Kamrupi
Pronunciation	/ˈkæmruːpi/[1]
Native to	India
Region	Kamrup region
Ethnicity	Kamrupi people
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali-Assamese Assamese Kamrupi
Dialects	Barpetia dialect Nalbariya dialect Palasbaria dialect
Writing system	Assamese alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Distribution of Kamrupi dialects inpink.

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Kamrupi dialects are a group of regionaldialects ofAssamese,^[2] spoken in theKamrup region. It formerly enjoyedprestige status.^[3] It is one of two western dialect groups of theAssamese language, the other beingGoalpariya.^[4] Kamrupi is heterogeneous with threesubdialects—Barpetia dialect,Nalbariya dialect and Palasbaria dialect.^[5]

In medieval times, Kamrupi was used in the Brahmaputra Valley and its adjoining areas for literary purposes in parallel with Sanskrit, both for prose and poetry. This went against the practices of literary figures ofmid India likeVidyapati who usedSanskrit for prose andMaithili for poetry.^[6] In more recent times, the South Kamrupi dialect has been used in the works of authorIndira Goswami. Poet and nationalistAmbikagiri Raichoudhury also used Kamrupi in his works to great extent.^[7] In 2018, the Kamrupi filmVillage Rockstars became the first from the region to be selected for India's official entry to the91st Academy Awards.^[8] In 1996, another Kamrupi dialect film namedAdajya directed bySantwana Bardoloi based on a novel byIndira Goswami titledDontal Haatir Uiye Khuwa Haoda won the Indian National award as the Best Regional Film (Assamese) and Jury's special award.

The Kamrupi dialects have seven phonemes in contrast to the eight in standard Assamese dialect. The phoneme that is missing in the Kamrupi dialects is theclose-mid back rounded vowel /o/ (অ’). In the Kamrupi dialects, this vowel is replaced by another vowel, a diphthong or a different form.

• The treatment of ks as kh which is a notable feature in Early Assamese and the Kamrupi dialect has been found in Kamarupa inscriptions, such as inscriptions ofRatna Pala where ksitimatha>khimatha was used.^[9][10]
• One of the most prominent features of Kamrupi is the use of initial stress, as opposed to penultimate stress in the eastern dialects, which effectively shortens the word^[11] (komora, Eastern dialect;kumra, Kamrupi dialect^[12]). Though standard Assamese follows the pan-Indian system of penultimate, Kamrupi shares the initial stress, with some difference, with the Bengali,^[13] where the initial stress system established itself as the dominant feature in the 16th century.^[14] In Kamrupi dialect too, the initial stress is a later development which is a result of contact with some linguistic group.^[15]
• Medial vowels are thus rarely pronounced or largely slurred over.
• In standard Assamese if a word has two /a/ sounds side-by-side, the first /a/ turns into an /ɔ/ or /ɛ/, a feature that became prominent in writings of Hema Saraswati, Harivara Vipra, Kaviratna Saraswati etc.^[16] In Kamrupi, two consecutive /a/ are tolerated (star: /taɹa/ (Kamrupi), /tɔɹa/ (Standard)).^[17] The early Assamese used pan Indian system of tolerance of both the parallel /a/.^[18] In disyllabic words, the second /ɔ/ becomes an /a/ (hot: /gɔɹam/, Kamrupi; /gɔɹɔm/, St. Assamese).^[19]
• Epenthetic vowels are the rule in Kamrupi dialects, with even diphthongs and triphthongs appearing in initial syllables (haula Kam;haluwa St) (keuila Kam; kewaliya St), and a complete absence of diphthongs in the final syllables.^[20]
• High vowels are feature of Kamrupi, in contrast to predominance of medial vowels in Standard Assamese. Kapur, tule, mul, tamul and khalu in eastern Assamese as against Kapor (cloth), tole (raises), mol (worth), tamol (betel-nut) and khalo (I have eaten) in Kamrupi.^[20]
• The east Assamese favours de-aspiration as against aspiration of Kamrupi in same phonological context.
• /x/ does not occurs finally in Kamrupi, it does sometimes in eastern Assamese. In non-initial position Old Indo-Aryan sibilants become /kh/ and sometimes /h/, whereas in eastern Assamese it becomes /x/, e.g. Akha (Kamrupi) and Axa (Standard Assamese).

• Western Assamese shares morphological peculiarities with North Bengali. The plural suffixes in Western Assamese -hamra and -gila have parallel forms in North Bengali -amrah, the remote demonstrative plural and -gila, -gla.^[1] The plural suffixes of Kamrupi are very different from the eastern Assamese (Kamrupi: -gila, -gilak; Standard: -bür, -bilak). Kamrupi plural suffixes has continuity from ancient times, as opposed to late medieval appearance of bür and bilak in Eastern Assam.
• Standard uses -loi in the dative case ending, Kamrupi uses the dative-accusative case ending -k or the locative -t (Kamrupi:ghorot/ghorok zaü̃; Standardghoroloi zaü̃).^[21]
• The instrumental sense -di in Kamrupi is increasingly accepted in the Standard now (Kamrupi:hatedi; Standard:hatere).
• Kamrupi has large variety of adverbial formations such as - ita, - ethen, - enke and - kahai, which are quite different in Eastern Assamese.
• Pleonastic suffixes of East Assamese are distinct from those of Kamrupi like - ni, - na, - holi.
• The enclitic definites are separate in both the languages.
• In the Eastern variety - heten is used for past conditional, as against Kamrupi - hoi.
• Formation of verbs from nouns and participles are more common in Kamrupi than Eastern Assamese.
• Kamrupi has - lak and - ilak for third personal affix while East Assamese uses - le and - ile for the same (Kamrupi:xi khalak; Standard:xi khale).

According to Upendranath Goswami, differences between Kamrupi and east Assamese is not insignificant, they ranged over whole field of phonology, morphology and vocabulary.^[22]

Its unique features distinguishes it from Eastern Assamese, there may some commonalities—case endings, conjugational affixes, pronominal roots, derivatives and vocabulary—that underscore a fundamental unity,^[23] nonetheless, Kamrupi dialect, with a long history of its own differs greatly from the eastern variety of Assamese.^[24]

Dr. Nirmalendu Bhowmik, while discussing similarity of Kamrupi with Eastern Assamese, observes that despite some similarity in morphology, there is absolutely no similarity in terms of phonology, though both languages shares few common words.^[25]

Eastern Indo-Aryan languages share a common phonological structure.

There is differences in vocables of Kamrupi and Eastern Assamese, such that even common objects are denoted by different words. In eastern variety there are no generic terms to such English words like brothers and sisters, Kamrupi do have, such as bhak and bainak. Kamrupi also uses /soli/ for both boys and girls collectively for children, East Assamese lacks such forms.^[26]

Kamrupi retained manyOld Indo-Aryan words.

The Kamrup between Manas and Barnadi rivers,^[28] where Kamrupi is spoken, formed the capital area of two of three dynasties of the ancientKamarupa kingdom (4th–12th century), withPragjyotishpura (Guwahati)^[29] andDurjaya (North Guwahati).^[30] Kingdom existed as parallel toDavaka of central Assam.^[31] Absorption of Davaka by Kamrup marks eastward expansion of latter,^[32] which ultimately covered area from the Karatoya in the west to the temple of Dikkaravasini at Sadiya in the east,Bhutan in north and NorthernBangladesh in south.^[33][34]

Mughals established foursarkars (administrative units): Bangalbhum, Dhekeri, Dakkhinkul and Kamrup; placing Kamrup in "Sarkar Kamrup".^[35]The Kamrupi is currently prevalent in Mughal Sarkar of Kamrup.^[36] In late medieval times, Kamrupi literary style passed to eastern Assam.^[37]The examples of medieval Assamese or middle Kamrupi are obtained from the 14th century from North Bengal, Western Assam and fewer in central Assam, and this was followed by a deluge of literary activity in the 16th century that accompanied the growth ofSrimanta Sankardeva'sVaishnavite movement. The literary activities occurred throughout Assam and North Bengal, and influence of Kamrupi remain strong throughout.

Some features of Early and Middle Assamese which are still present in some dialects of Kamrupi Assamese and Central Assamese but absent in current Eastern Assamese (initalics):

• "manusya sahasrar madhyato kono janase punyabasegyanak lagi yatna kare ......emane durlabh jnanotumat krpaya kaho". (Katha Gita, 1593–1597)
• "āke śuni lakśminārāyaneghilāk khedi āhil. baṅɡālekhāibāk napāi gaṛar bhitarateśukhāi mare...tāhnār mukhat;āhnār sange^{[38][clarification needed]} (Kamrupar Buranji, 17th century)
• barphukanemaharajat janova rup kari sihatar manuhak maharajarthaik anai...sidikir parā^{[39][clarification needed]} (Tripura Buranji, 18th century)

Kamrup passed to the British in 1824, and the colonial district, largely congruous to the Kamapitha and Mughal Sarkar became theUndivided Kamrup district in the post-colonial period.Form spoken in Eastern Assam, come to notice due to translation of Bible in 1838 by American Baptist Missions, as part of conversion process. British adopted Eastern Assamese as the standard official language in 1873, due to recommendations of Christian missionaries.^[40][41] Whereas the Kamrupi was non-uniform, the eastern dialect was uniform over a large territory in eastern Assam.^[42][43] Nevertheless, Kamrupi pandits like Shyamal Choudhury,Amrit Bhushan Adhikary andKaliram Medhi objected the imposition of eastern Assamese as official language of entire valley, especially in Kamrup due to distinctness and antiquity of Kamrupi language.

Since the center of literary activity has moved back toGuwahati in Kamrup, the standard based on eastern dialects has started acquiring Kamrupi dialectal elements in recent decades. For example, theinstrumental case is -di in Kamrupi (hatedi, "with hand") and -re in eastern Assamese (hatere),^[44] and the Kamrupi form is increasingly common in the Standard.

These dialects are now spoken in the present districts ofKamrup Rural, western part ofKamrup Metropolitan,Nalbari,Barpeta,Darrang, and parts ofGoalpara,Udalguri andChirang. The name is derived from the colonialKamrup district, fromKamarupa kingdom.^[45][46]

Magadhi Prakrit, keeping north of theGanga river, gave rise to theKamarupa Apabhramsa dialects of Assam and North Bengal. Suniti Kumar Chatterji divides Magadhan dialects regionwise asRadha,Varendra,Kamarupa^[47] andVanga^[48][43][49]

Sukumar Sen referring to ancientness of Kamrupi, wrote, "Assamese, or more appropriately the old Kamarupi dialect entered into Kamrup or western Assam, where this speech was first characterized as Assamese."^[50]

Upendranath Goswami wrote, "The Assamese language, coming from the west was first characterized in Kamrup or Western Assam whose boundary comprised in early times the whole of North-Bengal, including Cooch-Behar, Rangpur and Jalpaiguri districts of Bengal".^[51]

Charyapada

The early examples of Kamrupi writings and literature are copper plate seals ofKamrupi kings, issued in different parts of eastern andNorthern India and theCharyapada, which is a collection of 8th-12th century Vajrayana Buddhist caryagiti, or mystical poems. Being caryagiti (songs of realization), the Charyapada were intended to be sung. These songs of realization were spontaneously composed verses, that expressed a practitioner's experience of the enlightened state. A manuscript of this anthology was discovered in the early 20th century, by Hariprasad Shastri inNepal. It provides the examples of the Kamrupi and other easternIndo-Aryan languages.

The writers of the Charyapada, the Mahasiddhas or Siddhacharyas, belonged to the various regions of Kamrup (Assam),Gauda (Bengal),Kalinga (Orissa) andMithila (Bihar). A Tibetan translation of the Charyapada was also preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.^[52]

The notable medieval Kamrupi literary figures areRama Saraswati,Ananta Kandali,Sridhara Kandali,Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya,Kalapachandra Dvija andBhattadeva, the father of Assamese prose.^[3]Hema Saraswati andHaribara Vipra are two other well known Kamrupi poets. Hema Saraswati composed the "Prahlad Charitra" based on theVamana Purana, while Haribara Vipra translated the Aswamedha Parva of theMahabharata. Kaviratna was the author of the "Jayadratha Vadha". His home was at Sila, a village within theBarpeta district. The writings of all these three poets are still extant. To a somewhat later period belongedMadhava Kandali andRudra Kandali. The former versified portions of the Ramayana and the latter composed, in Kamrupi verse, portions of the Mahabharata.

Sankara Deva who was born in 1449 A.D., refers to Madhava Kandali as one of the reputed poets belonging to an earlier age. It may therefore place both Madhava Kandali and Rudra Kandali towards the end of the fourteenth century. In his Ramayana, Madhava Kandali himself states that his other name was Kaviraj-Kandali and that though he could easily compose verses inSanskrit he composed theRamayana in Assamese verse for the benefit of the people at large. Madhava Kandali wrote also another poem entitled "Devajit." Sixteenth century, witnessed a great development of the vernacular literature of Kamarupa. TheYogini Tantra, a well-known Sanskrit work which gives the boundaries of the kingdom of Kamarupa, as it existed during the rule of thePala kings, probably written in Kamarupa during the first pact of the sixteenth century. To this period it must also assign the compilation of the Behula Upakhyana byDurgabar Kayastha, a native ofKamakhya.^[53]

• Kamrup (disambiguation)
• Kamrupi (disambiguation)

• Kamrupi culture
• Eastern Indo-Aryan languages
• Assamese language

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