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CHNG OR MOJUNG.
The speakers of this language live beyond the Dikhu river, outside British
ter- ritory. On the west face of the Patkoi range there is only one very small
village in British Territory. The os call all trans-Dikhu tribes, generally,
'Miri,' hence this language is also known by this name. The
os call it 'Mojung,'
but its speakers call it 'Ch
ng.' Their principal village is called by the
os 'Mojunj
mi,' and by themselves 'Chong-S
ng.' The number of speakers
of Ch
ng is estimated at about 6,500.
I am indebted to Mr. Noel Williamson, the Subdivisional Officer of Mokokchang,
in the Nga Hills, for a list of words in this language, which appears most
closely connected with Banpar
and Mutoni
.
ASSIRINGI.
The name Assiringi, also spelt Asuring, denotes a village, called by the
os Miri- nokpo, situated in the
o country on the Japukung range overlooking
the plains of Sibs
gar. The people have adopted the customs and dress of
the
os, but not their language. They really belong to a tribe of naked N
g
s,
and came many years ago to their present site from the village of Wankhong or
Orangkang, which is situated a day's march east of the Dikhu from Susu village.
As has been explained under the head of
o,
os come down to the plains
through Assiringi
, and hence the Assamese call them by that name. We thus
often find the
o language wrongly called Assiringi
. It is to be regretted
that nothing is known about the true Assiringi
language. As its speakers
belong to a 'naked' tribe, I have provisionally classed it as belonging to the
Eastern sub-group of the N
g
languages.
MUTONI.
Immediately to the East of the Banpars, in the District of Sibs
gar,
are the Mutoni
, a small tribe with only some four villages, of which Muton
is the principal. Their language is merely a dialect of Banpar
. I have not
obtained any specimens of it. All that I can do is to partially fill up the
list of standard words from the materials provided by Brown.
Brown mentions three groups of people speaking this language, viz., Bor-Muthun,
Horu-Muthun and Khulung Muthun, and Hodgson calls it 'Mithan Ng
.'
The authorities on Mutoni which I have seen are as follows:-
HODGSON, B.H.,-Aborigines of the North-East Frontier. Journal of the Bengal
Asiatic Society, Vol. xix, 1850, pp. 309 and ff. Reprinted in Miscellaneous
Essays relating to Indian Subjects, Vol. ii, pp. 11 and ff. Contains a 'Mithn
N
g
' Vocabulary.
BROWN, REV. N.,-Specimens of the Ng
languages of Asam. Journal of
the American Oriental Society, Vol. ii, 1851, pp. 153 and ff. Contains a 'Muthun
and Khulung-Muthun' Vocabulary.
HUNTER, SIR W.W.,-A comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High
Asia with a dissertation. London, 1868. Contains a Vocabulary of 'Mithn
N
g
.' Taken from Hodgson.
DALTON, COLONEL E.T.,-Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal. Calcutta, 1872. Mithn
N
g
Vocabulary on pp. 71 and ff. Taken from Hodgson.