LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 12 December 2012
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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History of Development of Bodo Language as
Medium of Instruction in Assam

Kusum Brahma, M. A.

Abstract

The Bodo are known as earliest indigenous inhabitants of Brahmaputra valley. They were the dominant people group of Assam till the Ahom came to Assam. Racially they are of Mongoloid origin and linguistically they belong to Tibeto-Burman family of Bodo-Naga sub-group. But this important people group has no written record about their past educational system as well as the development of their language. Because of the lack of written mode their language remained confined to spoken form till the twentieth century. In this paper an attempt is made to analyse the historical development of Bodo language as medium of instruction in Assam.

Introduction

Bodos are known as the earliest indigenous inhabitants of Brahmaputra valley. They were a dominant people group of Assam. They had their own kingdoms, religion, culture and language. In earlier times, they were not known by the name of the Bodos, they were known by different names in different times and different ages. In epic period they were known as Kirata, Danava or Asura, in ancient and medieval periods as Mech, Kacharis and Bodo. But with whatever names they are known to others, they like to call themselves as Bodo or Boro (Sydney Endle, citation). It is interesting to note that racially the Bodo groups belong to Mongoloid origin whose homeland might have been somewhere in Mongolia, Siberia, China, Tibet or Central Asia but linguistically they are included under the Tibeto-Burman speech family of Bodo-Naga sub-group. It is seen from the writings of different historians that they came to Assam at about 2000 B.C. along the bank of the Brahmaputra River.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Kusum Brahma, M.A.
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
Darrang College
Tezpur
Assam
India
kusumbrahma@gmail.com
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