03-02-002

BODO GROUP.

　Mech and Kachrs) and the cognate languages spoken by the other tribes shown in the following table:-

Name of Language.	NUMBER OF SPEAKERS IN		TOTAL.
Name of Language.	Assam.	Bengal.	TOTAL.
True B (Kachr and Mech)...	247,520	25,011	272,531
Rbh...	31,370	...	31,370
Llung...	40,160	...	40,160
Dm-s (or Hills Kachr)...	18,681	...	18,681
Gr (or Mnd)...	120,780	28,313	149,093
Tipur...	300	105,550	105,850
Chutiy...	304	...	304
TOTAL.	459,115	158,874	617,989

　To this list must be added one more name, Morn. This was the language of a tribe now completely Hinduised, living in Sibsagar and Lakhimpur A list of a few of the words of this language will be found elsewhere, and shows clearly its affinity to the B group. But it must be remembered that the whole group has a tendency to become absorbed into the Aryan tongues of Bengal and Assam. Many of the people who speak these B languages are bilingual, and can use Bengali or Assamese, as the case may be, as fluently and freely as their own language. If they become 'Hind' and abjure roast pork and rice beer, they usually adopt the use of the Aryan tongue as their sole language. But even before this radical change is effected, Aryan influences alter their mode of speaking. The philological interest of this group of languages consists largely in the fact that they are agglutinative tongues which have learned inflexion by coming into contact with the speech of Aryan peoples. Thus, a B living in Darrang can talk, not only Assamese and a rich idiomatic B, made pictur- esque and vivid by the use of polysyllabic agglutinative verbs, but also an Aryanised B which freely borrows the linguistic artifices of Aryan tongues, such as the use of the relative clause, of the passive voice, of adverbs, etc., and which almost wholly abjures the characteristic agglutinative verb that does the work of these more analytic devices of language. Unfortunately most of the following specimens belong to this latter class, but in dealing with Kachr, the language of this group best known to Europeans, it has been possible to give specimens of both types.

　The nature of the agglutinative verb will be fully explained in dealing with Kachr. The specimens of the various members of the group will show in what manner each tribe has grafted a more or less complete system of inflexion on to its heretofore agglutinative verb.

　 It has been observed that these languages show a failure to realise the distinction between the verb and other parts of speech, a failure which is indeed common in nearly all isolating and agglutinating languages. This remark must not, however, be too strictly applied to the B group of tongues. The agglutinative verb can be modified by the insertion of 'infixes' (examples of which will be given later on) and these infixes are a device by means of which the work of adverbs and adjectives is done, often with a very picturesque effect, lending itself to a vivid narrative style which can only be realised by hearing the stress and modulation used in dealing with long aggluti- native verbs.