Why do we always avoid our traditional architecture? Let's consider it too.
Bhutanese buildings (image) are constructed in the traditional architecture and they're beautiful.
Made my first map with iipmaps. It makes map making so easy, loved it!
About the map: Bodo is mainly spoken in BTR (Bodoland) area which constitutes Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri districts where it is an official language. The next district is Sonitpur. Baksa has the...
11th-13th century Durga devi sculpture discovered in Ambari, Guwahati, Assam. Made in the Kamarupa kingdom, it is a great example of Assamese sculpture art from that period.
We see many such sculptures, idols and other evidence of Durga such as literature in Assam belonging to /
Tried to draw (over) the signature of Harshavardhana (606-647 CE) which is early Siddham script (or late Gupta), in red, with a transliteration in Traditional Assamese below.
Trying Assamese traditional manuscript painting and writing digitally, showing Bihu dance. The letters used here are in the old/traditional style found in manuscripts and inscriptions.
Mustard is very popular in India. Especially in the East, Northeast and North. The seed is used to make chutney, sauce or paste, like কাসুন্দি (kaśundi) in Bengal, ଖଟା (khôṭa) in Odisha.
In Assam there are two of them: কাহুঁদি (kahũdi) / পানীটেঙা (paniteŋa) and খাৰলি ...
My first handwritten post, in Kamarupi/Traditional Assamese script.
“অসমত এতিয়ালৈ পোৱা আটাইতকৈ পুৰণি লিখনি হৈছে ৫ম শতিকাৰ নগাজৰী-খনিকৰগাঁৱৰ শিলালিপি। তাতে কছাৰী ভাষাৰ শব্দ {dībrū} বা দীব্ৰূ লিখা আছে।”
It means, the earliest inscription discovered in Assam is the 5th century /
#Papaya
was brought from central parts of the Americas to South Asia in 16th century by Europeans. It is now commonly found in South Asia. Like other new world crops, papaya was called by names of different origins along with names derived from the original term.
So the
/1
What is the difference between Diwali and Deepavali? In many Indian languages both terms are used. Many who are interested in Indian languages may already know the answer. But many have questions related to it. I have seen people associating the former with Hindi and the latter /
How do you say "mind your own business" in your languages, and what's the literal meaning?
Assamese: nizôr kam kôra ("do your own job")
Hindi: apne kām se kām rakho (I'm not exactly sure, but I guess "keep the work with your own work")
Since many are sharing pictures of Indian islands, here are some pictures of islands from Assam which are located on the vast Dilao (as the Brahmaputra river is called in Dimasa) and various other rivers and lakes.
Picture credits: Sachin Bharali (1, 3), Vikram Das (2)
Many languages termed oranges after place names of Portugal. Like Arabic بُرْتُقَال (burtuqāl), Turkish portakal, Romanian portocală etc.
We see a similar case with some Indian languages. Hindi-Urdu संतरा / سنترا (santrā), Marathi संत्रे (santre), ...
Language myths:
1. If any spoken "language-like thing" is not written then it's not a language: No. Writing has nothing to do with being a language. Writing and speaking are different things. In fact the vast majority of world's languages were never written.
Yesterday I got to learn about a new seemingly Indo-Aryan(?) language from Barak valley (Assam) and Sylhet (Bangladesh).
The language is called Laiunghtor and its speakers are called Laleng or Patra. The people use patra as their surname.
This bear similarity with the Tiwa /
Indian months in different Indo-Aryan languages.
I made this in 2018. Here red marks loanwords (need updating: böhag and söt in Assamese are also loanwords, etc.)
In 1447 the Nilachal Kamakhya temple inscription was made when Kamakhya temple was rebuilt by Sukladhwaj, popularly know as Mohabir Chilarai, the CM ("Dewan") and commander in chief of Koch dynasty under king Naranarayan after the former structure of the temple was destroyed.
1/
Many language learners ask for translations of these but a lot of languages lack their usage.
In my L1 (Assamese) for example, good morning can be literally translated as "xupråbhat" or "xubhå ratipua", but they aren't used, not at all in the spoken language. Instead we ...
Main letters for my traditional Assamese / Kamarupi script font is completed!
(এইটো ১৯ শতিকাৰ মধ্যভাগলৈকে অসমত প্ৰচলিত থকা লিপিটো। এই আখৰবোৰৰ কিছুমানৰ আৰু বেলেগ ধৰণো আছিল।)
Like other hilly regions, Northeast India is also a linguistic hotspot. Before colonization it had 4 language families: Sino-Tibetan (Meitei, Bodo, Kokborok, Mizo, Ao etc), Indo-European (Assamese, Sylheti, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Kamtapuri, Nepali etc), Austroasiatic (Khasi, War..
So here's another!
In Barak valley (in South Assam) there are several Assamese speaking villages, the people of which migrated there during Burmese invasions in early 19th century.
"The only difference between the Bengali and Assamese scripts is the letter "r" (and the letter "w")"
This one is both true and false. In terms of current usage it is true. But if we go back just, like 170 years, it's not true.
The ৰ we associate with Assamese today was ...
What is something that is wrong in your field that just won't die, no matter how often you point out/say/publish that it's a misconception?
Mine: "The earliest Quranic manuscripts were without consonantal dots/dots were only introduce ca. year 60 AH"
A friend shared link to this first printed Bengali book from 1743. The languages used are Bengali and Portuguese and it was published in Lisbon. The Bengali orthography is based on Portuguese, which is interesting also because Bengali /ʃ/ (শ, ষ, স) is represented by "x" and...
In the Ahom kingdom, there were archives called the গন্ধীয়া ভঁৰাল gondhia bhõral (lit: "scented/sulphur store-house") where books were kept with sulphur fumes to protect them from insects.
Letters, treaties, judicial papers, surveys, reports, chronicles etc were stored here...
Interesting that in this 1839 spelling and vocabulary book for Assamese, Singpho and "Naga" (Nocte), the word for school is translated into Assamese as "ফলিলোৱা ঘৰ (pholi-lüa ghor)", which is literally "house where one takes the slate/black-board".
Pholilüa translates to ...
Why do these things get published???
- Sanskrit was "written" in "Devanagari script" in 1500 BC (predating its ancestor Brahmi script by 1200 years!)
- Odia is an Austroasiatic lang
(Oldest language ≠ Oldest attested language
Ancestor ≠ Descendant)
Sattriya Nritya (Assamese: সত্ৰীয়া নৃত্য xotria nrittyô) from Assam is one of the 8 recognised classical dances of India. On Nov 15, "Sattriya Nritya day" is celebrated as on that day, in 2000, it was recognised as a classical dance by Sangeet Natak Academy of India.
Both আলোচনা (alüsona) /alʊsɔna/ and आलोचना (ālōcnā) /ɑːloːtʃna/ are borrowed from Sanskrit আলোচনা / आलोचना (ālōcanā, “seeing, considering”).
While in Assamese, alüsona means "discussion", in Hindi ālōcnā means "criticism".
In Assamese, সমালোচনা xomalüsona means "criticism".
"What are you doing?" in some Indo-Aryan languages.
I want to add more languages, can you translate this into other Indo-Aryan languages? Use the familiar or casual form (tum in Hindi).
Also tell if the given translations are correct.
#Assamese
and
#unicode
The Assamese unicode movement is a long running issue. It keeps appearing time to time.
I'll talk about what the Assamese script unicode activists should understand.
1/n
Almost correct 😀
But we say chewing gum as "suing-gam" /suiŋ ɡam/, not sing-gam.
Assamese lacks <ch> & <sh> sounds, realised as <s>.
Also lacks <v>, the <th>s, realized as /bʱ/ & /tʰ/, /d/. Doesn't have vocal length. So "sit, seat, cheat, sh*t, sheet" sound the same, as "sit".
Happy new year 2023!
In different languages and scripts:
English = Latin (Carolingian, with thorn)
Sylheti = Sylheti Nagri
Hindustani = Perso-Arabic (Nastaliq)
Assamese = Assamese (Kaitheli)
Meitei = Meitei Mayek
Marathi = Modi
I had a culture shock when I was travelling on a train in Bengal. They were selling bowls of rasgullas and gulab jamuns on the train! And people were buying those bowls, each bowl containing four sweets!
As a Northeastern not only such sweets are for very special occasions only/
The opposite culture shock was when I first started tasting Asian desserts and found that they completely lack dairy! For me, having grown up in India, milk is a quintessential element of most sweet stuff.
In Hailakandi district, the most spoken language is given as "Tripuri" actually, but it's combined by Kokborok and Bru/Reang. They're considered separate sister languages, spoken by same community, Tripuris.
Nagaon has almost equal number of Karbi speakers.
Two illustrated Assamese manuscript pages.
1. Lava Kusara juddha (composed in 14th century by Harivara Vipra. The manuscript was probably made in 15th-16th c)
2. Sachitra Ramayana (lThe manuscript was probably made in 15th-16th c)
On the Assamese surname: বৰগোহাঁই borgühãi /bɒɹɡʊɦãɪ/ <bara-gohā̃i>
In the Ahom kingdom, the surname was given to one of the 3 Gohains (counsellors). The term literally means "big counsellor".
The other two are - বুঢ়াগোহাঁই burha-gühãi and বৰপাত্ৰগোহাঁই bor-patro-gühãi which...
57
Sanskrit: saptapañcāśat
It comes from PIE *septḿ̥-pénkʷe-dḱomt (7-5-10)
So it is 7+5×10
But in Prakrit it's sattavaṇṇaṁ, here satta definitely comes from sapta, but -vaṇṇaṁ doesn't seem like it comes from -pañcāśat because the reflex of the -śat seems to be /i
How Indians from different parts decorate themselves -
1. Kodava groom from South (Karnataka)
2. Jarawa child from East (Andaman & Nicobar Islands)
3. Purigpa girl from North (Ladakh)
4. Siddi men from West (Gujarat)
The famines caused by inhuman policies during the British Raj that killed over 60 million South Asians, genetically changed our body to store more sugar and fat that can be used for energy for a longer period to survive starvations.
This increased the /
Vegetable of the day - cucumber 🥒
Let's discuss some of their etymologies.
The most commonly seen Indo-Aryan word here is khīrā (Bhojpuri, Maithili, also Hindi), khira (Bishnupriya Manipuri, varieties of Bengali and Kamtapuri), kíra (Sylheti), hire (Chakma) came from
/1
#World_Rhino_Day
I tried to collect words for rhinoceros in different Northeast Indian languages.
Unfortunately many languages are left, please add or correct if you find missings or mistakes.
Many of the terms for rhino are related and probably have a Khasic (Austro.) origin.
My favourite linguistic traits in Assamese:
1. Lack of retroflex and dental (their merger to alveolar).
2. Sounds like [ɹ], [x̩].
3. Avoiding consonant clusters in words by preserving and adding vowels.
4. Progressive vowel harmony.
5. Possessive suffixes for kinship.
This is fun. My favorite linguistic traits of Bengali:
(1) the conditional converb
(2) numerical classifiers that double as definiteness suffixes
(3) genitive chaining
(4) progressive vowel harmony (Calcutta-specific)
(5) loss of the plural
(6) retroflexed vowels (Calcutta??)
A similar case is seen in Northeast India, where non-tonal Khasic languages of the Austroasiatic family are surrounded by tonal Tibeto-Burman langs. It also borders a tonal Indo-Aryan lang, Sylheti in the south. While in the north, it borders a non-tonal Indo-Aryan lang Assamese.
How did Khmer manage to exist where it does without developing lexical tones? Hanging out in that part of Southeast Asia and never going through tonogenesis is a bit like being a cop in Moscow without taking a bribe. Something weird is going on.
Stereotypes: Durga puja and "Bengali alphabet" belong to Bengal.
Truth:
Durga Puja has been celebrated in the most of the Eastern region of South Asia, including Assam, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand etc for a very long time.
/1
My calligraphic attempt to write the mantra "Oṁ Maṇi Padme Hūṁ" in Tibetan script.
তিব্বতীয় লিপিত “ওঁ মণি পদ্মে হূঁ” মন্ত্ৰটোৰ চাৰুলিপি লিখিবলৈ চেষ্টা কৰিলোঁ।
#Bhut_jolokia
, aka ghost pepper from our garden. Once the hottest, now 3rd hottest chilli.
Do you know that the term "ghost pepper" is a "mistranslation" of the
#Assamese
term ভোট জলকীয়া (bhüt zolokia, "Bhutanese chilli"), from which we also get "bhut jolokia" in English.
1/
Tried writing the word ꯀꯪꯂꯥꯁꯥ (kɘŋlasa) in Meitei (Manipuri). It is a guardian deity of Manipuri culture.
I hope peace will come soon in the beautiful diverse state of Manipur.
The Ahom letters 𑜔 dha, 𑜗 gha, 𑜘 bha and 𑜙 jha aren't part of the Ahom phonology and are used for Assamese words written in the Ahom script. I just realised that they are made from the unvoiced equivalent letters (except the jha): 𑜌 tha, 𑜁 kha and 𑜇 pha, with a loop (or /
Some places in Assam have these endings: পেটা peta, পেটীয়া petia, পেট pet.
Examples: Borpeta, Xorupeta, Kharupetia, Bala pet. The preceding terms mean big, small, bangles and perhaps sand respectively.
They are similar to పేట pēṭa in places of Telangana, AnP. Eg: Suryapēṭa, /
@YoursMemely
Many languages from Eastern South Asia like Assamese, Bengali, Sylheti etc use mane/māyne, from Persian mani, from Arabic ma'nā, from the same '-n-y root.
Would love to see some more extinct/dead languages having on machine translators (Google translate, MS translate)!
Like Pali, some other Prakrits, Egyptian, Coptic, Sumerian, Old English, Elamite, Ancient Greek, Classical Arabic, Ge‘ez, Avestan, Early Assamese, Old Khmer etc.
Some ruins and rock carvings from Northeast India -
Left to right:
1. Kachari ruins, Dimapur, Nagaland
2. Unakoti (7th-9th c), Tripura
3. Mizoram ruins
4. Dah Parbatiya temple ruin (6th c), Tezpur, Assam
#AchapterforNE
Sharing an unique feature of
#Assamese
. These are only used with
#kinship
terms (unlike
#Turkish
,
#Indonesian
etc) and other suffixes can be attached to them. They didn't originate from pronouns and they depend on both pronouns and formality, more to the former.
#linguistics
Language myth of the night: "If language A is spoken near language B and they share morphological and phonetic similarities, they must be related."
No, not necessarily. Languages spoken in the same region influence each other.
Examples of linguistic influence: Indian...
A suggestion for people who learn scripts. If you're learning a script and want to write with your hand then don't follow the font shown on your devices, in most cases they are "sans serif" fonts which are suitable for screens.
Follow the "serif" fonts (usually seen in books).
The word "mehmân" means "guest" in Persian. It has been borrowed to some Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi-Urdu (mehmān), Bengali (mehman) etc.
But I never heard this term in Assamese.
The words for "guest" in Assamese are আলহী alohi (in Standard) and কুইৰ্মা kuirma (in Kamrupi /
In many Indian languages,
#Christmas
is literally called "big day" (Assamese: bårdin, Hindi: baṛā din).
In Malay and Indonesian, Eid is called "big day" (hari raya).
I wonder what festivals "big day" in other languages refer to.
There 3 types of singular definitive suffixes (usually like a non classifier) in Eastern languages.
ṭ- (ṭo, ṭā, ṭi, ṭa, ṭe, ḍā, ṛā) based, g- (gu, ga, gā, ge, gwā) based and goṭ- (goṭā, goṭi/guṭi, goṭå) based.
The image is based on my knowledge.
In 1562, the Barak valley region of Assam came under the Koch rule. Many people from the Brahmaputra and Teesta valleys (core area of Koch dynasty) migrated to Barak valley at that time.
Today these people are referred to as Deans there. They speak a language called Dean/Dhean. /