A Brief History of Mising Language Studies

Abstract

The Mising language is one prominent language among the ethnic languages spoken in Assam. It is spoken by about five lakh people in twelve districts of southern Assam. The Mising language belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, the second language family in the world. There is no long history of discussion or practice of this unwritten Mising language. It is seen that the study of Mising language began in the late nineteenth century. It was introduced through the efforts of some Christian missionaries and some officers of the British bureaucrats. From the early twentieth century, the language was revived by some local people. Subsequently, various people have discussed various aspects of the Mising language. It has been studied through grammar, dictionaries, basic linguistics, scripts, edited books etc. Recently several researchers have received doctorate degrees on the Mising language. This paper attempts to present a brief introduction to the development of the Mising language from the late nineteenth century to the present.