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20 THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ASASAYA LANGUAGE Siam invaders of comparatively recent times, who ruled the State for as many as six hundred years and have also merged similarly, should leave only a dozen words or so in the Asamiya language. The Census of 1931 returns Austrie 6-0, Tibeto-Chinese 17.6 Dra- vidian 1:5 and Indo-European 74-9 percent speakers of the population of Asam, there being 234,000 Khasi speakers and 321,000 Mundial speakers of whom 150,000 speak Nundari and 102,000 Sintali, the balance belong- ing to Savara, Kurku, Kharia and other Munda dialects. It is to be noted that almost all the Munda speakers are modern tea-garden coolies or ex-coolies save and except the Santall speakers of the Goalpara dis- trict. The Tibet Chinese family of Mongoloids is known to be distributed as the largest number of languages in the State, the total number of its speakers being 1,628,000 further distributed as 1,622,000 and 6,000 speak ers of the Tibeto-Burman and the Tai-Chinese sub-family spealers - pectively. The Abom speech, now extinct, belonged to this Tai-Chinese sub- family which has only 6,000 speakers and which further blurales into Kbamti Philial and and Tal-Siam groups. The Tibeto-Burman sub family of Mongolold speech is by far the greater and more important of the two as it is also various and numerous in its descendants of its three groups the Tibeto-Himalayan includes 7,000 speakers with the Bhotia of Tibet, Magari, Limbu and many other dialects spoken in Nepal and Sikkim. The second or the North-Asam group consists of 99,000 spca- kers of whom 81,000 are Mirl, 14,000 are Abar, 2.285 are Mishimi and 1,644 are Dafala speakers. The third of the Asam-Burma group is fur- ther subdivided into three sub-groups of which (1) the Kuki-Chin In- cludes Manipuri and Kuki dialects having 591,000 speakers in all (2) the Naga sub-grup including Ao and Lhota with 265,000 speakers, and (3) the most important the Bado sub-group comprising 531,000 speakers of various important sub-dialects. Of these () 4,315 are speakers of Cutlya supposed to be the original language of non-Aryan upper Asam and now spoken by the Deori section alone; (b) Bado (Plains Kachari) or Mech speakers number 283,000; (e) Dimacha (Hills Kachari) speakers are 14,680; (d) Lalung speakers number 9,000; (e) Milcir, said to the coming in between Bado and Kuki sub-groups, has as many as 126,457 speakers (1) Koe (Rajamil) styled sometimes as a kind of Mangal Garo speech, is now spoken in the Garo Hills, and (9) Rabha, probably allied to Lalung are the members of the Bado sub-group. (Vide Census of India, 1931, Vol. II, Assam, Part I, Report by C. S. Mullan) It appears that the identification of the Tibeto-Burman Mongoloids with the Kirilas taking prominent part in the Mahabharata warfare under Bhagadatta has never been questioned; but their immigration prior to that of the Aryans seems to be challenged in certain quarters from the fact that the former have been designated as Mlecchas which term is said to mean foreigners' (EHK, Ch. I). While the outpour of hordes of Mongoloids had been continuing until very late in historical times, it is difficult to agree that the earliest Immigration of them must be a pro-