Digaro languages

Digaro
Northern Mishmi
Geographic distribution	Arunachal Pradesh
Linguistic classification	possibly Sino-Tibetan or an independent family Greater Siangic ? Digaro
Subdivisions	Idu Mishmi Taraon
Glottolog	mish1241

The Digaro (Digarish), Northern Mishmi (Mishmic), or Kera'a–Tawrã languages are a small family of possibly Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by the Mishmi people of southeastern Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh.

The languages are Idu and Taraon (Digaro, Darang).

External relationships

They are not related to the Southern Mishmi Midzu languages, apart from possibly being Sino-Tibetan. However, Blench and Post (2011) suggests that they may not even be Sino-Tibetan, but rather an independent language family of their own.

Blench (2014) classifies the Digaro languages as part of the Greater Siangic group of languages.

Names

Autonyms and exonyms for Digaro-speaking peoples, as well as Miju (Kaman), are given below (Jiang, et al. 2013:2-3).

Names of Mishmi peoples

	Taraon name	Kaman name	Idu name	Assamese name
Taraon people	da31 raŋ53	tɕi31 moŋ35	tɑ31 rɑŋ35	Digaru; Digaru Mishmi
Kaman people	tɕɑu53	kɯ31 mɑn35	mi31 tɕu55	Midzu
Idu people	dju55; dju55 ta31 rɑŋ53; dɑi53	min31 dɑu55; hu53	i53 du55	Chulikata Mishmi
Zha people 扎人	tɕɑ31 kʰen55	tɕɑ31 kreŋ35	—	—
Tibetan people	lɑ31 mɑ55; mei53 bom55	dɯ31 luŋ35; hɑi35 hɯl55	ɑ31 mi53; pu53; mi31 si55 pu53	—

Registers

Idu, Tawra, Kman, and Meyor all share a system of multiple language registers, which are (Blench 2016):

1. ordinary speech
2. speech of hunters: lexical substitution, the replacement of animal names and others by special lexical forms, and sometimes short poems
3. speech of priests/shamans: more complex, involving much language which is difficult to understand, and also lengthy descriptions of sacrificial animals
4. poetic/lyrical register (not in Idu, but appears in Kman)
5. mediation register (only in Idu?)
6. babytalk register

References

• Blench, Roger (2011) (De)classifying Arunachal languages: Reconstructing the evidence
• Blench, Roger (2014). Fallen leaves blow away: a neo-Hammarstromian approach to Sino-Tibetan classification. Presentation given at the University of New England, Armidale, 6 September 2014.
• Blench, Roger. 2017. The ‘Mishmi’ languages, Idu, Tawra and Kman: a mismatch between cultural and linguistic relations.
• Jiang Huo [江获], Li Daqin [李大勤], Sun Hongkai [孙宏开] (2013). A study of Taraon [达让语研]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House [民族出版社]. ISBN 9787105129324
• van Driem, George (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.