General Articles

General articles

The Gypsies Soul  

by Renato Rosso

This paper is concerned with Nomads that can be encountered in different countries across the continents of the world, who, though living in extremely different contexts, have remarkably similar attitudes. Think of the Eskimos living in icy regions and the Bedouins living in the sand of the deserts, or consider some Nomads squatting in encampment tents and others moving around in groups on small boats, sailing on rivers or by the seas shores. They all have in common the culture of the journey and they have been indelibly marked by their tradition of incessant migration. These Nomads were not born in the garden of heaven, they are the product of the whole of human history.

At this point a glimpse into their known history will provide for us a reliable foundation. A form of settled life, in contrast with the nomadic life of the Semitic peoples, began about 6000 years ago in the north of Egypt.

For all these reasons we can underline the fact that our recorded history, of which we so often speak and are proud (or frequently ashamed of), encompasses a period of time that does not extend back beyond ten thousand years. Whereas prehistory, which has seen all the efforts of humans to come out from the forest and begin the process of their integral humanisation, belongs to Nomads and is millions of years long.

Having learned to smile and to cry, they learned to play games. Slowly the games became more complex and difficult,and in what we call our civilisation they were turned into wars and hard work. In the last millennia the game has turned into a struggle for power and glory. The players have become workers. The winners were anointed as emperors and the defeated were enslaved. Nevertheless, along this path of complex and fragmented history some fringes of humanity have remained Nomads, always interacting with other cultures, but choosing freedom for themselves even at the terrible expense of alienation.

 Therefore to use the word Gypsy is not only acceptable but also very precise, since it is the word that, nowadays, represents faithfully the Nomadic groups. Nevertheless Gypsy is not synonymous with Nomad. For instance, in my opinion, the name Gypsy should not be applied to the Nomads living in isolation in a Himalayan forest and without any relationship with settled groups. They should be called anomadic tribe. For example, the Eskimos, due to their past isolation were never called Gypsies. Proper anthropological and philological literature has extended the name Gypsy to a variety of groups (which will be considered later), resorting to an analogy of the European and American groups, as well as seeing some real connections between them.

Nomads of South Asia

by Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty 

This volume has grown out of intense scholarly work, done over nearly two centuries among nomads by western scholars. The scholarship, however, reflects the Orientalist idea of Karl Marx, about Asiatics, reflected in his statement in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, "they cannot represent themselves; they must be represented". The representation is hegemonic, armed by a battery of ideological prejudices. The various articles in this volume have to be read in the backdrop of the British mission to establish political authority over Indian society, and, of the exteriority of representation by British Orientalists, standing outside the Indian context, existentially and intellectually. The accounts exclude and displace the real nomad for the represented nomad, who is seen as a dark, hovering, fringe presence in a colonised country, and as a criminal, cruel savage. Transcending the description of their life ways, comes out the constant attempt to classify the nomads under pejorative categories, be they religious mendicants like Bairagis or Jogis, wandering minstrels like Bauls, acrobats like Bazigars, bards like Bhats, professional beggars like Dewars, worshipper priests like Koravas, sorcerers like Kurumbas, magician priests like Pradhans, or groups like Chapparbands or Jogis. They are defined as people with criminal, extortionate practices, or, with demonic tendencies, ass windlers, manufacturers of spurious coins, or as dealers in base metal. Indiscriminate slaughter of game by Bhils, railway thefts by Bhampas, burglary by Doms, robberies by Minas, theft by Kalandars or Rahwaris, pugnacious nature of the Gosains have been mentioned with a barely hidden distaste, and robbery has been described as a congenital part of the religion of some groups, without comprehending the various ways, in which their life styles have been disturbed by alien intrusions, and without understanding that the victims of destruction should not be blamed as agents of such destruction.

The marriage rules, ceremonial pollution practices, origin myths, legends, festivals, ways of worship, deities, self management methods, sexual habits of the nomads are described in this volume. The account is interspersed with valuable discussions of the languages, literature, folk tales and songs of groups like the Bhats, Kanjars, Kodasor Todas, or, of the subsistence technologies, including shifting cultivation of the Baigas, hunting gathering of the Bhils, cow herding of the Gaddis. The folk deities and self governing tribal councils of various groups, including those of the Bagdis, have been listed. Valuable information has been given on the so called demonology of Kanjars, and material has been reproduced on the mythology of Singbonga or sun worship among the Mundas. However, this discussion was not pursued, as decision had been taken to leave these groups to their own ways, rather than to learn or learn from their language. There is, instead, a concentration in the description on human sacrifices, witchcraft, female promiscuity, premarital license, grotesque appearance, drunken revels of various groups like Banjaras, Barwas, Bhils, Budukalas, Madaris, Oraons. There is little attempt to comprehend the wisdom, method or relevance of the location specific nature of the skills and technologies, or, to understand the religion, the philosophy, or the ritual, supporting these folk cults. As a result, the nomadic groups have been presented as a faceless amorphous mass, characterised by animistic or fetishistic practices, who do not have an intimation of the best and finest in human thought or intellection.The nomads have, therefore, in this view, become people who are in the need of law, mission, civilisatrice. The view is permeated by a theory of control over people, who require, even beseech domination. The implicit suggestion of a redemptive mission, to protect the Indian territory from tribalism, dissension, mutual violence, is based on the universalising discourse of Europe and its self assumed telos to civilise the non European world, without its consent. In this way, the production, circulation or history of representation of nomadic cultures has become entangled with power mongering and empire building. The community habitats of the nomads have been seen as the outlying possession of the European world for appropriation as its own other. The absence of individual titular rights of the nomads and their herds on their camp sites in their zone of movement, has been held against them, on an alien jurisprudential premise of Terra Nullius, to dislodge them from their camp sites, and to appropriate and mine their bio cultural landscapes, in the interest of the empire. The contemptuous attitude to Indian nomads, implicit in these accounts, reflects similar attitudes, adapted towards the nomads allover the world.( Jean Paul Clerbert, The Gypsies, 1963; W.R.Rishi ,Ed. Roma, 1974 till date) They have been variously called Gypsies, Gypos, Bohemians, Egyptians or Rabouin (messengers of the devil); accused of causing natural scourges and epidemics; treated by Government as Pariahs, as a pest and a plague; as filthy rogues within comprehensible language and manner; as non human, void of normal human rights; exposed to the slave market; subjected to military or tax obligations, and excluded from the pale of civilised society. The Gypsies are seen as the descendants of Cain (blacksmith in Semitic languages), brother of Abel, who is cursed in the Genesis text, "when thou tillest the ground, it shall not hence forth yield unto thee her strength: a fugitive, a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth". In the Tempest, Caliban (Kaliben is a Gypsy word meaning blackness) is a tortured spirit. The persecution mania is evident in the prophesy of Ezekiel, "I shall scatter the Egyptians around the nations". It is evident in the mythology, linking the ironsmith with enemies of Gods, as giants digging the bowels of the earth and taming the central holocaust, as Prometheus tamed the fire. The nomadic diaspora has been comparable to the Jewish diaspora, and hundreds of thousands of Gypsies have been liquidated by the Nazis in their concentration camps in the same way as the Jews were. The reason for such persistent and relentless persecution of the nomads is the reductive stereotypes established the world over about their dupery,their practice of diabolical witchcraft, their lascivious habits and their criminal tendencies. Suspicion about them has been associated with the growing sedentary nature of human civilisation, in which virtue has come to be identified with fixed habits, habitations or employments. The nomadic habit of vagabondage, of wandering about without a recognised domicile or occupation, has been considered an offence. No wonder that such sustained persecution should drive the nomads to the deviant behaviour they have been accused of. The blanket terms, originally used to describe nomads like Baluchis, Yoruks (wanderers in Turkish), Amorites, Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians have now come to apply later to ethnic communities. Nomadic pastoralism has been demonstrated to contain an ambivalence and continuum between sedentarisation and nomadisation; between hunting gathering, centred around seasonal base camps in  defined territories, equipped with water resources, ceremonial, kill and hunting sites on the one hand, and wide spread migration patterns, dependent on mobile pastoral capital and variable seasonal pastoral availability on the other. In India, Bhotias, Gujjars and Gaddis variously combine cattle rearing with mercantile and farming activities. The insistence on the rehabilitation of nomadic and denotified tribes, under one common category, so that they may stay at one place, build houses and live as good citizens of communities, show the continuing fixations and prejudices against the nomads and the refusal to understand the value of their traditions. The researcher may be able to acquire an understanding of the Nomads only when he transcends the reductive homogenising categories for nomads, and looks at the variety of nomadic approaches to resource management and survival in different ecosystems. He has to go beyond established prototypes about the linguistic correlations of nomadic names like Luri and Nuri, Dom and the Lom, Zotts and Jats in India and the Middle East, Manush in France and in India; the similarity of technologies and professions; the unity of roots of the basic tongue; the uniformity of the secret sign language Patrin, communicated through patterns, drawn on walls or tree branches; the common characterisation of the non nomadic groups by nomads as Gadjo or clod hopping peasants. The researcher has to also go beyond the romantic myth about the child of Bohemia, about his majestic freedom, wanderjahre and unaffected beauty; and, beyond the image of the nomads as people with loose clothes, dishevelled hair, long ears. He has to recollect and recapitulate their skills in horse rearing and dealing, in metal smithy, fishing, and embroidery; their broad trophic base, including berries, mushrooms, roots, wild fruits, vegetables, molasses and small mammals; their music and dance, like Flamenco or Chochek, accompanied by musical instruments like tambourines, drums, citharas, lutes, cymbals, pipes and violins, and by varieties of jumps, leaps, squats, and cart wheels. He has to investigate their predictions and divinations about the terrain and environment; their subsistence and resource management technologies; their pharmacopoeia, using plants, magic and music; the shape and meaning of motifs like snakes and stars, sun and moon, inscribed by them on amulets and talismans, batons and sceptres, on coats, boots, spurs, or tattooed on bodies. He has to reconstruct the significance of their multiple use of the caravan as a dwelling, workshop and transport; their round, barrel vaulted, bower like tents and shrines, varying with seasonal changes. Finally, he has to step back and recollect their oral knowledge, folklore, religion and philosophy, preserved in dialects. Valuable lessons of socialisation, marketing strategies and community living can be learnt from the way the Bhotia settlements were managed in the seven river valleys of Uttarakh and, on the strength of institutions like the youth dormitories, called Rangh-Bang, the Ranths or lineages, and linked across mountain passes with Tibetan Mandisor market places. The variety of castes, underlying the occupational nomenclature of the Gaddis, the various religious denominations and survival strategies, comprehended by the term Gujjar, cannot be ignored in applying uniform identity markers to these groups. During most of their time on this earth, the ancestors of the contemporary human being have moved as nomadic foragers and hunters, frequenting deserts, mountains, jungles or arctic waste lands, representing climatic and environmental extremes. The life enhancing strategies, evolved by them in course of such movements, the self imposed limitation on their property and material technology, the informality of their sociopolitical organisation, the ceremonies related to their life cycles, remain sources of valuable information for alternative life ways. The earliest tool makers in Pleistocene cultures were hunter gatherers, who created a rich body of rock and cave art and art mobilier. The memory of the prehistoric environment still survives in the nomadic ways of labour division, product distribution, authority structures. It survives in the inborn migration patterns of the symbiotic communities of men and herds, released by the movement of their internal biological clock, through annual cycles, induced by fluctuations in hormone balance, temperature and day light. According to the 13th century Arab thinker Ibne Khaldun, author of the Muqaddimah, the migratory drift, resulting from or culminating in territorial aggrandisement, was mostly inter woven with the dynastic cycle of civilisations. This is evident in the ways, in which the various nomadic tribes in India link their fortunes historically or mythologically with the vicissitudes in the fortune of political rulers and kingdoms, specially in Central and Western India. The Gaduliaor Gade Lohar or blacksmiths using big and small bullock carts, called wan and tango, are supposed to have taken a pledge, after fighting shoulder to shoulder with Rana Pratap of Chittor, not to lead a settled life, sleep on a cot, draw water from wells, to use lamps or to visit the Chittorgarh fort. While this may or may not be borne out by historical facts, the conviction establishes the validity of Ibne Khaldun's statement. In recent history, the Tibetan migratory movements have been caused by Chinese occupation of Tibet and subsequent assaults on practice of religion, on hair styles, or on taboo against animals laughter by Tibetan women. The memory of these compulsive movements, reflected in nomadic material culture, offers clues to the cognitive beginnings of the human language before the invention of the script. The nomadic oral traditions regulating pasture allocation, migration routes and herd rights provide a corpus of unwritten law.The nomadic tradition is a source of the oral history of the people of the earth, recorded in delicate patterns, inscribed on stones, textiles, masks, Buddhist temples, across the near East and Central Asia, in the mountain arc of Taurus-Zagros, from the Atlas mountain to the Altai. Most of the motifs in the vocabulary of early Indian art came out of the shared corpus of the nomadic cultures of Central and Western Asia. Motifs like mythical monsters, griffin, triton, centaur, palmette, honeysuckle, bead and reel, lotus and bell, fret and spiral, volute and swastika, rosette and petal, tree and mountain, bells and flags, umbrellas and banners have travelled through ceramic and textile designs in nomadic migrations of balladeers, reciters, picture showmen, rope walkers. These motifs reduce anthromorphic, zomorphic, theriomorphic forms to essential geometric patterns, and  peak of a life dominated by the abstractions of nature.

Rugged and bleak terrains, littered with stone slabs, marking graves of brave men; goat skin, goat hair or felt tents, tapestries and rugs, providing shelter and sustenance in chill, or gusty winds, steep slopes and high passages of mountains, steppes and deserts; house boats with drying garments, and fishing nets; elaborate, multi coloured head dresses with costume jewellery, sequin adorned sparkling dresses; community meals, shared from the same plate, community dances and ritual combats; salt, gathered in pot holes, transported on camel back to barter it for food, cloth and household utensils; skin water bags, water proofed by reddish brown acacia bark solution; leather covered calabash, resonating to a taut bow, drawn across a horse hair string; dark glistening bodies in waters, or bodies, weaving around in a circle; flaring beards, carefully nurtured whiskers; garish, colourful, massed anklets, bangles, and ornaments, made of cowrie shells, metal beads, and polished brass spools, these are the scenes one comes across among the nomads of the earth. The nomadic camps being located in upland valleys, and on alluvial deposits below abrupt slopes in high energy, geomorphic environments in the Near east, have been subject to degradation, disturbance and concealment by hill wash, which may have protected such sites in high mountain pastures and steppes and should be looked for. The tents, leather vessels and baskets, the fragile camp sites, located in inclement territories and weathers, have accounted for the dearth of material specimens of nomadic culture. Microstratigraphy has revealed pottery sherds, bread oven pits, grind stones and slabs, ceramic churns and grinders, hearths, bathing platforms, levelled floors, stone corrals, composite dwellings, from abandoned summer camp sites of nomads, Afghanistan, Iran,Turkey, Persia. The Mughal army camps, the ruins of towns like Persepolis, and several Roman towns, imitate tent settlements, and tents have actually been used on the ruins of Sassanian palaces and ruined Caravanserais of Seljuk period (Rogers Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology, 1991: pp.77-81, 84,112,149-151).

Fr Rosso's work has to be placed in the backdrop of this rich nomadich eritage and the history of its neglect. He has been visiting the various nomadic communities of the world as part of his obligation to carry on the mission of the prototypical shepherd of folks, the Prophet Christ. He has been catering to the education of the shepherd people and their children in different parts of the world. He has captured the rhythm of their life and the changes in their expression at different times of the day, in moments of gravity, anxiety, wonderment, amusement, fun, shy withdrawal, sardonic amusement, eager curiosity, in portraits of unusual quality. He has recorded their cooking and food habits, the polychromy of their dress and accoutrements, the robust ethical profiles of their families, in intimate and convivial groups and feasts. He has seen the gnarled, corrugated, creased faces of the old and the pensive and playful moods of children, images of loveliness and innocence. He has built up a gallery of images of a proud, self respecting, unanxious folk, with great love of ornament and beauty, with a straight and unabashed gaze, and a deep sense of communion for animals, who give them their food and livelihood. The photographs show Fr. Rosso living with the nomads, assuming their attire and identifying himself in many ways with the people he is trying to serve. It is this empathy which redeems his record from being a mute study of the other and brings it close to the smell of the earth, trodden by the nomadic people, and sanctifies it with the dust of their hearth, and their work stations. The Rabaris, Gadulia Lohars, Kalbelias have come alive in images of responsive smiles and gratitude. The Bhopa paintings have been shown in colourful processional paintings of kings and soldiers, horses and elephants. Fr Rosso's efforts and the present compilation of colonial chronicles about Indian nomads assume special significance in the light of the recent resurgence of sentiments of global fellowship among the nomadic communities of the world. This resurgence has been demonstrated variously in the development of the Romano Ekipe, the World Romani Union, which has been holding International congressesand festivals since 1971; by the creation of the Kris Romani or the International Romanic Court of Elders, to mete out justice within Romanic Codes of law; by the activities of learned bodies like the Indian Institute of Romanic Studies, headed by Dr W R Rishi, who had the distinction of heading the World Romani Union as its honorary President; by the accumulation of scholarly work to investigate the roots of the nomadic folk tale, music, language and the elements shared by the Romas the world over with the surviving remnants of their culture in North Western India in the Baro Than. The resurgence of self awareness has been amply evident in the courage and persistence with which the Romas have engaged in lobbying, advocacy and fighting for their basic rights under the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Romas have not only been investigating the legal status of their brethren in every country and fighting racial discrimination, but they have also been dealing with the issue of reparation for the war crimes and the genocide, perpetrated against the nomads in course of Porrajmos or the Holocaust, during and before the second World War. Finally, the courage of the Romas has been demonstrated in exploding the myth of their being subhuman, untermenschen, whose lives are not worthy of life. They have done this by creating , reliving and recapitulating music and poetry , vibrant with poignant emotions and full of an incredible beauty of fellow feeling for other elements of nature and universe, and, by giving birth to outstanding linguists, scientists and creative artists of world renown like Yul Brynner or Musicians like Reshma, whose heart rending songs (Hai O Rabba naiyon Lagda dil mera: I am crying O Lord! My heart is not at rest at all !), are laden with the pent up tears and sorrows of nomadic life, carried across centuries of desolate, timeless terrains. The Roma example and the present account demonstrate the need to draw the surviving remnants of the itinerant communities of India into a larger nomadic brotherhood, to break down prejudices, transmitted through such accounts, and to simultaneously follow up the valuable clues to nomadic identities, gathered by meticulous research in these accounts, for infusing the energy and creativity of nomadic ways into sedentary civilisations. It will be a sad day when the human being will forget his nomadic past and reduce himself to a completely settled life, frozen in fixed moulds. The contemporary prefabricated portable structures, transient urban townships and public works, synthesised fusion music, metonomic beats, on off bombardment of electronic signals, sensationalist arts, gory with sex and violence, the incessant breakdown of social, political and economic institutions, speak of the fragility, instability and uncertainty of contemporary living, minus the nomadic sense of family and institutional ethic, of simple but not unbeautiful living. The nomads should be recognised as the ecosphere communities living in communion with different ecosystems. They could still provide the ideological dyke against the invasion of the biosphere people, who have been switching from one ecosystem to another, exploiting and exhausting them, and, who have been steering globalisation, homogenisation and technification, that are engulfing the fragile ecosystems of the earth, like a deluge.

Fr. Rosso's mission among the neglected nomadic people, the photographic exhibits, musical cassettes and journals gifted by him to the museum, and this precious volume, compiled and annotated throughhis efforts, are important to the Museum of Mankind. The volumere presents the European attempt to articulate the Orient according to its perceptions; to domesticate living community contexts into silent texts; and, to consign various human groups to a mortician's gallery of a museum space, as ethnographic curiosities. Fr. Rosso's lifework among the Indian nomads represents an attempt to use the information provided in such volumes, and transcend their intellectual solipsism, to revivify nomadic self respect, and reanimate the nomadic living space in our minds. It is of great relevance to the Museum of Mankind at Bhopal, which has been engaged in modest efforts towards in situ revitalisation rather than mere ex situ display; towards recollection of traditions, rather than mere collection of objects, among the Indian nomads. It is committed to working with the ceaseless groping of disadvantaged, peripheralised human communities towards bounty and well being. As such, it dedicates this volume on nomads as a modest contribution to the demuseumisation of trackless spaces and time zones, which carry the visible and invisible signatures, failures and hatreds, struggles and victories of our nomadic brethren.

Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty

Director

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya

(National Museum of Mankind)

Bhopal (INDIA)

Tribal cultures  

The tribals of Bangladesh 

Beginning from this number I will insert a series of articles, the greatest part of which taken from the encyclopedia Banglapedia, on the tribals, locally called adivasi, of Bangladesh.  The reason is very simple: the tribal ones, with more than 60%, they are currently the majority of the Catholic church in Bangladesh and the hope for its future. In the total nation they represent no more than 2-3%, a small part forgotten too often if not discriminated. In some dioceses their percentage is very high: Dinajpur more than 90%, Rajshahi more than 70%, Mymensingh 98%. I don't exaggerate if I say that, in the past century, the totality of the conversions has almost happened really between the tribal ones. The conversion from Islam is forbidden by law and in such a case the foreign missionary is immediately sent back to his country under the accuse of proselythism. For these reasons when we deepen our knowledge on our beloved Bangladesh it is rightful to also know better the culture, the customs and the traditions of those populations that are the principal object of our evangelization. In various occasions I have spoken particularly of the Santals and of the Oraons, in the diocese of Dinajpur, and I have dedicated also a special section in my website. From now on it will be my care to also include the other principal groups, particularly the Garos, the Khasias and the Chakmas, but I will see to not neglect the small ones.         

Tribal Cultures in Bangladesh 

There are many tribes in Bangladesh and each tribe has its own unique culture. Some tribes may even have cultural distinctions within their different clans. But some traits are generally common among most tribes. For instance, originally most tribes are animists.           

Celebrations and Festivals 

Most tribes have festivities which include dancing and singing. Most of these festivals take place after the consumption of alcoholic beverages. A very popular festival of the Manipuris is a type of Gopi dance celebrating the love of Radha and Krishna. In spring, Manipuris, Santals and Oraonss celebrate Holi when they drench each other with colour. The Oraons count their year from the month of Falgun. Young Oraon men and women celebrate the first night of the year dancing around a fire. Drums, cymbals and flute provide the music.

Most religious rites and festivities of the Manipuris and the Garos are based on the seasons of the year. For a whole month, starting with the midnight of the Holi full moon, young Manipuri men and women dance in the open. They also celebrate the rice harvest through singing contests. The youths and maidens of the Malpahari tribe also spend the night in festivities, singing, dancing, and consuming alcohol. Santals celebrate the harvest or sahrai festival for three to four days. Like the Manipuris, young Santal men and women dance and sing to the accompaniment of cymbals and flute. Like Manipuri and Santal youths, Garo ones also sing and dance collectively at the oyanggala festival, which is connected with sowing of seeds and harvesting of crops. These celebrations take place at night when the young Garo men and women drink and dance. Buffalo horns are blown on the occasion. As night advances, the music and dancing become wilder, as alcohol is consumed freely. The wild dancing at Garo oyamgala is intended to appease evil spirits. Food is also offered to the spirits then. The Maghs spend the first three days of the Maghi year singing, dancing and drinking.        

Religious beliefs and taboos  

Except for the Sangsarek of the Garos and Buddhism of some tribes of Chittagong and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, all other tribes have no specific religion. They regard their ancient rites, beliefs and customs as their religion. The Samsarek of the Garos is also close to extinction. Most of them have by now become Christians. However, they still follow certain rites of Samsarek. Most Santals are Christians now but they observe their own tribal rites. The periods of the full moon and the dark of the moon are of special significance to the Oraons, Manipuris and Buddhist tribes. Many religious and cultural rites take place during the full moon.

The Oraons believe in the sayings of Dak and Khana. They have many superstitions regarding journeys. For example, Oraons will not undertake a journey if they stumble at the start, someone beckons from behind, a house-lizard calls out, a message is delivered about someone's death, a corpse appears on the way, a crow caws on a dry twig, or an empty pitcher comes in view. When Oraons start tilling the field, they will do so from the east. They will wait for an auspicious day to begin building a house. They believe that it is inauspicious to comb hair at night, to throw women's hair outside, to sweep a house at sunset, to give something to someone after dusk, to hear an owl hooting, or a dog weeping at night. Oraons also have certain superstitions about cows. Thus they give away the first yield of milk from a lactating cow, and will not let a menstruating woman or a woman who has not completed the period of confinement after childbirth enter a cowshed. Women must not take the name of the husband's elder brother. Oraons believe that magic can be used to enthrall women. They also believe in the power of spells and charms. For protection against witches they go to Ayurvedic physicians. The Garos do not believe in witches. However, they do believe that some men become tigers at night and attack and kill cattle. They also believe that those who are killed by wild animals are reborn as animals. The Oraons believe that the spirit of a still-born child is reborn and that some Ayurvedic physicians have the power to prevent the appearance of evil spirits.

There are many superstitions and taboos regarding women. Thus, a pregnant Oraon woman will not to eat rats or eels for fear of making her child hideous. After childbirth she is forbidden to eat khesari (a type of lentils), potatoes, or stale food. She is not allowed to drink cold water. Manipuris do not allow their pregnant women to go out in the open with their hair loose; they are also not allowed to go far at night, nor to cross a river or a bridge.

Malpaharis believe that spirits may possess a woman at her wedding and that they may possess both mother and newborn at childbirth. They are always on the lookout for danger. Khasias and Mundas believe that the spirits of dead children and of one's ancestors may visit a house and therefore they erect a stone platform for these spirits. All tribes believe in household gods that regulate their well being.         

Concept of Creation  

According to the Garos, a woman named Nastunpantu created the earth from soil brought up by a tortoise from the bottom of the sea and then dried it with the help of the sun god to make it habitable. Manipuris legends narrate how the world was composed entirely of water. Then the great guru Shidara made 9 gods and 7 goddesses. The gods threw soil from the heavens and the goddesses danced on the soil and flattened it to create the earth. The Khasias believe Thyu Blauu first created the earth and then a man and woman from whom the entire human race descended.

Farm work Some tribes regard the earth as mother; so they worship the earth-mother before sowing crops. Oraons revere the cropland and believe that it is the earth-mother's menstruation that produces crops. This is why they observe a number of ceremonies where the earth is treated as a menstruating or pregnant woman. Some tribes give the land special food, as is the custom in the case of a pregnant woman. The Oraons and the Santals reverently apply vermilion spots on their farm implements. Among Garos, Manipuris, Santals and a few other tribes men and women work together in fields. The men clear the jungles and till the soil while the women, as symbols of fertility, sow seeds and do the transplanting. All tribes celebrate seed planting and crop harvesting in their own colourful ways. Young men and women sing and recite rhymes as they carry the ripe crops home.        

Marriage  

There are similarities as well as dissimilarities in the wedding rites of different tribes. Most tribal marriages are based on love matches, with the bridal couple getting to know each other before marriage. Oraons do not allow child marriage, nor weddings during the months of Chaitra, Bhadra and Paus. Grooms have to pay a bride price. Pre-wedding ceremonies include seeing a bride, panchini (confirmation of a match) and Gaye Halud (applying turmeric paste on the bodies of both groom and bride). Women of both sides sing nuptial songs on the day of wedding.

Oraons and Manipuris put up colourful wedding pandals. Oraons install mangalghat, a vessel of water, as a symbol of divine blessings in the wedding pandal. At the wedding ceremony which takes place in the pandal, the groom and the bride daub each other's forehead with vermilion as women of both parties raise uludhvani (a sound produced by quickly turning the tongue in the mouth). Among both Oraons and Manipuris, the bridal couple go round the pandal to be greeted with paddy and durva grass. Among the Manipuris the groom is welcomed by lighting a pradip (oil lamp) and his feet are washed by a young boy. At this time Kirtan is sung and music is played. Two women from both sides release a pair of taki fish symbolising the groom and the bride into water. It is a good omen if the pair of fish move side by side in the water. In a similar ceremony among the Garos, a cock and hen, with throats slit, are thrown to the ground. It is a good omen if, while they are in their death throes, the two come together to die. Otherwise, it is an ill omen and must be remedied through prayer and incantation by a khamal (mendicant). The gods are offered special food on the occasion so that they may bless the couple. A Manipuri bride comes to visit her parents for the first time on the fifth day after marriage, providing an occasion for a lavish feast. According to tribal custom, all members of the clan are invited to this ceremony and they come with presents of rice, meat, fowls, pigs, money or alcohol.

Among the Magh, young men and women get an opportunity to know each other closely at the new year festival. This is the time they choose their partners, subject to the approval of their parents. Girls of the Garo, Khasia, Tippra and Magh tribes go to the market to buy and sell goods. This again provides an opportunity for boys and girls to know each other more closely and select partners and then marry with the approval of their parents. Young men and women among the Santal, Garo and Manipuri tribes work together in the fields, giving them an opportunity to select their life partners.

Chakmas cannot marry during the dark of the moon, full moon, or eclipse. Oraons, Santals, Khasias, Garos and Manipuris cannot marry within their own clans. Manipuris are forbidden to marry close relations. Members of the same Garo clan regard each other as brothers and sisters, and so cannot marry within the clan. However, Maghs marry within their clan as they discourage inter-clan marriages. Marriage between cousins is, however, forbidden, as is marriage between a man and his father's sister or mother's sister.

A Santal wife becomes part of her husband's clan. Magh men cannot marry again unless the wife is barren or mentally ill. Divorced and widowed women are permitted to remarry among both Maghs and Oraons. Divorce is permitted on the grounds of incompatibility, impotence or the wife's infidelity. However, though divorce is allowed among the Oraons, Khasias, Chakmas and Maghs, it is rather rare. At times a young Garo woman chooses a Garo boy, marries him and keeps him at her parents' home. Such marriages are rare these days. However, some tribes, such as the Oraon, allow their boys and girls to elope and marry, with subsequent parental approval. Oraon and Santal wives put vermilion on their forehead or in the parting of their hair. Except among the Maghs, marriage within the clan is considered disgraceful and the guilty are expelled from the village.

It is a sin for the Khasias not to marry. Khasia women may have more than one husband at a time on grounds of the first husband's impotence or debauchery, desire to have more children or strong sexuality but this rarely happens. A Khasia woman cannot marry someone from another tribe. A Khasia girl may invite home a chosen boy from an approved clan, live together for a few days and, if she finds him acceptable, may marry him with the approval of both families. In Khasia weddings, women cannot accompany the groom's party to the bride's house. Among the Oraons, however, women can do so. After being blessed by his mother and elders, the Khasia groom leaves his mother's house wearing dhuti and turban and accompanied by the bridal party. Khasia wedding feasts consist of rice and dry fish, followed by alcohol. Three pieces of dry fish are offered to the gods to seek divine blessings for a new couple. Among the matriarchal Khasia and Garo tribes, the groom becomes a ghar jamai (part of his in-laws' house). Chakma weddings take place at the bride's house after the two sides have exchanged alcoholic drinks. A Manipuri groom wears dhuti and turban and the bride wears the traditional gathered skirt, blouse, and peaked head dress.

While some tribes allow divorce, it is rare. In case a divorce becomes inevitable, both husband and wife have to give their consent as do the elders of the clan. The party responsible for the divorce has to pay compensation to the other party. Among the Chakmas and Maghs, the cost of maintenance of minor children has to be borne by the husband. Among the Khasias, either the couple or someone else has to notify the clan chief about the divorce. The chief allows the couple time for reconciliation. If this does not work, an announcement is made of the breakup of the marriage. The person responsible for divorce has to pay the other party some compensation. Among the Khasias it is usually the wife who is held responsible for divorce. If the husband is responsible, he is caned or given a beating with shoes; his face is smeared with lime and black paint and his head is shaved. A pregnant woman cannot be divorced. A widow may marry a year after her husband's death.     

Dresses 

The men of Oraon and many other tribes commonly wear dhutis and their women wear saris. There was a time when some tribes used to wear tree leaves to cover the lower part of the body. The Garos used to wear barks of trees, which had been pounded and softened to resemble thin cloth. Lower-class Garos still wear nengti or a tiny piece of cloth which merely cover the genitals. Some tribes living in the deep forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts still wear tree leaves as their only dress. Santal dresses are called panchi, panchatat and matha. The main dress of the Chakmas is the lungi, worn with a shirt. Their women wear a red and black sarong, called pindhan, plus a blouse called silum. Magh women cover their body from chest to knees with a thami (sarong) over a full-sleeved blouse.    

Ornaments and cosmetics  

There is very little variety in the ornaments that tribal women wear. In north Bengal they wear almost identical ornaments. Santal and Oraon women wear ornaments on their hands, feet, nose, ears and neck. Oraon women peak up their hair on the head and wear a tikli on the forehead. Chakma women wear bangles and anklets, as well as coin earrings and necklaces. Garo women do up their hair in buns, which they then adorn with flowers. Magh women use a herbal powder or wood paste to lighten their faces.     

Food and drink  

The tribals eat everything except their totems. The Garos do not eat cats as the cat is their totem. Maghs, Chakmas and Khasias do not eat beef, and Garos do not drink milk. Magh and Chakma men and women are fond of smoking. Their favourite dishes are those that are sour and are made of rotten prawns. Oraons eat rats, eels, potatoes and khesari pulse. Alcohol made of fermented rice is every tribe's favourite drink.     

Social rites  

In matriarchal tribes, men do not inherit property. Men are neglected in their mothers' homes as well as in the houses of their wives. Among the Garos, after a mother's death, the daughters do not bear any responsibility for their father. However, among the Khasias, the daughters must fulfill that responsibility. The chief of the tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Santals is called Raja, while the Khasias call him mantri or minister. Almost all tribes condemn adultery. If a couple has pre-marital sex it is obligatory for them to marry each other. Oraons give goat milk or mother's milk to a newborn to drink; others give honey. The new mother is given turmeric water to drink. Most tribes build a thorny fence around the house to protect the mother and the newborn from evil spirits; ojhas or vaidyas put the house under a protective spell and attempt to rid the mother and the child of any evil spell by incantation of mantras. Oraons keep an iron knife or an arrow near the head of the child and at times fling arrows. New mothers among the Chakma and Magh tribes do not bathe for a few days after delivery. On the sixth day after the birth, Manipuris clean the newborn, the mother and the hut where the delivery has taken place. A child's ear lobes are pricked immediately after birth. Garos avoid giving a baby an attractive name in order to avoid the evil eye. Usually on the fifth day of its birth or of the day of the week of its birth, an Oraon child is given a name in keeping with the names of its forefathers. Pigs, dogs and cocks are the favourite pets of tribal people. Oraons take great care of cows. At some festivals they wash the cows and then rub them with oil. On the day following the dark of the moon, they paint their courtyard with rice paste, burn incense in the cowsheds, wash farm implements, and put vermilion on them for good luck.      

Disposing of the dead  

Tribal people sacrifice animals and weep to propitiate their dead so that their angry souls do not create trouble for the living. They then dispose of the body with gifts according to their capacity and later hold shraddha (feast) for the relatives of the dead. There was a time when they used to sacrifice human beings to appease the spirit of the dead. There is a basic uniformity in these rites despite some variations from tribe to tribe. The aborigines of Kushtia quickly bury their dead. The pallbearers take a dip in the river before returning home. Maghs and Chakmas cremate their dead two or three days after death. A priest's body is kept up to two or three months. Manipuris keep the dying person outside the house, on a banana leaf, while kirtans are chanted. Dead bodies are washed with the head of the corpse pointed northward. As the funeral procession proceeds to the cremation ground, kirtan is chanted. Earlier Manipuris used to bury their dead, but now they bury bodies of adolescents and cremate bodies of older persons. After disposing of the body, the pallbearers take a bath and dry their hands by holding them above a fire before entering their house. The heir to the dead person carries a chopper in his or her hand for some time as protection against any evil spirit. The members of the family of the dead eat vegetables for twelve days and milk and banana for two days before the sraddha and sangkirtan. Sraddha is held every year and tarpan (offering water to the deity) in the month of Bhadra. Among the Oraon, family members shave their heads after the funeral rites are over.      

Houses  

All hill tribes build bamboo houses on raised platforms. They use ladders which are withdrawn at night so that wild animals cannot climb up. Maghs build houses on the flat ground. Oraons smear their houses with a plaster made of mud and cow dung. Usually their houses are made of earth, with thatched roofs, but they also build houses with fence made of shola (sponge wood). They draw leaves and vines on the mud walls of their houses. In general it can be said that the tribal folk culture of Bangladesh has similarities with that of many other Southeast Asian countries.      

Tribal languages

Bangladesh has over thirty tribes most of whom live in Rajshahi, Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracts, greater Mymensingh, Sylhet, Patuakhali and Barguna. With some exceptions, 2-3 million tribal people speak their own languages. The well-known tribal languages are Chakma, Garo, Khasia, Magh, Manipuri, Munda, Oraon, and Santali. Other tribal languages are Kachhari, Kuki, Tipra, Malpahadi, Mikir, Shadri and Hajang.

Over 100,000 people in Rangpur and Sylhet speak Oraon. The highest number of Oraon speaking people live in Rangpur and the lowest number in Sylhet. The Khasias, who live in the hilly and forest areas of Sylhet division, speak Oyar. A small number of Sinteng and Lalang tribes also live in these areas and they speak their own languages.

The GAROs, living in greater Mymensingh and in the hilly Garo region of Meghalaya in India, speak hilly Garo or Achik Kata. Some Garo-speaking people also live in Rangpur, Sunamganj and in Sripur of Dhaka district. Over 300,000 people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts speak Chakma. The Magh language, which originated in Arakan, is spoken by over 200,000 people in Bangladesh. The Manipuri language was first spoken in Srimangal about 250 years ago. At one time, it was also spoken at Tejgaon in Dhaka, Durgapur, and Kasba in Comilla. Currently, about 50,000 people in the districts of Habiganj, Maulvi Bazar, Sylhet and Sunamganj speak Manipuri.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people in Bangladesh speak Munda. The highest number of Santali speaking people live in the northern region. More than 50,000 people in north Mymensingh and Tangail speak Hajang and some Kachharis speak their own language. In Chittagong and the Hill Tracts the oldest tribes are those who speak Kuki, Tipra and Magh. In the Hill Tracts about 2,000 Murong and Riyang speak tribal Tipra. At one time a large number of Tipra-speaking people used to live in the Lalmai hills of Comilla. About 9,000 people in Bangladesh speak Malpahadi. Some people in Sylhet speak Mikir. Nearly 50,000 people of the tribes of Malo, Mahato, Ganju, Kolkamar and some Oraon speak Sadri.

Despite the existence of these tribal languages, quite a few tribes have forgotten their own languages and now speak only Bangla. Many Tipras in the Hill Tracts and Chittagong speak Bangla. Some tribal people from other areas like Hadi, Pator, Koch, Rajbangshi and Bedey also speak Bangla. In all, more than 300,000 indigenous people speak Bangla fluently. Some tribal groups like Bagdis and Bindis speak their own languages but these are very close to Bangla.

In terms of philology, prosody, folklore, idioms and phonology, the Chakma language is very close to Bangla. All the phonemes of Bangla are available in the Chakma language. This is also generally true of other tribal languages. But due to lack of written structure and dearth of students, no tribal language is part of the curriculum at schools. Educated tribal people use their own languages but write in the Bangla script. It has not been possible to introduce Roman script in any tribal language. Except for Chakma and Magh,  (and Santali!) no other tribal language has a script.

Almost all tribal languages have rich folk literatures, consisting of poems and songs, fairy tales and legends of their past nomadic life. There are plenty of narrative plays, similar to Maimensingha-Gitika, in the Magh, Chakma, Khasia and Garo languages. The folk tales of the tribal languages have similarities with those in Bangla. For instance, some Garo folk tales are almost identical to the tales in Mymensinghgitika. The ballads in some of the languages of the Himalayan foothills are similar to those of Bangla Folk Literature. Their linguistic aspects are similar to those of early Bangla. The rhymes in Bangla and the tribal languages are similar in subject, rhythm and vocabulary. Puzzles in Oraon and Bangla are similar in character as well as in words and rhythms to Bangla ones. Lullabies in both languages are also very similar.

There are many tribes who are multilingual. Garos and Khasias are bilingual, that is to say, capable of speaking both in Bangla and in their own language. But Santals and the Oraons cannot speak each other's languages. There are some other tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts similarly placed. In such cases they use Bangla as a lingua franca. Munda, Santali, Khasia, Garo, Oraon and Manipuri languages are very well organised and orderly, testifying to a developed past. Garo and Chakma languages have slight Chinese tone. There is a basic similarity between the Garo and Magh languages as both tribes have the same origins. Munda, Santali, Kol, Khasia, Garo and Kurukh are interrelated languages. Munda and Kurukh are regarded as the same language as the syntax and verbs of both are almost identical. Munda, Santali and Kol languages are even more ancient than the Aryan languages of India. Not all Bangla words have come from the Aryan languages. Most, in fact, have originated from Munda. Munda has also had considerable influence on Bangla's idioms, phonology, morphology, philology and syntax. The tribal languages belong to either Austro-Asian, Indo-Chinese, Chinese-Tibetan, Tibetan-Burman or Dravidian families. An admixture of these languages created a pidgin language in ancient Bango-Magadh which had Munda at its centre. This established the initial foundation of Bangla or the East-Indic family of languages. The tribal languages thus contributed immensely to the formation of Bangla. Some of the main tribal languages are described briefly in what follows:  

Chakma language is more the most advanced of the tribal languages. Some old puthis are extant in this language. One of them, Chadigang Chara Pala was written on palm leaf. This puthi reveals that the Chakmas originated in Nepal and after roaming about in several Southeast Asian countries came to old Burma and Arakan before settling in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Their original name was 'Tsak', in the Arakani language they were called 'Chak', in the dialect of Chittagong 'Chamua', and in the Chakma language 'Chakma'.

The alphabets of the Chakma language are similar to the alphabets of Thailand's Ksmer, Annam Laos, Cambodia, Syam and South Burma. Tara, the scripture of the Chakmas, is written in the Burmese script. When spoken, the Chakma alphabet has a soft sound and is generally articulated from the bottom of the tongue. It is primarily based on sound and has a Chinese tone. In many respects (including philology, prosody, folklore, idioms and phonology) it is close to Bangla. All sounds of Bangla Language are also available in the Chakma language. Efforts are now being made to write the Chakma language in the Burmese or Myanmar script. A book of primary reading in Chakma has also been published from Rangamati. Its author is Nayanram Chakma.

There are many songs written in the Chakma language. These have been composed in colloquial Chakma. The language of the book Gozel Lama written by the Chakma poet Shivcharan in 1777 is almost like Bangla. Its introductory song is similar to those in Purbabanga-Gitika. Radhaman Dhanapadi and Chadigang Chara Pala are two important lyrical poems. The metres used in Chakmas and Bangla verse are almost similar. The syntax of the two languages are also identical. The numbers in Chakma language are pronounced as in Bangla. The minus symbol in Chakma is called 'farak' and the sign of multiplication is called 'duna'. The other symbols are the same in both languages. In the Chakma language s (anusvar) is called 'ek fuda', t (bisarga) is called 'dvifuda' and u (chandrabindu) is called 'chanfuda'.

Chakma folk literature is quite rich. It has many folklores and fables. A traditional folk song of the Chakmas is 'ubhagit'. Proverbs and traditional sayings are a unique feature of the Chakma language. These sayings mainly centre on farming, animals and birds, nature, society, religion and the mystery of the human body. These sayings in the Chakma language are called 'dagwa kadha'. In conjugation and declension present day Chakma language is close to Bangla, Assamese, Rajbangshi, Garo, Sanghma and Chittagonian. This language has 6 regional forms. Within the Chakmas different clans have their distinct dialects.

Garo language. The Garo language is, undoubtedly, an unwritten language, albeit an ancient Aryan language. This is a very rich language and full of proverbs, idioms, songs, rhymes, oral narratives, folk-tales, palagan, etc. This language bears most of the history of the Garo people and their religious and cultural codes. Its vocabulary contains words borrowed from many different languages. The syntax, semantics, positions of cases and inflections, verbs and transformations of words in this language are all very systematic and resemble those of other developed languages. It is likely that this language has a long history. Some believe that the Garo language is a mixed form of Bangla and Assamese as it resembles both languages. Actually, it is a primary language.

Different dialects are found in the Garo language since the Garos are scattered in different regions of different districts. The Christian missionaries introduced Roman letters into Garo language and attempted to invent a script similar to the Chinese pictograph and apply them but without any success. The Garo language can be written in Bangla script without any difficulty. Now the Garo language is the family language of the Garo, but Bangla is their official language.

Khasia language is part of the Austro-Asiatic group of languages. In this language the tendency is to pronounce s as h, something also noticeable in some Bangla Dialects. It has no alphabets nor is it written. In this language a village is called punji. The Khasia houses are clustered and that accounts for the name of punji. Khasia has many dialects, although Linggam, Pnad and Wayar are the major ones. Pnad means hilly. Limgam is spoken in areas close to the Garo Hills and Pnad is spoken in a wide area on the east of the Khasia-Jaintia Hills. Limgam indicates Garo Hills and Wayar means valley.

At one time the Khasia language used to be written in the Bangla script. A part of the BIBLE has been translated into Khasia and written in the Bangla script. Currently, the Khasia language of the Cherapunji region is being written in the Roman script at the initiative of the Christian missionaries of the Indian State of Meghalaya where it is the medium of instruction up to the high school level. This has however not been possible in Bangladesh as the Khasia population is small and live in scattered localities.

Magh language the language of the Magh people; a spoken form of Arakanese. It belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family, but also contains some elements of the Austro-Asian family. Chinese, old Burmese and Mizo languages are related to it, but its closset links are with Burmese.

Magh is a hybrid of Arakanese and Bangla. Once upon a time a repressive Burmese king forced about two-thirds of the Arakanese people to flee to the Chittagong region of Bangladesh. The intermixing of the two ethnic groups led to the development of the Magh language. The influence of Burmese is strong as Burmese was the lingua franca of the Arakan region. The Magh alphabet is known as jha. Each letter is named after a part of the human body. The letters resemble the pictorial Chinese alphabet.

A section of the Maghs in Arakan and Bangladesh speak Bangla. Baruas are basically Maghs but they speak Bangla. Pali is the religious language of the Maghs. As a result, many Pali words have found their way into the Magh language, albeit, occasionally in distorted form: for instance, bhiksu, nibban, bihar, bhabna, dukkha, bassa (barsa). Some words in both languages are the same in pronunciation and meaning, for example, adya, madhya, upadhi and apatti etc. Some common words, however, differ in pronunciation and meaning. For instance, in the Magh language, grown-up children are called chogri, but in Bangla they are called chhokda and chhokdi. Some Magh words relating to kinship are similar to Bangla words, though some other words differ somewhat in meaning. In the local dialect, for example, baba and baji are words for father. In Magh, however, baji means uncle. The Maghs call a little girl ma, but in Bangla ma means mother, though a daughter is often endearingly called ma.

The Magh language has a limited number of words to mean relations. As a result, the same words are applied with derivatives to denote different relations. Many words relating to society, organisation, agriculture and domestic matters are common not only to Magh, Bangla and other tribal languages but also to many Southeast Asian languages. For example, the Magh words pida, turung (trunk), langi, dhuti and cheroot are pronounced in Bangla as pida / pidi, turang, langi / lungi, dhuti and churut. In the Burmese and Magh languages, the names of days, months and numbers are the same.

The Magh language does not have a creative literature but is rich in elements of folk literature such as tales, riddles, fables, ballads, ghost stories and stories of Buddhist kings and queens. The Maghs are very fond of listening to tales and songs, and, during the lean season, spend whole nights in story telling, singing, dancing and participating in paoye, plays acted in the style of Bangla Jatra. Some stories have been written in the Burmese script.  

Manipuri language is about 3,500 years old and belongs to the Kuki-Chin group of the Tibeto-Burmese stream of the Mongoloid family of languages. Up to the middle of the 19th century this language was known as Moitoi after the name of a tribe. In the original Moitoi there were 18 alphabets. Other alphabets were added later. Its alphabets, like the Burmese-Arakanese alphabets, are pronounced in accordance with the limbs of a human body. Its alphabets are similar to the Tibetan family. The Manipuri language began to be written in the Bangla script when Vaisnavism assumed the form of the state religion during the days of Maharaja Garib Newaz in the 18th century. This trend continues still today. This was made possible because of the phonetic closeness of the two languages.

The first example of a lyrical composition in Manipuri language and literature was 'Ougri'. Prior to this a variety of love songs, proverbs and sayings, lyrical plays and ballads were current. The love songs are very poetic and are presented by youths in groups to the accompaniment of rhythmic songs and dances. Manipuri language has many martial songs and several plays, novels, short stories and poems have been written in it. Even epic poems have been composed in this language. Some well-known Bengali and western books as well as Ramayana And Mahabharata have been translated into Manipuri. In the Indian state of Manipur it is an official language and it is one of the national languages of India. George Gordon's A Dictionary of English, Bengali and Manipuri published towards the middle of the 19th century was the first printed book in Manipuri.

Manipuri is a hybrid language. It is spoken by about 2 to 2.5 million people in Bangladesh, Tripura, Assam and Myanmar. Nearly half a million Manipuri speaking people live in greater Sylhet. However, Manipuri is not taught in the schools of Bangladesh as the Manipuris are dispersed over a wide area.  

Munda language It belongs to the Austro-Asian group of languages and is more ancient than the Aryan language. It was the basis of the Oriya, Assamese and Bangla languages. It has links with Khasia, Garo, Santal, Kol and other similar tribal languages. Innumerable Munda words are found in Bangla, especially in its regional dialects. The Munda language has had an influence on Bangla speech forms. Bangla words relating to agriculture housework, habitation, counting, family relationships, weights and measures, land, animals and birds and trees are derived from the Munda language.

Since the Munda language was spoken over a vast region of India, it has numerous regional forms. Nearly 10 million people in areas of South Bihar and Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal speak this language. About 15,000 to 20,000 Mundas live in Bangladesh. The Munda language evolved amongst the Mundas about 3 to 4 thousand years ago as a Pidgin language to facilitate communication and livelihood between them. Later, it spread to other Southeast Asian countries through agriculture and superior hunting practices. In due course it took the form of an established language and still later it became a written language for literature.

Bangla has many similarities with non-Aryan Munda language in respect of phonology, aesthetics and poetical arrangements. There is an abundance of diphthongs in the Munda language; pronunciation of its words can also be nasal. There is also an abundance of reduplication of words; gender is indicated by adding appropriate words. There is a tendency in it to duplicate words to indicate plural. This feature is also noticed in Bangla. The case and case ending in both Munda and Bangla languages are almost similar. The origins of numbers up to 10 are the same in both languages. 'Hali' (four) and 'kudi' (score) are units of counting in both languages. Pronouns have no gender distinctions in either language. Mundari-English Dictionary, published by Christian missionaries, allows a wider understanding of the Munda language.  

Oraon language the language of the Oraon tribe, known as Kurukh. It is a spoken language and has no written form. Literate Oraons write their language in other Bangla or Roman script.

Kurukh has a rich oral literature, with innumerable fables, fairy tales, ballads, nursery rhymes, riddles and popular sayings. Some tales and riddles are remarkably similar in form in Bangla and Kurukh. Variants of some Oraon fables are found in other tribal languages as well as Chinese.

Kurukh resembles the contemporary Munda language in vocabulary and syntax. According to Dr Muhammad Shahidullah, Munda and Kurukh are really the same language. Some words in Kurukh and the local Bangla dialect relating to household articles are similar. Earthen pots are called taoya in Kurukh, as in the local dialect. Some names of ornaments are common to Kurukh and Bangla, such as tikli, bala, payra, bali and kanpasha. Many words relating to relationships are also common to both languages: for example, ma, baba, mama, bhagina. The names of some shrubs, animals and fruits come from the same roots, but sound slightly different owing to the accretion or omission of some syllables: for example, amba for am, katha - kanthal, sim - shimul, sak - shak, dali - dal. Some religious words are also similar: the Kurukh bhagoyan is bhagaban in Bangla, the Kurukh bhagati is bhakti in Bangla, the Kurukh word bhut is the same in Bangla.  

Santali language is a member of the eastern group of the Austro-Asiatic languages. The Austro-Asians came to the South Asian subcontinent about 10,000 years ago from Australia by way of Indonesia, Myanmar and Assam. About 10 million Santali speaking people live in the Santal Pargana of Bihar. About 1,25,000 Santals live in the West Bengal districts bordering Bihar and in Bangladesh's north-western districts of Dinajpur, Rajshahi and Rangpur. They speak Bangla fluently and have adopted many Bangla words for their own language. The origin of both Santali and Munda languages is the same and both are interrelated. The Santali language has two dialects - Nahili and Korku. The Santali language has no script of its own. In India, Santali is now written in Devanagari script and has absorbed many elements from Hindi. During British rule Santali used to be written in the Roman script. No Santali books are available in Bangladesh. But some Christian missionaries have opened one or two schools to teach Santali in Roman script. Educated Santals write Santali in both Bangla and English scripts but prefer to write in Bangla because of phonetic similarities between it and Bangla.

All sounds of Santali are also found in Bangla. There are other grammatical similarities too. As in the Munda language, vowels in Santali can be nasal. Gender is conveyed by using other words. Gender is also conveyed in Santali by using feminine inflection but this is an Aryan trend. In original Santali there is no scope for adding inflection at the end of words. In Santali different pronouns are used for animate and inanimate objects. The Santali, Kol and Munda languages are older than the Aryan languages. Many non-Aryan words have entered the Aryan languages. In Bengali and many of its regional dialects, many Santali words are in use in one form or the other. 

Most significant steps in Nomadic history 

by Renato Rosso

Re-tracing the most significant steps in Nomadic history of our history  

If we think of our human ancestors living on planet earth we only need to go back in time for about 20 million years. Archaeologists have found some traces of the Dryopithecus dated around 15-14 million years ago. In spite of being just over a meter high with a brain slightly smaller than a one year old child of the Homo Sapiens, he was able to travel across three continents. Signs of his existence were found in China, India, Pakistan, Hungary, Austria, Macedonia, Germany, Spain, France and Egypt. Among his descendants we can recognise the Pingidae, the Gigantopithecus who was not a giant at all and the Ramapithecus. The first two, after having explored China, India and East Africa, became extinct, while the Ramapithecus went on to become the ancestor of the Homo Erectus.

14 million years ago, he would move around between India, Pakistan (Islamabad) and East Africa, in the nearby area of the Turkana Lake and Koobi Fora. Then the archaeological trail was lost for the next 8-9 million years. He re-surfaced again with the discovery of an important fossil found at Afar in northern Ethiopia. This Hominid specimen was 1.25 meter high, had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres and was 4 million years old. A skeleton, found at Koobi Fora was, by some, considered 3.6 million years old, but others, reduced its age to 2.5 million years. Therefore it is very difficult to establish the place where this important step of evolution (the substantial increase in brain size) took place: did it happen in Asia, or Africa? In the mean time, this Hominid was becoming Erectus. Though in Africa he was coming of age, he soon started to move towards Europe and Asia. He reached the southern Himalayas, and moved across the north of India on his way to the northern regions of China. At the Longuppo site, near the Yangtze lake and not far from Beijing, two premolars of about two million years of age were found. Then, the Erectus descended into the Indonesian Islands. There, some human remains were discovered under the rubbles of a volcanic eruption that took place about 1.7 million years ago on Jawa Island. On his way back to Africa, he left some tell-tale signs dated around 1.5 million years ago in Israel at Ubeidiya, as well as a twelve year old son in Kenya, near the Turkana Lake. In the same period, those who had stayed in Asia were spending a long time in areas south of Beijing.

Their one million year old remains were found at Chen-Cha-Wo and Nihewan. Younger remains from 600 thousand years ago were discovered at Yunxian. The Homo Erectus reached Beijing 400 thousand years ago. Those groups who had travelled to Europe had arrived in the area of Budapest 200 thousand years earlier.

The first footprints of a Homo Sapiens of 300 to 250 thousand years ago who had a brain similar to ours, and a hundred cubic centimetres larger than the brain of the Homo of Beijing were discovered in France at Swanscombe and Montmaurin. A primitive type of Neanderthal 150 thousand years old has left archaeological evidence near Weimar in Germany and near Rome in Italy.

From 80 to 35 thousand years ago humans started to come of age with a brain size between 1350 and 1700 cubic centimetres. The classic Neanderthal was by now ready to set out on the longest ever journey in the history of humans: after a long glacial era the planet was once again becoming warmer and humans had started the reconquest of its lost northern plains, and in a short while all the spaces of the planet were recovered. Many scholars tend to agree that those travelling humans had already reached Australia 50 thousand years ago.

Between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago the Neanderthal man started to assume the physical forms of a modern human: the Homo Sapiens. Skeletons surrounded by some precious archaeological items, discovered mainly in Western Europe, give evidence about a real Nomad Sapiens who was a good hunter and fisherman able to use implements made of bones and teeth of bears and lions. Even though he did not use yet bows and arrows for hunting, he knew how to use a harpoon. He did not cook food yet, but he knew how to sew and fasten leather with some sort of rudimental buttons. He did not have domestic animals, not even a dog, which was tamed later. He was still a primitive hunter who did not domesticate animals or use sophisticated weapons, but he knew how to hold a flute in his hands and play music to celebrate life: he had really become an adult human being.

It is worthy of mention the fact that the Homo Erectus had survived till that time and, probably, having lived together with the Homo Sapiens for some time, he was assimilated by the latter. The Homo Erectus, after having travelled for more than two million years, left his last fossil trace 35 thousand years ago. He disappeared, leaving the Homo Sapiens as the only survivor of human prehistory. Thirty thousand years ago, a significant turn in the life of Nomads took place. Until that time they had been moving around on vast open spaces which had made hunting, fishing and fruit gathering quite easy, even though their way to do that was very rudimental and primitive. But by now glaciation was taking place. Large parts of the globe were being covered by ice. The Nomads had to migrate from the north to the south of the planet. They had to leave the mountains, a natural refuge from wild beasts, to occupy valleys and plains which were warmer. But the wild animals like rhinos, elephants, reindeer, aurax, nasicoxir and bears did the same. Life was becoming more difficult for everyone and humans had to face these wild beasts. Although earlier humans were unable to kill such animals, and would instead run away from them or move to the protected heights of mountains, this was no longer possible. Humans had to unite in groups to overcome the power of the wild animals. Soon they discovered that as a group they were stronger and even took chances to attack other human groups occupying the best locations. It was probably at this time that Nomads started to organise themselves in social groups and clans. Necessity made them use their intelligence, which was not lacking, since they had a brain size of 1700 cubic centimetres. They invented new ways of hunting and fishing, using traps, hooks and lines. Therefore they were soon able to hunt larger animals. Through hunting and fishing they had enough to subsist; they had food, clothes, shelter, tools and implements for hunting and fishing which were made out of leather, bones, horns and teeth. Everything was becoming useful for intelligent humans. They did not even deprive themselves of the luxury of art. They applied an aesthetic view to the making of tools and to the paintings on stone walls depicting their daily life. The history of 30 thousand years of nomadic life is recorded on stone and cave walls paintings in Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Around ten thousand years ago the Nomadic way of life faced a new development: the beginning of a settled way of life. The ability to stock dry seeds and fruits for the whole year and primitive forms of cultivation were beginning to divide the human community: on the one side there were those who settled down and on the other those who continued to be Nomads. Very soon the Nomadic world would undergo a further division. On one side were those who carried on living as Nomads but in isolation in forests and deserts without any sort of relationship to settled groups. On the other side, there were those who lived alongside other semi-nomadic or settled groups, building bridges across the different groups and cultures, and enabling the exchange of cultural, artistic and economic goods. Moreover they were creating a real and specific culture that cautiously I dare to call a Gypsy Culture (though the word Gypsy will only appear much later), which still survives in the Gypsy camps in the different countries of the world.

Agriculture is responsible for this great revolution in the Nomads way of life. The first archaeological evidence of cultivation of crops like beans, peas and cucumbers is dated at around 9500 BC. in Thailand. A portion of such crops were dried and stocked for the whole year. Nevertheless this ancient form of cultivation does not show any connection with the one which came about later and which was a real agricultural culture as a consequence of the semi-settled or settled groups of humans. Some carved stones, dated around 5.000 years B.C., were probably used as agricultural implements. Around the years 5,000 to 4,000 B.C., the culture of farming shows up in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Iran and India. In Mexico an independent development of the same agricultural crops was taking place. The primitive forms of agriculture were very different. For instance, think how different would be the type of agriculture among semi-nomadic people from our own forms of farming. Basically, there were three types of farming. The first type consisted of carrying around between the different forests (which were the natural environments of clans on the move) vegetable seeds and saplings of palm or any other tree which would produce a known, useful and consumable type of fruit. A second type of farming was much more sophisticated. It required the burning of woodlands in order to plant seed in the fertile ashes. This type of agriculture relied on abundant rainfall and did not require particular implements or metal tools. The third type of agriculture would only come about later, with the ability of humans to make proper tools for sowing and planting, compounded with the ability to harness the labour force of domesticated animals. After the early changes due to the appearance of settled ways of life and farming, Nomadism took a new turn when humans learnt to domesticate and breed animals. Also in this case, pastoral nomadism seems to coalesce into two distinct branches: semi-pastoral groups connected with the farming communities; and pastoral Nomads. The primitive communities, after having developed the first forms of agriculture, discovered that the domestication of some wild animals could offer them significant advantages: they could both harness them as supplementary labour on the land and obtain from them milk and, in few cases, meat as a source of food. The first archaeological evidence of domestication of animals goes back between 8.000 to 6.500 years ago in Palestine and the Middle East. The first animals to be domesticated, with the due exception of dogs which had already become friendly with humans in Siberia, were sheep, goats, pigs and fowls. It is only later in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, South Europe and Tibet that cattle, asses, camels and yaks were domesticated. In connection to this, the first semipastoral communities were established: they would go around with herds every year for a certain period of time and then come back to the village to farm. In some case, part of the family would stay back at home, while the young males were those going out to face the hardship of pastoral life. Pastoral nomadism developed within farming communities which  had become semi-nomadic. Developing alongside this was a kind of pastoral nomadism in communities that had never become settled, dependent on land farming, or attached to the house with a sense of home. After the domestication of animals, the earlier Nomads who were hunters, fishermen and gatherers started to incorporate within their camps and migratory journeys a more or less large herd of domestic animals. Archaeological research is not conclusive in producing evidence referring respectively to the two different pastoral groups. Nevertheless some evidence of a nomadic pastoral group that was never involved in farming, never settled down in one place, and had its own specific culture, was found in Inner Asia in the area of Minussinsk-Altai. In the year 2000 BC. these Nomads already possessed cattle, sheep and horses. Later than this, it can be seen that tribal hunters of Mongolia, Kazaksthan and Siberia also started to assume a pastoral culture which radically changed their economy and way of life. At the same time in West Asia the Kassites, Hittites and Mitannis tribes, around the years 1.900 to 1.700 BC., were harnessing horses to carts for work and war. The use of horses in war expanded quickly to Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and East Asia. It is also worth mentioning the fact that around 1.500 B.C., with the domestication of camels in Arabia, another form of pastoral culture was beginning to develop: the Bedouin culture that survives well into the present days. From Arabia the Bedouin culture, under different names, moved West towards North Africa in the Sahara desert and Ethiopia, and moved East well into Iran. Along with camels they also started to breed other animals like sheep and goats which would provide them with wool, leather, milk and meat. With the use of camels the Bedouin soon became transporters of goods and protectors of small caravans. This practice spread to Pakistan, Afghanistan and West India, where it survives until the present.

The Languages and a comparative view of them 

While Nomads in their perennial travelling can be said to have discovered the communication of words, enriched their own linguistic knowledge and made words goods of cultural exchange,  it was mainly due to the settled groups that such tools of communication were given a written form, which has enabled the reproduction and survival of old languages.  Languages, in their either natural development or forcibly structured form, are an invaluable historical device by which we can discover links and connections between human groups which on the surface and for geographical reasons seem to be far apart.   In this brief chapter, I will present an excursus on how written script has become a valuable document for our research. 

The oldest written tablets, dated around the year 3,300 B.C., were unearthed at Jammed Nasal in the bed of the river Tigris in Mesopotamia.  The inscriptions on these tablets are in a phonetic sort of script that would later develop into a richer form of syllabic and alphabetic script.  Prior to this date there had been some other  forms of written communication.  Primitive humans would  represent hunting events, battles, and scenes of family life by painting them on stone walls and caves, using stylised designs and signs which were of immediate understanding, but which restricted the complexity of the material that could be communicated. 

Tablets written in the cuneiform script are already the result of a more or less long historical process of evolution along lines of logic and rational thinking.  This process is still unknown to us.  For the time being, with the little evidence we have, we suppose that the people bringing about this evolution were the Sumerians.  Babylonian cuneiform script had a great span of development from the year 3,000 B.C.  Moreover it was adopted with few variants by other groups: by the Elamites-- and by the Assirians of Semitic stock.  Quite later, around the year 1,900 B.C., it was also adopted by the Indo-European Hittites, Mitannis and Persians.  The fact

that Babylon was an important and dominant trade centre seems to have compelled other groups of people to adopt that script, at least for economic reasons. 

Evidence from the Hindu Valley Civilisation provides us with a key to unlock links and trade relations between West and East which, by that time (some time after 1.900 BC), were already well established.  Also, archaeological evidence from Ur--present day Baghdad-- in Mesopotamia points to established trade link with the Hindu Valley cities, probably Mohenjo Daro.  The evidence is constituted by some terracotta tablet seals on which a form of pictographic script was used to represent animals, which though still unknown in Mesopotamia, was very common in India.  Another set of documents, dated around 1,400 B.C., presents us with further evidence about the evolution of script, languages, and the relations between East and West.  At Boghazkeui in Turkey 10,000 tablets were discovered.  They are

inscribed with a cuneiform script and reproduce words of Indo-European origin.  They seem to be a ritual text written in three different languages: Luili; Hattic; and Hurrian-Hrozny.  It is in the set of the Hurrian-Hrozny language that the names of three important Indian-Vedic divinities are found, namely: Varuna, Indra and Nasatya.  Note also that in Syria some more tablets with the same type of script were found.  But let me now go back in time once again, in order to complete the historical picture of the earlier stages of scripts. 

Contemporaneously to the Babylonian developments or probably stimulated by the news of a system for writing in Babylon, the Egyptians and Sumerians started to develop their own system called 'hieroglyphics' and based on 400 signs divided into three categories of representation:

-pictograms to represent visible and concrete things;

-ideograms to express concepts and ideas;

-phonograms to signify sounds.    

In schools for common people the Demotic system, used mainly by traders, warriors and artists, was taught.  In these schools also the Babylonian Cuneiform system was learnt since it was useful for commercial and political relations.  In the schools of the sacerdotal class the Hieratic system, an italic form of hieroglyphics but much more elaborate, was used.       

On the other side of the globe, in China, around the years 2,000 -1,500 B.C., a system of writing was taking shape as well.  The influence of the earlier Babylonian invention might probably have been very important for the development of the Chinese language as well, nevertheless, like the Egyptian script it was developed as an independent system.  The Chinese script was a composition of ideograms and phonograms and even after a long time of development it maintained itself very closely to the original matrix.       

The alphabetic script of the Phoenicians, a Semitic group, begins to appear between 1,800 and 1,500 B.C. in Asia Minor.  The Phoenicians were not very original in formulating a script, but they took a lucky turn in the  evolution of languages.  They borrowed 27 syllabic cuneiform characters from the Babylonian script and added three vowels: A; I; U.  Writing was becoming much simpler, but much more able to convey meanings.  Along the birth of this system of writing some significant texts came into existence: the Proto-Sinaitic biblical texts.  About the same period (1,800 to 1,500 B.C.) the formation of the languages of both the Northern Semitic

groups (Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Aramaics) and the Southern Semitic groups of Sub-Arabia, was taking place.  In the West the final evolutionary stage of script formation, which was the completion of a system based on five vowels, was completed around the year 800 B.C.  This last stage is mainly due to the Greek and Roman people who managed to organise a simpler form of graphic script.    

In the East, in India, the most ancient form of written language was probably the one used by the people of the Hindu Valley Civilisation, but until now due to the scant archaeological evidence available, no one has managed to decipher the scrip.  The script of modern Indian languages seems to have derived from an ancient type of Indo-European language called Proto-Vedic-Aryan, based on a script called Ideographic cum Syllabic.  This type of writing probably did not appear on the Indian Sub-Continent before the arrival of the Aryans between 1,500 and 1,000 B.C.      

The above  brief historical excursus has given us a taste of the early links and connections between peoples living in Africa, Asia and Europe between the years of 3,000 and 1,000 BC.  I did this considering primarily the history of script formation, since it is backed up by very scientific documentation.  Of course, it would be very interesting to do the same regarding language formation, which would take us into a distant time and into a fascinating world, but as it was said by Latin peoples: "Verba volant, scripta manent", that is:  "words fly but scripts stay".  Moreover, a study of language formation requires us to tackle philology, archaeology, history, anthropology, geography and other sciences in a sort of inter-disciplinary approach. Focusing on our primary interests on the world of Nomads, but not in an exclusive way,  I will introduce a variety of elements that can be developed further according to everyone's interest.        

Without doubt, one of the most important element that we need to look at in order to deal with groups of Nomads is language.  The historical picture of the last millennium points to the fact that the  Gypsy language which has remained most faithful to its Indo- Sanskrit roots is that of the Euro-American Gypsies.  Moving West, they took along with them the local language of Western India, a language they did know quite well.  Entering new countries which had completely different languages, they preserved their original idioms which provided them with a sort of separate identity and protected them from the other groups.

While on the move, they never felt the need to carry along in their language the set of different dialects which they might have used while back in India in order to maintain and protect their relations within the group.  Those idioms were no longer necessary.  On the other hand, the Gypsies who stayed in India were moving around within an area where Hindi or languages all very similar to Sanskrit were spoken and well-known by everyone.  Therefore, they adopted forms of dialects or artificial languages which in such a context would make it easy for them to preserve their own separate identity and defend themselves from the settled groups.

This is the most likely reason behind the fact that the language of the Euro-American Gypsy is a lot more similar to Gujirati, Rajastani, Panjabi and Hindi than the languages used privately by the Indian Gypsy.  This fact could well take us towards a sort of wrong argument: someone could argue that the Gypsy people are part of, or originated from, those settled groups in Gujirat, Rajastan and Panjab, since they have a similar language.  Whereas our earlier linguistic argument compounded with anthropological, historical and geographical evidence seems to sustain the following conclusion:  Gypsy people of East and West belong to and originated from

that great and varied group of Nomad-Gypsy still living in India .

To stimulate an open deeper academic research, we have done some sort of background work. We have selected, out of 823 languages, a reduced but sufficient number of linguistic groups and families which are related to the Euro-American Gypsy language.  Some further research work can be done on the links and relations between Indian Gypsy idioms, dialects and languages with Indian local, classic and ancient languages.        

For a first selection of languages I depend upon the Linguistic Survey of India.  For the translations, collection of words, and the general organaization of linguistic material, we are indebted to G.A. Grierson.  For the collection of words, samples, and earlier works on specific languages, we are indebted to the following researchers:  Md. Abdul Gafurs, G.W. Leitner, Sir R.C. Temple, Rev. T. Grahame Bailey, M. Kennedy, E. Balfour, W. Kirkpatrik, A. Cabaton, C. O. Blagden, B.H. Hodgson and many others.

To deal with the phonetic problem we have basically followed the choices made by previous researchers of the Linguistic Survey of India.

A special computer font and program was written by Carlo Rubini to deal with the graphic representation of phonetic signs.

Riccardo Tobanelli introduced some more changes regarding the use of computer technology, and designed the graphic representation of the different languages to allow an immediate comparison and comprehension of the languages.

He and Aira Vehaskari were also involved in the revision of the final draft.  Moreover, Riccardo was there with me at every single step and turn, when we had to make choices shifting through a huge amount of material.       

-The first group of languages covered in this presentation for a comparative study with the European Gypsy language, and offered for research, is the group of 'Ancient Languages' of India like Sanskrit and Prakrit to which we have added, besides modern Western Hindi, those families of languages which played a role in the formation of Indian languages. It will include, the Mundari from the Sino-Tbetan family, the Mon Kmer from the  Mongolic Altaic family, the Tamil from the Dravidian family and Arabic from the Semitic family.  

-The second group will offer  a comparison between  European Gypsy, Sanskrit, Western Hindi, Eastern Hindi, Gujarati, Rajastani (Marwari), Panjabi and Bengali.    

-The third group will collect together the so-called 'Gypsy languages' of India.      

-The forth group, later and in a different volume, will cover in comparative form all the selected languages.         

A preliminary note on the system of transliteration:

To transliterate the different languages we have designed our own font (using computer software) called 'Gipsy'.  We have largely followed the transliteration scheme used in the  Linguistic Survey of India. The scheme presents several problems in consistency.  For instance, for the Gypsy languages, the editor has used the Latin consonant plus H ‘ for strongly aspirated consonants, and the Latin consonant plus an H without apostrophe for non strongly aspirated consonants.  Later, for the other languages, he has decided to use only the Latin consonant followed by ’.  We have for now followed the same system. In the near future we hope to be able, using better software, to rectify the inconsistencies we have come across and to make the reading and pronouncing of such languages easier.         

Key:  English words corresponding to the numbers in the comparative chart of languages.