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Language Lineage

Kuki-Chin

Mizo, the Chin languages and Thadou, spoken across the India–Myanmar border hills, many of them written in Latin script since missionary times.

c. 1st millennium CE – presentMizoram and Manipur in northeast India, the Chin Hills of Myanmar, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
On this page
  1. The Border Hills
  2. Mizo
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points

01

The Border Hills

The Kuki-Chin languages are spoken across the hills where India, Myanmar and Bangladesh meet. They have many languages and dialects, some spoken by only a few villages. From the 1890s Welsh and other missionaries brought Christianity and literacy, and Mizoram and the Chin Hills are now among the most Christian regions of Asia.

02

Mizo

In 1894 the missionaries J. H. Lorrain and F. W. Savidge devised a Latin alphabet for Mizo (then called Lushai), and literacy spread fast. Mizoram now has one of the highest literacy rates in India. When Mizoram became a Union Territory in 1972 and a state in 1987, Mizo became its official language, the language of a flourishing press and literature.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Indiac. 1.5 million
  2. Myanmarc. 1 million
  3. Bangladeshc. 0.05 million

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Splitc. 1st millennium CEContested

    Into the border hills

    Kuki-Chin speakers spread through the hills between the Chindwin valley and the Bengal plains and diverge into many languages. How Kuki-Chin relates to the Naga languages and to Meitei is disputed.

    Sources (1)
    • Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla, eds. 2017. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  2. Writing1894

    The Mizo alphabet

    Lorrain and Savidge create a Latin alphabet for Mizo, and the grammar and dictionary they publish in 1898 lay the foundation for Mizo literacy and literature.

    Sources (1)
    • Lorrain, J. Herbert & F. W. Savidge. 1898. A Grammar and Dictionary of the Lushai Language. Shillong: Assam Secretariat Printing Office.
  3. Revitalization1970s – 1987

    Official language of Mizoram

    After decades of insurgency and the 1986 peace accord, Mizoram becomes a state of India in 1987 with Mizo as its official language.

    Sources (1)
    • Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla, eds. 2017. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.