Tiwa (Lalung) is a Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan) language spoken by the Tiwa people in Assam and Meghalaya in North East India. Tiwa language is similar to Boro, Dimasa, Kokborok and Garo language of India.
Tiwa dialects
Tiwa is spoken in northwestern Karbi Anglong district and further north in parts of Morigaon District / Nagaon district in the plains of Assam. There is a cluster of Tiwa villages in the northeastern Ri-Bhoi District of Meghalaya. For want of precise knowledge, it is difficult to speak of strictly delimited Tiwa dialects. On the one hand, Tiwa, probably with the exception of the variety of Tiwa spoken near Sonapur in Assam, is a single language, any of its dialects being mutually intelligible with any other. On the other hand, some lexical items, like the few given below for five different varieties of Tiwa (Tiwa speaking areas/villages - Marjông, Amsái, Magró, Amkhâ, and Rongkhói, also referred to as Marj, Ams, Magr, Amkh and Rong respectively further below), show enough variety to arouse one's curiosity. (We did not undertake any systematic study of Tiwa dialectal variation. There may well be other varieties, and it may be possible to group them together in some way.) For Example:
The words for fish (ngá in Marj and Ams, and ná in others) are less divergent and may offer a way of dividing the dialects into some groups. The Marjông dialect (spoken in Marjông and its affiliated villages) forms the basis of this language topic. However, wherever possible the dialectal synonyms of Amsái, Margó and Amkhâ have also been given, The Marj and Ams varieties are perfectly mutually intelligible, although the two groups easily recognize the differences in the other group.
Tiwa dialectal variations appear to be clustered around groups of villages that are held together by Tiwa religio-cultural rituals and celebrations that are traditionally held in a particular village and are centered around a priest (loró) who resides there. Such alliances of villages also had their own geographic area of jurisdiction (sîma) and lands for cultivation. The priest and the regular conduct of rituals and ceremonies gave such groups of villages socio-cultural cohesion. The earlier traditional system, which must have had stricter village coalitions, has suffered marginal disintegration in recent times.
In West Karbi Anglong district, the villages of Marjông, Amsái, Rongkhói, Amnî Baró and Amnî Sá still have their priests. The priest of the Amrî section now resides in Boksong. A Tiwa group is known as Amkhâ, which had its center at Suphing (also in West Karbi Anglong), got dispersed and does not have a priest at present.
In the Ri-Bhoi District of Meghalaya, the villages of Amjông, Lumphúi, and Phat Magró have their functioning priests even now. There is a section of Tiwa's in and around Mayông (Northeast Meghalaya), but there is no Mayông priest at the present time. It is believed that as only a person from the Maslông clan could become a priest when there was no one to inherit the priestly mantle at the death of the last Mayông priest, their priestly lineage came to an end, The Maslóng clan itself seems to have disappeared. The priest of the Sâgra section (also in Meghalaya) appears to have lost his ritual area of influence. The same is true of a section of Tiwa's known as Ligrâ that does not have a functioning priest now.
Language and geographical distribution
Tiwa is spoken in the following districts (Ethnologue).
Assam
East Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong districts
Nagaon district (Nambor) Morigaon district Kamrup district Dhemaji district Meghalaya Khasi Hills district (Ri-Bhoi district)
Script
Like most languages of the hill tribes of Northeast, India, Tiwa people do not have their own script. They use the Roman (Latin) script and occasionally use Assamese script.
Tiwa alphabet
Tiwa in Latin script has a different system, distinct from that of English. Tiwa uses a 24-letter alphabet by removing the letters F, Q, V, X and Z from the basic Latin alphabet and adding the diacritic letters ′ , ^ and ~ namely thópti, thópkho and kungái which is treated as a letter in its own right. Tiwa alphabet have 5-letter vowels and 16-letter consonant.
The spelling system
The Tiwa orthographic tradition (which is based on the Roman alphabet) is to a large extent straightforward; the letters represent the sounds they are generally associated with. However, exceptions in the language's sound system itself calls for some adjustments to be made in some areas. We consider below a few such areas. Check the Tiwa Mor (Tiwa Alphabet) chart below.