͡ʑ | ɡ | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Tap | ɾ | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ /u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
The⟨i⟩ grapheme represents both/i/ and/ɯ/. An⟨-i-⟩ syllable that ends with a consonant other than/ʔ/ (not forming part of a consonant cluster) is pronounced[ɯ], otherwise, it is pronounced[i].
While almost all other languages in theBodo–Garo sub-family contrast between low and hightones, Garo is one of the sole exceptions. Wood writes that instead Garo seems to have substituted the tonal system by contrasting between syllables that end in aglottal stop and those that do not, with the glottal stop replacing the low tone.[9]
