Koch Rajbongshi people

Koch–Rajbongshi community (also known as Kochrajbongshi and Koch) is an indigenous community found in parts of present-day Nepal; the Indian states of Assam, West Bengal, and Meghalaya; and Kishanganj in the state of Bihar and certain parts of Bhutan.

Though the two terms "Koch" and "Rajbongshi" are used interchangeably today, The Imperial Gazetteer of India says, "Though the Kochs freely call them Rajbansis, it is believed (see Bengal Census Report, 1901, part I, pp. 382-83) that the two communities originally sprang from entirely different sources, the Kochs being of Mongoloid origin, while the Rajbansis are a Dravidian tribe who probably owned the name long before the Koch kings rose to power." The source also states: "The Koch tribe, though now in parts much intermixed with Dravidian stock, was probably at that time purely Mongolian and spoke a language closely allied to those of the Kacharis, Tipperas, Lalungs, Sutiyas, and Garos." Elsewhere it mentions, "The following castes are also numerically strong (as of 1901) : Kochs (222,000), Rajbansis (120,000), Kalitas (203,000), Nadiyals (195,000), Ahoms (178,000), Jugis (161,000), Kewats (149,000), and Sutiyas (86,000)." However, at present it is nearly impossible to differentiate these two communities of separate historical origins from each other. Today they are widely distributed over most of the plain districts of Assam. However, a heavy concentration is observed in the districts of Kamrup and Goalpara.

Rangpuri language

Rangpuri is an Indic language spoken by ten million Rajbongshi people in Bangladesh, five million in India, and 130,000 Rajbanshi and Tajpuria in Nepal. Many are bilingual in either Bengali or Assamese. There is a strong language movement in West Bengal.

Names

Rangpuri goes by numerous names. In Bangladesh, these include Rangpuri, Bahe Bangla, Ancholit Bangla, Kamta, Polia. In India, there is Kamtapuri, Dutta, Rajbangsi, Rajbansi, Rajbanshi, Rajbongshi, Goalparia, Koch Rajbanshi. Another name of the language is Tajpuri. In Assam it is known as Kochrajbongshi.

Dialects

The main dialects are Western Rajbanshi, Central Rajbanshi, Eastern Rajbanshi and Hill Rajbanshi (also known as Koch language).

The Central dialect has the majority of speakers and is quite uniform. There are publications in this language. The Western dialect has more diversity. Lexical similarity is 77 to 89% between the three dialects. The version spoken in the hills has some influence of the local tribal languages and differs quite a bit from the other three. Rajbonshi shares 48 to 55% of its vocabulary with Bengali, and 43 to 49% with Maithili and Nepali.