Tawrã Language Resource

Part of CoRSAL

About the Language

Tawrã (also sometimes spelled as Taraon, in India, or Dáràng, in China), is a Trans-Himalayan language spoken on both sides of the northeast border area of India and Tibet (presently China). Another name sometimes used for Tawrã as spoken in India is Digaru or Digaro, which is based on the name of a prominent river in the Tawrã-speaking area and is the source of the Glottocode Diga1241. However, this is an exonym and Tawrã speakers themselves refer to their language as Tawrã. Ethnically, Tawrã speakers form part of the broader ethnic group known as Mishmi, which also includes Kera’a (Idu Mishmi) and Kaman (Miju Mishmi). In India, from which this collection originates, Tawrã is primarily spoken in the Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh, around the localities of Teju, Sunpura and Wakro, and in the Anjaw district including Chaglagam, Goiliang and Hayuliang circles. At present, there appear to be about 15,000-20,000 speakers of Tawrã in Arunachal Pradesh.

About the collection

This project was funded by a FLICR Fellowship from the Centre for Cultural-Linguistic Diversity (Eastern Himalaya), with support from the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research. It includes nearly two hours of audio/video files with time-aligned English translations, as well as photographs and names of consultants. The primary aim of this project was to collect oral histories of Tawrã clan group origins and migrations. It was motivated by the observation that migration histories are not homogeneous across the Tawrã-speaking community; instead, different Tawrã clans have their own clan-specific migration stories that detail how they came to be settled in their present village. Rather than trying to resolve them to a single consistent narrative, this collection represents all of these different perspectives in an attempt to represent the full richness of Tawrã cultural memories. This project also contributes to efforts to determine the geographical and clan-wise distribution of different varieties of the Tawrã language.

About the collector

Johakso Manyu is a Tawrã community member and native speaker, currently working as an advocate in the town of Teju. He has also worked for many years on topics related to Tawrã language and culture, and has partnered with international linguists such as Jonathan Evans, with whom he has co-authored a description of Tawrã phonology, and Rolf Hotz, with whom he has worked on grammatical analysis of Tawrã. Johakso Manyu attended a number of TRICL workshops, and was selected for the FLICR Fellowship that forms the basis of this collection in 2022.