MAY BE MY LANGUAGE MADE ME REALISE MY HISTORY

“Toi class korsa na aji? ” She asks her friend.

(Did you attend your class today?)

“O korsu, ” her friend replies her.

(Yes)

*two of their other friends laugh looking at each other*

This was not the first time both of them faced this. Unfortunately, one of them was me. I belong to a
very small town in Lower Assam. We speak our colloquial language with our friends and family over
there. Same goes for my friend too. I speak the Barpetiya language which has the Kamrupi Dialect. The
Kamrupi Dialect was developed primarily in the Western part of Assam. The other dialect that the
people of Western Assam speak is Goalpariya. The Kamrupi dialect has three sub dialects: Barpetiya,
Nalbariya, South Kamrupi.

When we go back to the 7th Century, the time when Hiuen Tsang visited Kamrupi Kingdom he noticed
that the language spoken there is a little different from the other parts of the mid India. When I went
through the writings of the renowned linguist Upendranath Goswami, I found out that The Aryan
Language spoken first in Assam was the Kamrupi language, spoken in Cooch Behar, Goalpara and the
entire Kamrupi District. It is this Kamrupi language that the early Assamese literature was mainly
written.

I have gone through the book called Datal Hatir Unye Khuwa Howdah written by Mamoni Raisom
Goswami baideu where she had used the Kamrupi language. One of the most considerable poets of the
Pre-Vaishnavite period was Madhav Kandali who belonged to the present day Nagaon district. He gave
the entire Ramayana into Assamese verse under the patronage of King Mahamanikya who was a Kachari
king. It was the decline of the koch power because of which the centre was shifted to the eastern or
Upper Assam. And this is the reason why the eastern language of the state became the language of
newspapers, education etc. The dialects range over the whole field of phonology, morphology,
vocabulary.

When I talk about certain TV serials like Borola kai or Oi khapla, no doubt the stories behind them are
very amazing. But I hear people making fun of the language the actors speak. The languages are used as
a comic tool in the serials.Let me mention here the movie which has been selected for India’s official
entry to the 91st Academy Awards is The Village Rockstar. The whole was directed in the Kamrupi
Dialect.

The reason behind this article is to make people clearer about their views regarding Lower Assam and
the language that people make fun of. Here I am definitely not venting out my anger but pointing out
some facts that every Assamese people must know about the state. Earlier I was asked many times to
speak out loud certain sentences in Barpetiya and then they would make fun of the language and end up
calling me a dhekeri. (crass) I feel bad not because people make fun of the language We speak but for
the language which has no importance now. I left my hometown three years back and till today I hear
people laughing at the colloquial language that I speak with my family. Once my friends from Lower
Assam spoke to me awkwardly in the dialect that people of Upper Assam speak in the public, when I
asked them the reason behind it, their reason was just like mine. And that made me realise it was not
only me who was facing this. Why to make fun of the people who belongs to the same state but speaks
a different language.

Both of my parents are from Lower Assam. Barpetiya language is and will always be my roots. And if
speaking my language let people call me a Dhekeri then I am really proud of being called a Dhekeri.

Hoi moi Barpeta'r !

(Yes, I am from Barpeta)