Rangpuri is an eastern
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
of the
Bengali-Assamese branch, spoken in northern
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...
, western
Goalpara
Goalpara, Pron: ) is the district headquarters of Goalpara district, Assam, India. It is situated to the west of Guwahati.
Etymology
The name Goalpara is said to have originated from the word "Gwaltippika" meaning Guwali village, or The villa ...
of
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
in India and
Rangpur Division in Bangladesh.
Many are bilingual in
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
and
Assamese in their respective regions. According to Glottolog, it forms the Central-Eastern Kamta group with the Kamta language. Together with
Rajbanshi and
Surjapuri they form the
Kamta group of languages.
Names
Rangpuri goes by numerous names, the most common being ''Bahe'';
["Rangpuri: This term is favoured in the Rangpur area, interchangeably with ‘Bahe.’ Chaudhuri (1939) prefers to use Rangpuri to Rajbanshi, as it avoids the problem of being caste-centric." H] though ''Deshi bhasha'' and ''Anchalit bhasha'' is also used.
["Rangpur, the headquarters of a district in Bangladesh. During this first stage of research, data were collected with speakers at several sites outside the town perimeter (cf. Appendix C of Toulmin 2006). Speakers of this area refer to their mother tongue as either 'Bahe,' 'Rangpuri,' 'Deshi bhasha' or its synonym 'Anchalit bhasha' meaning 'the local language'." ]
Comparison with related languages
Notes
References
*
*
External links
Rangpuri at OmniglotEthnologue Report on Rangpuri
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajbanshi Language
Eastern Indo-Aryan languages
Languages of Bangladesh
Languages of West Bengal
Bengali dialects