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Koch

A language of India

ISO 639-3: kdq

Population	30,000 in India (2007), increasing. Hardly any monolinguals. Population total all countries: 36,000.
Region	Meghalaya, West Garo Hills District; Assam, Goalpara, Nagaon districts; Tripura; West Bengal; Bihar. Also in Bangladesh.
Alternate names	Koc, Kocch, Koce, Kocha, Kochboli, Konch
Dialects	Harigaya, Margan (Dasgaya), Tintekiya, Wanang. Tintekiya in Meghalaya is intelligible with same dialect in Bangladesh; Tintekiya not intelligible with other Koch dialects; Koch-Rabha and Harigaya are mutually intelligible with Wanang; Dasgaya and Harigaya are mutually intelligible; except for Tintekiya, forming a dialect chain (Koch-Rabha-Wanang-Harigaya-Dasgaya). Lexical similarity: 90% between Tintekiya Koch of India and Bangladesh; Tintekiya has only 44%–55% similarity with other Koch dialects, 31%–39% all Koch dialects with Rongdani Rabha [rah], 13%–17% all Koch dialects with Garo [grt]. Some borrowing of lexical items from Assamese [asm].
Classification	Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Jingpho-Konyak-Bodo, Konyak-Bodo-Garo, Bodo-Garo, Koch
Language use	Vigorous. Non-Koch in Koch villages normally speak Koch. Only 5 of the 8 endogamous groups still speak their mother tongue: Tintekiya, Wanang, Harigaya, Dasgaya, and Koch-Rabha. Sankar and Satpariya have no known speakers. All domains. All ages. Positive attitude. Also use Bengali [ben], Assamese [asm], Garo [grt], English, Hindi, Hajong [haj], Rabha, Bora, [boa] or Nepali [nep].
Language development	Literacy rate in L2: Approximately 75% in any of the following languages: Assamese [asm], Bangla [ben], Garo [grt], English, Hindi [hin], Rabha [rah], or Bora. Show a growing interest toward education (Singh 1994). Dictionary.
Writing system	Bengali script.
Comments	A Scheduled Tribe in Meghalaya. Koch-Rabha belongs to Koch linguistically and ethnically but claims identity with the Rabha for political reasons. Agriculturalists. Traditional religion, Christian.

Also spoken in:

Bangladesh

Language name	Koch
Population	6,000 in Bangladesh (2006 SIL).
Language map	Bangladesh
Alternate names	Koc, Kocch, Koce, Kochboli, Konch
Dialects	Tintekiya, Chapra.
Language use	Home, community. All ages. Positive attitude.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

AHMAD, Sayed; KIM, Amy; KIM, Seung; SANGMA, Mridul, authors. 2011. "The Koch of Bangladesh: A Sociolinguistic Survey."  

KONDAKOV, Alexander, author. 2011. "Koch Survey Wordlists and Sociolinguistic Questionnaire."  

Vernacular Publications

Bird flu-wa ata?. 2009.  

Malaria - Harihachi kalum. 2009.  

কচ’ কৰনি বর্ণবিন্যাস. 2009.  

দে, কচ’ কৰ’ বাকনা. 2009.  

বর্ড ফ্লু-ৱা আতা?. 2009.  

মেলেৰিয়া — হাৰিহাচি কালুম. 2009.