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Garo language |
| Garo Mande |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | India and Bangladesh | |
| Region: | Meghalaya, Assam, Bangladesh | |
| Total speakers: | 990,000 +
889,479 in India (2001); 102,000 in Bangladesh (1993) |
|
| Language family: | Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Kamarupan Bodo-Garo Garo |
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| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Meghalaya (India) | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | sit | |
| ISO 639-3: | grt | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Garo (also spelled as Garrow, or else known by the people's own name for themselves, Mande) is the language of the majority of the people of the Garo Hills in the Indian state of Meghalaya Garo is also used in Kamrup, Dhubri, Goalpara and the Darrang districts of Assam, India1 as well as in neighboring Bangladesh. Garo uses the Latin alphabet and has a close affinity to Bodo, the language of one of the dominant communities of the neighbouring state of Assam.
Dialects include A'beng (A'bengya, Am'beng), A'chick (A'chik), A'we, Chisak, Dacca, Ganching, Kamrup, Matchi. The Achik dialect predominates among several inherently intelligible dialects. The Abeng dialect is in Bangladesh, closest to Koch.
Garo speakers total approximately 575,000 in India (1997) and 102,000 in Bangladesh (1993).
The Department of Garo, the only one of its kind in the world, was established by popular demand in 1996 at the inception of North Eastern Hill University. The Department documented in audio and videotapes parts of A’chick (Garo) epic poetry of "Katta Agana", the legend of "Dikki & Bandi", some folktales, folksongs, and traditional oral poetry.2
The Ethnologue, 13th Edition, Barbara F. Grimes, Editor, 1996, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc.
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