Tanchangya
𑄖𑄧𑄐𑄴𑄌𑄧𑄁𑄉𑄴𑄡
'Tanchangya' in Tanchangya/Chakma script
Native to	Bangladesh
Region	Chittagong Hill Tracts (Bangladesh) Mizoram and Tripura (India) Rakhine State (Myanmar)
Ethnicity	Tanchangya people
Native speakers	46,000 (2022)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali–Assamese Tanchangya
Writing system	Tanchangya alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tnv
Glottolog	tang1330

The Tanchangya language is one of the eleven indigenous languages in Chittagong Hill Tracts in present-day Bangladesh, and an ethnic group in the Indian states of Tripura and Mizoram, as well as Rakhine State in Myanmar. Despite the common belief that it is a Tibeto-Burman language, it is categorized as a Indo-Aryan language.^[2] It is closely related to Chakma and Chittagonian.

Linguistic Analysis

Tanchangyas people primarily speak Tanchangya language. The language category is debateble. According to Rupak Debnath Tanchangya retains several features of Tibeto-Burman, viz., dentalisation of palatal and palate-alveolar obstruents, aspiration of word initial [t], substitution of [r] by [j] in the environment of the palatal vowel [i], and occurrence of tone contrasts with changes in laryngeal and supra-laryngeal setting of phonemes.^[3]

Vocabulary

Tanchangya language has many words Indo-Aryan languages, with mixture of Pali, Sanskrit, Prakrit and other middle-Indo-Aryan languages. It also maintains some of the Burmanised words in their language particularly in Buddhist terminologies.

Ancient Tanchangya language

Ancient Tanchangya's words are believed to be the original words of Tanchangya since those words have been handing down a long time ago. It is not simply due to its earlier usage but it is universally understood by every Tanchangya despite any geographical distribution. According to Roti Kanta Tanchangya's collection of some ancient Tanchangya words.^[4]

Middle Indo-Aryan

The ancient Indo-Aryan language, Sanskrit is the most influential language impacting on most of the present middle-Indo-Aryan languages such as without Hindi, and with Odiya, Bengali, and Assamese and even in Tanchangya language with distorted and half assimilated form. Though Tanchangya language is thought to be the Indo-Aryan language family, due to its long gap of meeting with Pāḷi and Sanskrit, their vocabularies are almost untraceable distorted forms. According to ‘Tanchangya Parichiti’ written by Biro Kumar Tanchangya of the words originated from Indo-Aryan language.

Tibeto-Burman

Tanchangay language belongs to Tibeto-Burman language family; hence, today there are many Buddhist religious’ terms are found in the Tanchangya Language. According to Rupak Debnath, 'During the 14th century, Daingnak group absorbed several Marma elements into them, even acquired something of the Marma’s language and adopted Marma script and numerals.^[5]

Myanmar language and its culture influence to the neighbouring tribes in many ways.

Foreign words

In Tanchangya language it could also find few vocabularies derived from Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Persian, French, English, and Hindi.

Opinions on Tanchangya language

Outside Tanchangya tribe, there is a common belief that there is no difference at all between Tanchangya language and Chakma language. Such an instance can be seen at Dr. Satyakam Phukan's article named “An Analysis of the Ethno-Linguistic Roots and Connections of the Chakma and Tanchangya People”. According to him, the similarity is much compared to the difference between the words between Chakma and Tanchangya.^[6] His analysis is basically from morphological perspective.