Kamrupi
Kamrupi is the language that was spoken in the
Kamarupa kingdom in the first millennium, which, some linguists claim, gave rise to or influenced various eastern Indo-European languages like
Assamese and
Bengali. Kamrupi is also the name of two dialects: one of
Assamese and the other of
Bengali. Some consider Kamrupi dialect of Assamese to be a separate language that is
endangered. Thus the term Kamrupi is used in different contexts to refer to dialects of Assamese and Bengali, a modern language and an Apabhramsa.
Assamese
Kamrupi today denotes a group of
dialects of
Assamese language spoken in the undivided Kamrup district of
Assam. The four main dialects that form this group are Kamrupi, Nalbariya, Barpetiya and South Kamrupi [Moral, 1992]. These dialects are spoken in the present districts of Kamrup, Nalbari, Barpeta, Darrang, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon in Assam. The name is derived from the
Kamarupa kingdom that existed from the fourth to the eleventh century, ruled by three major dynasties. The south Kamrupi dialect has been used with dramatic effect in the works of the
Bengali
The modern
Bengali scholars like Suniti Kumar Chatterjee and Sukumar Sen [
1] have named the dialect of
Bengali spoken in North Bengal as Kamrupi. This dialect is also called
Kamatapuri named after the
Kamata kingdom that succeeded the
Kamarupa kingdom in the 13th century. The Assamese Kamrupi and the Bengali Kamrupi are very similar according to Suniti Kumar Chatterjee. The division possibly occurred due to political reasons: the division in the
16th-
17th century of the
Kamata kingdom (under
Koch dynasty) along the Sankosh river. Today the two dialects form a
dialect continuum.
Some linguists claim that there existed a Kamrupi
apabhramsa as opposed to the
Magadhi apabhramsa from which the three cognate languages-sprouted. The initial motive comes from extra-linguistic considerations. Kamarupa was the most powerful and formidable kingdom in the region which provided the political and cultural influence for the development of the Kamrupi apabhramsa.
Xuanzang's mention that the language spoken in Kamarupa was a 'little different' from the one spoken in Pundravardhana is provided as evidence that this apabhramsa existed as early as the
5th century. That Kamarupa remained unconquered till the beginning of the Assamese language in the
14th century points to the possibility that the apabhramsa of the Kamarupa kingdom must have flourished.
Archaic forms found in epigraphic records from the Kamarupa period give evidence of this apabhramsa, of which there are numerous examples.
The Buddhist
Charyapadas from the
8th to
12th century are claimed by different languages:
Assamese,
Bengali,
Oriya and
Maithili languages. But the geographical region of its composition was the Kamarupa pitha and many of the composers were Kamarupi siddhas. Therefore the language in the Charyapadas is the best example of this apabhramsa. H. P. Sastri, who discovered these poems, termed the language
sandhya bhasha (twilight language) and this is nothing but the Kamarupi apabhramsa.
According to some Kamrupi is an
endangered language. The language is defined by the Kamrupi group of Assamese dialects that include Kamrupiya, Nalbariya, Borpetiya and South kamrupiya. This opinion considers the corpus of Vaishnavite literature from middle Assamese as examples of Kamrupi literature. It also claims that the standard languages,
Bengali and
Assamese, as well as the different dialects belonging to these language groups like Radhi, Virendari etc. have branched out of Kamrupi. This claim is not well substantiated because Bengali and other languages have had independent developments since the
14th century.
* Hazarika, Parikshit
The Kamarupi Apabhramsa Journal of the Assam Research Society, Vol 18, 1968
*
Assamese from
Resource Center for Indian Langauge Technology Solutions,
IIT, Guwahati
