rth of Bishanath in Darrang….is practically one and the same throughout’ ascribed to the ‘unwarlike character of the Mikir people’ deserves a further investigation. By being ‘unwarlike’, the Karbis might have managed ‘linguistic uniformity’ over a wide area till now though this trait is increasingly considered as weakness in the present reality where assertion is invariably violent. ‘The more primitive the people, the less warlike it appears to be’ as observed by Wright in his ‘Study of War’ may provide some clues to the Karbis being ‘unwarlike’ and how primitive the tribe is. That the Karbis are indeed primitive is vouched by observations such as ‘the Mikir will be found by most readers the more interesting of the two, as the Mikirs are a more primitive and interesting race than the Meitheis’ in the reviews of ‘The Meitheis’ (TC Hodson) and ‘The Mikirs’ (Stack and Lyall) by M Langworth Dames way back in 1908.
But, a Karbi grammar appeared only in 1966, when Fr. John Marae, instrumental in founding the Diphu Don Bosco School, in collaboration with Fr. John Timung, Fr. Cyriac Thudathil, Mr. Paulus Rongphar and Mr. Sundersing Timung, published the ‘Karbi Self-taught’, a reprint (2007) of which is now available. The brief grammar in English that has adopted ‘Roman Scripts’ has made some crucial observations when the authors commented in the preface to the book’s second edition—‘There are authors who use all the English alphabets to write Karbi, there are writers who propagate the use of “nerkepkep and sirkepkep” for the cardinal numerals 80 and 90 respectively instead of “throknerkep and throksirkep” as had always been used, and there are authors who use “lank” for “lang” ( water).’ Further, the authors’ firm view for dispensing with the ‘use of any sign for stress and tones’ for writing Karbi ‘systematically, grammatically and simply’ is interesting, simply because the tonality of the language would have to be dispensed altogether! In any case, very few such important published works on Karbi language and grammar have rarely undergone reprints and ‘Karbi Self-taught’ has certainly achieved a landmark, in Karbi standard!
In 1966, Fr. Michael Balawan compiled ‘A Mikir-English Dictionary’ —‘for private circulation only’ which appeared in printed form under a new title ‘A Mikir-English Dictionary with some tits-bits of Mikir Grammar’, published from Shillong, Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Press in 1978. Fr. Balawan (1922-1989), tracked by the Nazis for not abiding by the compulsory labours,came to Indian shore from France as a Salesian brother and took up his assignment at Umswai Catholic Church and School, a nondescript Karbi-Tiwa populated village. This great humanitarian and an exceptional missionary produced great works in both Tiwa and Karbi. His ‘Tiwa Mat’ is the first Reader in the Tiwa language, which is still in circulation while ‘Baibele History’, is a ‘Brief Bible History in the Tiwa Language’ (1988) and both the books are published by the Don Bosco publications, Guwahati. But what must rank as the most outstanding for the Karbis is his ‘Mikir Grammar’ (1988, Don Bosco Press Shillong), which is currently out of print. This 86-paged grammar deals with phonetics, morphology and syntax in Roman script, which definitely is an excellent introduction to learners of Karbi language and could have easily been used as text in middle and high school level classes. The general apathy of the language speakers and the ignorance of people that matters can be gauged by the fact that only a 2 Km patch of unfinished village road leading to the Umswai Parish is named after this great man! Similar is the fate of Pangti Andreas Hanse Durong (1911-1993), whose immense love for his people and tireless efforts have virtually remained unknown! As many as 13 text books in the language that include ‘Mikir-English Reader’ (for classes A, B, I, II & III), ‘Mikir-English Translation’ (Part- I, II & III), ‘Mikir Geography’ ‘Arithmetic in Mikir’ (for Classes -B, I, A-B & I, II, III) produced by this rare genius of a Karbi are today nowhere, except of