INTRODUCTION

Karbi, also known as Mikir is a language which is spoken by a group of people bearing a name which is the same as that of the language. It is predominantly spoken in the Karbi Anglong District of the state of Assam in eastern India. The Karbi people are the inhabitants of the area which is commonly known as the Mikir hills and the adjoining plains. The number of people who speak Karbi as their mother tongue is 154232 in Assam State and 133507 in the erstwhile United Mikir and North Cachar Hills District (C.I. 1961).

The language that is spoken in the hills is called Hills-Karbi and that spoken in the plains, Plains-Karbi. Hills-Karbi is the form of Karbi language that is accepted by the speakers as the standard Karbi language. The same is used in the school books and most of the other literature available. Hence this grammar deals with Hills-Karbi. Plains-Karbi is influenced to a larger extent by the contiguous languages of the region, viz.,

Assamese, Khasi, and some Naga languages though Hills-Karbi is not completely free from loans from these languages.

Karbi belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The exact place of the language within the group is not yet ascertained. Karbi shows affinity with the various languages belonging to the Bodo sub-group and the Naga languages.

Differences can be noticed between the language that is commonly spoken in daily life and the specialized, ritualized and orally transmitted tales and songs. The latter is more archaic in that words which are not used in the common language are used in it.

Karbi words are originally monosyllabic. The remnants of an earlier classificatory system of words can be noticed in the polysyllabic root words which have a trace of a set of original classificatory prefixes like i- and ar-. The formation of compound words having a generic noun and a specific form is an important feature in Karbi.

The grammar of Karbi which is presented in this book is a brief description of the language. It is divided into four sections viz., Phonology, Morphophonemic, Morphology and Syntax. The appendix contains some sample texts abd a discussion on Karbi script.

The data on the language have been collected by the author during two visits to the area in 1975 and 1977. The principal informant is Mr. Dhaniram Terang who hails from the Karbi Anglong District. The data have been checked with a few other native speakers of Karbi.