Kamrupi Language
| Kamrupi | |
|---|---|
| Kamarupi | |
| কামৰূপী | |
| Pronunciation | Kāmrūpī |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Western Assam, North Bengal |
| Ethnicity | Kamrupi people |
|
Native speakers
|
6 million (2011)Census of India |
| Dialects | |
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Kamrupi dialect, formerly Kamrupi language is the first ancient Aryan literary language spoken in Brahmaputra valley and North Bengal, developed primarily in the Kamrup and North Bengal. It is one of two western dialect groups of the Assamese language, the other being Goalpariya. The Kamrupi is heterogeneous with three dialects: West, Central and South Kamrupi.
In medieval times, it is used by scholars and saints of Brahmaputra Valley and its adjoining areas for literary purposes in parallel with Sanskrit both for prose and poetry as against practices of literary figures of mid India like Vidyapati who uses Sanskrit for prose and Maithili for poetry. Recent times, the South Kamrupi dialect has been used in the works of author Indira Goswami with dramatic effects. Poet and nationalist Ambikagiri Raichoudhury used Kamrupi in his works to great extent.
The Kamrup between Manas and Barnadi rivers, where Kamrupi is spoken, formed the capital area of two of three dynasties of the ancient Kamarupa kingdom (4th–12th century), with Pragjyotishpura (Guwahati) and Durjaya (North Guwahati). Kingdom existed as parallel to Davaka of central Assam. Absorption of Davaka by Kamrup marks eastward expansion of latter, which ultimately covered area from the Karatoya in the west to the temple of Dikkaravasini at Sadiya in the east, Bhutan in north and Northern Bangladesh in south.
In the first half of seventh century, Yuan Chwang (Hiuen Tsang) visited Kamrup Kingdom then ruled by Bhaskar Varman, and noticed language spoken there is little different from mid India, which marked early Assamese or Kamrupi. This evidence convinced Upendra Nath Goswami that "Assamese entered into Kamarupa or western Assam where this speech was first characterised as Assamese. This is evident from the remarks of Hiuen Tsang who visited the Kingdom of Kamarupa in the first half of the seventh century A.D., during the reign of Bhaskaravarman." Suniti Kumar Chatterji notes that "One would expect one and identical language to have been current in North Central Bengal (Pundra-vardhana) and North Bengal and West Assam (Kamarupa) in the 7th century, since these tracts, and other parts of Bengal, had almost the same speech."
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