Bugun, also known as Khowa, is a small possible

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

spoken in

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

state of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

by the Bugun. They numbered about 1,700 in 2011.

Classification

Bugun is classified as a

Kho-Bwa The Kho-Bwa languages, also known as Bugunish and Kamengic, are a small family of languages spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India. The name ''Kho-Bwa'' was originally proposed by George van Driem (2001). It is based on the reconstructed ...

language in Blench & Post (2013), although Blench (2015)Blench, Roger. 2015
''The Mey languages and their classification''
Presentation given at the University of Sydney. believes Bugun may actually be unrelated to the rest of the Kho-Bwa languages.

Dialects

Lieberherr & Bodt (2017)Lieberherr, Ismael; Bodt, Timotheus Adrianus. 2017
Sub-grouping Kho-Bwa based on shared core vocabulary
In ''Himalayan Linguistics'', 16(2). list the following Bugun dialects along with their numbers of speakers. *Dikhyang (100 speakers) *Singchung (680 speakers) *Wangho (220 speakers) *Bichom (630 speakers) *Kaspi (80 speakers) *Namphri (180 speakers)

Distribution

Bugun is spoken in the following villages in southern

West Kameng District West Kameng (pronounced ) is a district of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India. It accounts for 8.86% of the total area of the state. The name is derived from the Kameng river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, that flows through the distri ...

(Dondrup 1990:iv).Dondrup, Rinchin. 1990. ''Bugun language guide''. Itanagar: Directorate of Research, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. The total population numbered 800 in 1981. Names in parentheses are spellings as given in ''Ethnologue''. *Wanghoo (Wangho) *Singchung *Kaspi (New Kaspi) *Lichini *Ramo (Ramu) *Namphri *Chithu (Situ) *Sachida (Sachita) *Pani-Phu *Ditching () *Dikhiyang (Dikiang) *Bicham (Bichom) (a recently founded hamlet) ''Ethnologue'' also lists Mangopom village. These villages are located on the mountains on both sides of Rupa River, and are interspersed among Aka villages.

References

Kho-Bwa languages Languages of India Endangered languages of India Language isolates of Asia {{st-lang-stub