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Kachari is a Sino-Tibetan language[3] of the Boro-Garo subgroup,[4] spoken in Assam, India. With fewer than 60,000 speakers recorded in 1997, and the Asam 2001 Census reporting a literacy rate of 81% the Kachari language is currently ranked as threatened.[5] Kachari is closely related to surrounding languages, including Tiwa, Rābhā, Hajong, Kochi and Mechi.[6]

Kachari
Region	Assam, India
Native speakers	(59,000 cited 1997)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Brahmaputran Bodo–Garo Bodo Kachari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xac
Glottolog	kach1279
ELP	Kachari

While there are still living adult speakers, many children are not learning Kachari as their primary language, instead being assimilated into the wider Assamese speaking communities.[3]

• Some alternative names are Boro,[7] Bara, Cachari,[8] Plains Kachari[3] and Hill Kachari.[8]
• Geographic distribution: Kachari is spoken in 16 villages total in North Cachar Hills district, Assam, and Dimapur and Dhansiri administrative circles of Kohima district, Nagaland.[5]

Division

According to LSI, Kachari language was divided into Plain Kachari or Bårå(Boro) and Hill Kachari or Dimasa.[9]

Phonology

Consonants

Kachari consists of the 13 consonants shown below and three Non-syllabics,(Frictional: h, frictionless palatal: y, frictionless rounded velar: w[7]) :

	Bi-Labial	Denti-Alveolar	Alveolo-Palatal	Velar
Plosives aspirated unaspirated	p^h b	t^h d		k^h g
Nasals	m	n		n
Fricatives Voiceless Voiced			s z
Tremulant		r
Lateral		l

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	o	o
Low		a

Prosody

• Tone
  • Kachari is a tonal language, consisting of 4 tones high, mid, low and neutral (1, 2, 3, 0)[7]

Grammar

Syntax

The word order of Kachari is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV).[10]

• Kachari uses many instances of "compound words" to denote meaning. For example, the word for "boy", is really the combination of the Kachari words for "male" and "child". This also correlates with Kachari verbs, which can be agglutinated to form "compound verbs".[11] While Kachari is not polysynthetic, its verbs act as a stem for descriptive adjective, adverbs or affixes to change its meaning. For example, the "conjugation of the regular verb active, 'nu-nǔ.' to see" results in the following:

Verb "to See" [10]
Case	Case Form	Final Form	Meaning
Infinitive	-nǔ	nu-nǔ	to see
Progressive	-dang	nu-dang	I am seeing
Simple Past	-bai	nu-bai	I saw
Past Progressive	-dangman	nu-dangman	I did see
Past Remote	-nai	nu-nai	I had seen
	-dangman	nu-dangman
Simple Future	-gan	nu-gan	I will see
Paulo-post Future	-si-gan	nu-si-gan	I will see (almost immediately)
	-nǔ-sǔi	nu-nǔ-sǔi
Imperative	-	nu	See (you)
	-thang	nu-thang	Let him (them) see

Tense

Future Tense

As can be seen from the chart above, the future tense is indicated with -gan, while -si- indicates that the future event will occur soon or in the near future. One example is "Bí faigan", he will come, as opposed to "Bí faisigan", he will come (almost at once) or he is about to come.[10]

Present Tense

Present tense is shown through three affixes, "ǔ", "dong" and "gô". The first two forms represent indefinite and definite forms and are far more common that "gô", which is frequently only used to answer questions in the affirmative.

Adjectives

Most adjectives can be added both before or after the noun it is describing, though it gains the case ending if it follows the noun, rather than precedes it.[10] This follows the identification of as a strongly suffixing language.[12] However, this classification goes against Konwar's description of Kachari and a related language, Karbi, as primarily prefixing to create adjectives.[13]

Numerical adjectives are always inserted after the noun it is describing. For example, "ten goats" is "Burmá má-zǔ" with "Burmá" meaning goat, "má" being the classifier for "animal" and the number ten being "zǔ".[6][10]

Morphology

Gender - Common nouns such as father, mother, brother or sister have distinct masculine and feminine words while other nouns including animals, will typically have the words for male and female, -jelá and -jeu respectively, added on as a suffix to denote gender. Other common masculine and feminine suffix forms that may be used include -zǎlá/-zǔ, -bundā/-bundi, -bóndá/-bóndi, -phántá/-phánti and -pherá/-pheri.[6][10]

Number System

Kachari has a decimal system and counts to 10 with unique words, after which the number words combine to add to the larger number as shown in the chart below.[14]

1. sé	21. nɯizise
2. nɯí	22. nɯizinɯi
3. tʰám	22. nɯizitʰam
4. brɯí	24. nɯizibrɯi
5. bá	25. nɯiziba
6. dɔ́	26. nɯizidɔ
7. sní	27. nɯizisni
8. daín	28. nɯizidain
9. ɡú	29. nɯiziɡu
10. zí	30. tʰamzí
11. zíse	40. brɯizí
12. zínɯi	50. bazí
13. zítʰám	60. dɔzí
14. zíbrɯi	70. snizí
15. zíba	80. dainzí
16. zídɔ	90. ɡuzí
17. zísni	100. zɯusé / sezɯú
18. zídaín	200. nɯizɯú
19. zíɡu	1000. sé rɯ̀za
20. nɯizí	2000. nɯí rɯ̀za

References

Bibliography

На других языках

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- [en] Kachari language

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[ru] Качари (язык)

Качари – язык народа качари, относится к группе бодо-гаро тибето-бирманских языков. Распространён на северо-востоке Индии, в штатах Ассам (округа Горы Северный Качар и Качар) и Нагаленд (округа Кохима и Димапур). По данным справочника Ethnologue имеется 59 000 носителей. Лишь около 30% всех представителей народа качари говорят на языке как на родном, во многих местах он был вытеснен ассамским языком.

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