NEED FOR OFFICIAL RECOGNITION TO RAJBANSHI LANGUAGE IN ASSAM
Introduction: Once a Lingua Franca, a common language used for communication among the kingdoms in northeastern India during medieval period, now spoken over 15 million people living across Indian states spread over a major regional portion of Assam, present day North Bengal, north-eastern districts of Bihar and parts of neighbouring countries viz. northern Bangladesh, north-eastern districts of Nepal and in parts of Bhutan. As per the report ‘Linguistic Survey of India’, a linguistic survey carried out by British administrator Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1903-1928, this Indo-Aryan language was mentioned as Rajbanshi, a dialect of Bengali. However, it is now an established fact that Rajbanshis and Bengalis do not belong to same social group and hence, Rajbanshi is not a dialect of Bengali language. Rajbanshi language in Assam existed before the evolution of Assamese language. It is a full fledged language and as such this language deserves due recognition. Evolution of the