Agartala, June 6: The Reangs, second largest tribal group in Tripura, are demanding formal recognition of their language Kai Bru as separate from Kokborok, the mainstream tribal language of the state.
Several seminars and meetings have been held in the Reang-dominated areas of Kanchanpur in North Tripura and Shantir Bazar in South Tripura to press for the demand. A Reang-dominated outfit, Bru National Renaissance Organisation (BNRO), is spearheading the struggle for recognition of Kai Bru. However, the Tripuri, Jamatya, Noatia and other tribal groups have opposed the demand.
Sachlang Tripura, a tribal language expert, said in an article published in a local daily that ?the difference between Kai Bru and Kokborok is no more than the difference between the sadhu and chalti form of Bengali language?. According to him, basically the language spoken by tribal groups and clans in Tripura barring the Mizo, Chakma and Halam tribes, is Kokborok.
However, Muzrati Bru, a Reang intellectual who is leading the movement for recognition of Kai Bru as a separate language, said there were fundamental differences between the two. He blamed the mainstream tribal parties and a section of militant outfits for trying to impose Kokborok on Reang tribesmen.
Bru said the tribals were being forced to record their identity as Boroks and their language as Kokborok in the census. He added that they would fight to the last to elicit their demand on national and linguistic identity.
Renowned linguist Kumud Kundu Chowdhury, who had devised the script for Kokborok language in the late Sixties, said the word Kokborok meant ?language of the people? and not ?language of the Borok people?.