50-600: The Tangshang people or Tangsa , are of Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group of the Arunachal Pradesh and Assam . They also reside in Sagaing Region and parts of Kachin State of Myanmar . In Myanmar they were formerly known as Rangpang, Pangmi, and Haimi. They speak their own language Tangsa . Tangsa is the largest ethnic group having an approximate population of 450,000. They are a scheduled group under
100-471: A Central branch of Tibeto-Burman based on morphological evidence. Roger Blench and Mark Post (2011) list a number of divergent languages of Arunachal Pradesh , in northeastern India, that might have non-Tibeto-Burman substrates, or could even be non-Tibeto-Burman language isolates : Blench and Post believe the remaining languages with these substratal characteristics are more clearly Sino-Tibetan: Notes Bibliography Rangfrah Rangfarah
150-612: A 'general name', used in communication with non-Tangsas. The general name for the Chamchang is Kimsing. About 70 different ethnic groups have been identified. Within India, the most recently arrived Tangsa are known as Pangwa. These are listed with the name used by the group itself first, followed by alternative spellings in brackets. M indicates the group is found only in Myanmar, I only in India and B in both India and Myanmar. This list
200-469: A bun and covering it with a piece of cloth, known in some Tangsa varieties as the Khu-pak/Khu-phop . Tangsa men traditionally used to wear a long and narrow piece of cloth called lamsam/lengti that covers the hip and pelvis region. However, nowadays they wear a broad cylindrical piece of cloth called lungi that is green in colour and is lined with yellow, red and white yarns, and accompanied with
250-868: A huge family consisting of all the Eurasian languages except the Semitic , "Aryan" ( Indo-European ) and Chinese languages. The third volume of the Linguistic Survey of India was devoted to the Tibeto-Burman languages of British India . Julius Klaproth had noted in 1823 that Burmese, Tibetan and Chinese all shared common basic vocabulary , but that Thai , Mon and Vietnamese were quite different. Several authors, including Ernst Kuhn in 1883 and August Conrady in 1896, described an "Indo-Chinese" family consisting of two branches, Tibeto-Burman and Chinese-Siamese. The Tai languages were included on
300-579: A long period, leaving their affiliations difficult to determine. The grouping of the Bai language , with one million speakers in Yunnan, is particularly controversial, with some workers suggesting that it is a sister language to Chinese. The Naxi language of northern Yunnan is usually included in Lolo-Burmese, though other scholars prefer to leave it unclassified. The hills of northwestern Sichuan are home to
350-486: A similar ceremony is undertaken and a feast between villagers is held by the bereaved family. After dusk, man and women start dancing together rhythmically with the accompanying drums and gongs. Some Tangsas, particularly the Tikhak and Yongkuk in India and many Donghi in Myanmar, have come under the influence of Theravada Buddhism , and have converted. There are Buddhist temples in many Tikhak and Yongkuk villages. Most of
400-545: A sleeveless shirt. On the other hand, the costume of the womenfolk traditionally used to be a piece of cloth wrapped around the chest and a similar piece of cloth wrapped around the waist extending just below the knees. Nowadays, with the availability of yarn, their costume include an artistically woven petticoat, which acts as the lower garment, and a linen blouse. Traditionally Tangsa people practiced shifting cultivation (known as Jhwum in Assamese). Nowadays those Tangsa in
450-406: A supreme being that created all existence, locally known as Rangkhothak/Rangwa/ Rangfrah , although belief in other deities and spirits is maintained as well. Many followers of Rangfrah celebrate an annual festival called Mol or Kuh-a-Mol (around April/May), which asks for a bumper crop. Animal sacrifice, in particular the sacrifice of wak ('pigs') and maan ('cows'), is practised. At funerals
500-587: A total of 20,962 Tangsa (proper) living in Arunachal Pradesh, 6,228 are Animist (29.71%) and 5,030 are Hindu (24.00%). Most of the remaining are Christian (44%), with a Buddhist minority of close to 3%. There are another 8,576 Tangsa residing in Arunachal, belonging to fringe Tangsa groups such as Mossang, Tikhak and Longchang. The Mossang, Rongrang, Morang, Yougli, Sanke, Longphi, Haisa, and Chamchang (Kimsing) ethnic groups are mostly Christian. Most of
550-524: A valid subgroup in its own right. Most of the Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in remote mountain areas, which has hampered their study. Many lack a written standard. It is generally easier to identify a language as Tibeto-Burman than to determine its precise relationship with other languages of the group. The subgroupings that have been established with certainty number several dozen, ranging from well-studied groups of dozens of languages with millions of speakers to several isolates , some only discovered in
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#1732787195505600-574: A wealth of data on the non-literary languages of the Himalayas and northeast India, noting that many of these were related to Tibetan and Burmese. Others identified related languages in the highlands of Southeast Asia and south-west China. The name "Tibeto-Burman" was first applied to this group in 1856 by James Logan , who added Karen in 1858. Charles Forbes viewed the family as uniting the Gangetic and Lohitic branches of Max Müller 's Turanian ,
650-586: Is Burmese , the national language of Myanmar, with over 32 million speakers and a literary tradition dating from the early 12th century. It is one of the Lolo-Burmese languages , an intensively studied and well-defined group comprising approximately 100 languages spoken in Myanmar and the highlands of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and southwest China . Major languages include the Loloish languages , with two million speakers in western Sichuan and northern Yunnan ,
700-610: Is an extensive literature in Classical Tibetan dating from the 8th century. The Tibetic languages are usually grouped with the smaller East Bodish languages of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh as the Bodish group. Many diverse Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Sizable groups that have been identified are the West Himalayish languages of Himachal Pradesh and western Nepal,
750-706: Is available at the DoBeS website and Tangsa texts can be read and searched at the Tai and Tibeto-Burman Languages of Assam website. Tibeto-Burmese The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family , over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia . Around 60 million people speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The name derives from
800-504: Is central to the family in that it contains features of many of the other branches, and is also located around the center of the Tibeto-Burman-speaking area. Since Benedict (1972), many languages previously inadequately documented have received more attention with the publication of new grammars, dictionaries, and wordlists. This new research has greatly benefited comparative work, and Bradley (2002) incorporates much of
850-418: Is derived from tang ('high land') and sa ('son') and means 'people of the high land'. There are many sub-groups of Tangsa, all of which speak distinctive linguistic varieties. Some of these varieties are very similar, and some are very different from each other. Each of these ethnic subgroups is known by a number of different names. There is the name the group gives to itself, for example Chamchang, and then
900-656: Is known from inscriptions using a variant of the Gupta script . The Tangut language of the 12th century Western Xia of northern China is preserved in numerous texts written in the Chinese-inspired Tangut script . Over eight million people in the Tibetan Plateau and neighbouring areas in Baltistan , Ladakh , Nepal , Sikkim and Bhutan speak one of several related Tibetic languages . There
950-589: Is not complete: Notes: Gakat people also live in India, in the Wakka village circle of Tirap district, but are grouped with the Wancho rather than with Tangsa. The Tangsa's habitation along the Myanmar border resulted in cultural influence from neighbouring groups across the border and the adoption of Burmese dress among many tribal members. Traditionally, Tangsa men and women keep their hair long, often tying it into
1000-448: Is now accepted by most linguists, with a few exceptions such as Roy Andrew Miller and Christopher Beckwith . More recent controversy has centred on the proposed primary branching of Sino-Tibetan into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman subgroups. In spite of the popularity of this classification, first proposed by Kuhn and Conrady, and also promoted by Paul Benedict (1972) and later James Matisoff , Tibeto-Burman has not been demonstrated to be
1050-499: Is spoken in an area from eastern Nepal to western Bhutan. Most of the languages of Bhutan are Bodish, but it also has three small isolates, 'Ole ("Black Mountain Monpa"), Lhokpu and Gongduk and a larger community of speakers of Tshangla . The Tani languages include most of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Arunachal Pradesh and adjacent areas of Tibet. The remaining languages of Arunachal Pradesh are much more diverse, belonging to
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#17327871955051100-608: Is the name chosen for a revivalist movement of Tangsa traditional spirituality. The intention is "to give an alternative form of religious belief to those who were neither following the Christian beliefs nor the traditional ways". "Rangfrah" meaning "God" in the Tangsa dialect and a worshiping house called "Rangshom Him" was built to place the Rangfrah idol and make arrangement for the followers to gather and offer their prayers. In
1150-465: Is then divided into several branches, some of them geographic conveniences rather than linguistic proposals: Matisoff makes no claim that the families in the Kamarupan or Himalayish branches have a special relationship to one another other than a geographic one. They are intended rather as categories of convenience pending more detailed comparative work. Matisoff also notes that Jingpho–Nungish–Luish
1200-605: Is very similar to Nocte, which is listed by the ISO as a different language (ISO639-3:njb) An alphabetic writing system was invented for Tangsa in 1990 by Lakhum Mossang (d. 11 July 2020). It has seen limited use among members of the Mossang community and received support from the government of Arunachal Pradesh. This script was added to the Unicode standard with the release of version 14.0 in 2021. An on-line archive of Tangsa texts
1250-449: Is widely used, some historical linguists criticize this classification, as the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages lack any shared innovations in phonology or morphology to show that they comprise a clade of the phylogenetic tree . During the 18th century, several scholars noticed parallels between Tibetan and Burmese, both languages with extensive literary traditions. In the following century, Brian Houghton Hodgson collected
1300-692: The Akha language and Hani languages , with two million speakers in southern Yunnan, eastern Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and Lisu and Lahu in Yunnan, northern Myanmar and northern Thailand. All languages of the Loloish subgroup show significant Austroasiatic influence. The Pai-lang songs, transcribed in Chinese characters in the 1st century, appear to record words from a Lolo-Burmese language, but arranged in Chinese order. The Tibeto-Burman languages of south-west China have been heavily influenced by Chinese over
1350-662: The Indian Constitution and there are many sub-groups within Tangsa on both sides of the border. The Tangshang in Myanmar as well as the Tangsa in India regard themselves as a arunachali. They are well-built and of medium-stature. Today Tangsa people live in the Patkai mountains, on the border of India and Burma, and some live in the plains areas on the Indian side of the border. Many Tangsa tell of migrations from , through
1400-600: The Jingpho–Luish languages , including Jingpho with nearly a million speakers. The Brahmaputran or Sal languages include at least the Boro–Garo and Konyak languages , spoken in an area stretching from northern Myanmar through the Indian states of Nagaland , Meghalaya , and Tripura , and are often considered to include the Jingpho–Luish group. The border highlands of Nagaland , Manipur and western Myanmar are home to
1450-478: The Songlin and Chamdo languages , both of which were only described in the 2010s. New Tibeto-Burman languages continue to be recognized, some not closely related to other languages. Distinct languages only recognized in the 2010s include Koki Naga . Randy LaPolla (2003) proposed a Rung branch of Tibeto-Burman, based on morphological evidence, but this is not widely accepted. Scott DeLancey (2015) proposed
1500-673: The Tamangic languages of western Nepal, including Tamang with one million speakers, and the Kiranti languages of eastern Nepal. The remaining groups are small, with several isolates. The Newar language (Nepal Bhasa) of central Nepal has a million speakers and literature dating from the 12th century, and nearly a million people speak Magaric languages , but the rest have small speech communities. Other isolates and small groups in Nepal are Dura , Raji–Raute , Chepangic and Dhimalish . Lepcha
1550-568: The 21st century but in danger of extinction. These subgroups are here surveyed on a geographical basis. The southernmost group is the Karen languages , spoken by three million people on both sides of the Burma–Thailand border. They differ from all other Tibeto-Burman languages (except Bai) in having a subject–verb–object word order, attributed to contact with Tai–Kadai and Austroasiatic languages . The most widely spoken Tibeto-Burman language
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1600-563: The Konyak subgroup within a larger group sometimes called Bodo-Konyak-Jinghpaw. Tangsa is not a single language, but a network of varieties some of which are mutually intelligible and some of which are not. For example, within the Pangwa group, Longri and Cholim (Tonglum) speakers understand each other easily, but speakers of these two groups may have more difficulty understanding and speaking Lochhang (Langching). The following table shows some of
1650-610: The Longchang and Langkai are Rangfrahites, while the Tikhaks are evenly divided into Christians and Buddhists. Taisen is majority Buddhist. The Moglum Tangsa are evenly divided between Rangfrah, Animists and Christians. The Namsang Tangsa are two-thirds Animist, with the remaining one-third Hindu. At present the ISO code for these speech varieties is ISO639-3:nst. The closest linguistic relatives to Tangsa are Tutsa and Nocte, and all of these, together with several other languages, make up
1700-530: The South-West China Province of Yunnan into Burma. Tangsa traditions suggest that they settled in the existing region from the beginning of the 13th century. It is believed that in their native place in China and Burma they were known as Muwa and Hawa respectively. The term Hawa (also pronounced Hewe or Hiwi ) is used by many Tangsa to refer to the whole group of Tangsa. The term Tangsa
1750-749: The Tangsas, including most of the Pangwa Tangsas, and nearly all of the Tangshang in Myanmar, have accepted Christianity. Probably the most widespread Christian denomination in both Myanmar and India is Baptist. Tangsa Baptist Churches' Association with its headquarters at Nongtham under Kharsang sub-division is the largest Baptist Association working among the Tangsas with more than 100 churches affiliated to it[5], but there are also large numbers of Presbyterians in India, and perhaps smaller numbers of Catholics, Church of Christ and Congregationalists. Out of
1800-587: The basis of vocabulary and typological features shared with Chinese. Jean Przyluski introduced the term sino-tibétain (Sino-Tibetan) as the title of his chapter on the group in Antoine Meillet and Marcel Cohen 's Les Langues du Monde in 1924. The Tai languages have not been included in most Western accounts of Sino-Tibetan since the Second World War, though many Chinese linguists still include them. The link between Tibeto-Burman and Chinese
1850-399: The classification of Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman languages, Shafer (1955) and Benedict (1972) , which were actually produced in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. Shafer's tentative classification took an agnostic position and did not recognize Tibeto-Burman, but placed Chinese (Sinitic) on the same level as the other branches of a Sino-Tibetan family. He retained Tai–Kadai (Daic) within
1900-563: The climate and terrain, the Tangsa live in stilt houses, which are divided into many rooms. Like the Nocte , the Tangsa traditionally had separate dormitories for men, known in Longchang Tangsa as Looppong for the males and Likpya for the female. Traditionally, the Tangsa believed in a joint family system, and property is equally divided between all family members. A tribal council, known as Khaphua (Longchang), Khaphong (Muklom)
1950-558: The dialects of other Tangsa communities, the term for "God" takes variants such as Rangwa, Rangkhothak, etc. Traditionally, the Tangsas rarely practiced any kind of religious rituals dedicated to the God. However, they generally used various ways to invoke spirits to either receive their benevolent influences or to protect themselves from their malevolent activities. The rituals were mostly invocations, which predominantly involved offerings of animals, rice, rice-beer, eggs, etc. wrapped in leaves of
2000-500: The family, allegedly at the insistence of colleagues, despite his personal belief that they were not related. A very influential, although also tentative, classification is that of Benedict (1972) , which was actually written around 1941. Like Shafer's work, this drew on the data assembled by the Sino-Tibetan Philology Project, which was directed by Shafer and Benedict in turn. Benedict envisaged Chinese as
2050-416: The first family to branch off, followed by Karen. The Tibeto-Burman family is then divided into seven primary branches: James Matisoff proposes a modification of Benedict that demoted Karen but kept the divergent position of Sinitic. Of the 7 branches within Tibeto-Burman, 2 branches (Baic and Karenic) have SVO -order languages, whereas all the other 5 branches have SOV -order languages. Tibeto-Burman
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2100-613: The left is a rather more linguistically diverse set of varieties termed Pangwa, consisting mostly of groups that have arrived in India more recently and usually have related villages in Myanmar; although some like Joglei and Rera are now found only in India. They use kham for drinking water but ju for river water. To the right are several diverse varieties, which use kham for alcohol and ju for drinking water. Moklum and Hakhun are not mutually intelligible but do share hierarchical agreement marking (marking of object as well as subject), though realised in systematically different ways. Hakhun
2150-596: The linguistic differences between Tangsa groups: There seem to be three subgroups in India. The lexemes (words) for ‘drinking water’, other types of ‘water’ and ‘alcohol’ can be used as a diagnostic for three putative groups. The group shown in the middle of the table, the Tikhak subgroup (Tikhak and Yongkuk), is reasonably well established. They are people who came from Myanmar to India some hundreds of years ago and there are no Tikhak or Yongkuk speakers in Indi these days. They use kham for 'drinking water' and 'river water'. To
2200-459: The most widely spoken of these languages, Burmese and the Tibetic languages , which also have extensive literary traditions, dating from the 12th and 7th centuries respectively. Most of the other languages are spoken by much smaller communities, and many of them have not been described in detail. Though the division of Sino-Tibetan into Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman branches (e.g. Benedict, Matisoff)
2250-565: The newer data. George van Driem rejects the primary split of Sinitic, making Tibeto-Burman synonymous with Sino-Tibetan. The internal structure of Tibeto-Burman is tentatively classified as follows by Matisoff (2015: xxxii, 1123–1127) in the final release of the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT). The classification of Tujia is difficult due to extensive borrowing. Other unclassified Tibeto-Burman languages include Basum and
2300-646: The plains area of India practice wet rice cultivation. In the traditional agriculture, using simple manual tools, the Tangsa raise crops that include paddy, millet, maize and arum, and vegetables. Tangsa people make scanty use of milk and milk products, although milk tea is now served in many Tangsa houses. Traditional meals consist of a wide variety of recipes. But, staple foods are boiled or steamed rice, vegetables boiled with herbs and spices (stew) and boiled or roasted fish or meat. Snacks include boiled or roasted arum or topiaca. Traditional drinks include smoked tea ( phalap ) and rice beer (called ju, kham or che ). Owing to
2350-683: The small Ao , Angami–Pochuri , Tangkhulic , and Zeme groups of languages, as well as the Karbi language . Meithei , the main language of Manipur with 1.4 million speakers, is sometimes linked with the 50 or so Kuki-Chin languages are spoken in Mizoram and the Chin State of Myanmar. The Mru language is spoken by a small group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts between Bangladesh and Myanmar. There have been two milestones in
2400-469: The small Qiangic and Rgyalrongic groups of languages, which preserve many archaic features. The most easterly Tibeto-Burman language is Tujia , spoken in the Wuling Mountains on the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou and Chongqing. Two historical languages are believed to be Tibeto-Burman, but their precise affiliation is uncertain. The Pyu language of central Myanmar in the first centuries
2450-487: The small Siangic , Kho-Bwa (or Kamengic), Hruso , Miju and Digaro languages (or Mishmic) groups. These groups have relatively little Tibeto-Burman vocabulary, and Bench and Post dispute their inclusion in Sino-Tibetan. The greatest variety of languages and subgroups is found in the highlands stretching from northern Myanmar to northeast India. Northern Myanmar is home to the small Nungish group, as well as
2500-509: Was administered by a Lungwang (chief), who sees to the daily affairs of the Tangsa group. Nowadays Tangsa follow a variety of religions. Traditionally their beliefs were animistic. One example of the animistic beliefs still practised is the Wihu Kuh festival held in some parts of Assam on 5 January each year. This involves sacrifice of chickens, pigs or buffaloes and prayers and songs to the female earth spirit, Wihu . This group believe in
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