Learn Ahom
Warning: This is a sensitive article. Reader discretion required!
What comes in your mind when you hear the word language? Something that you use for communication?
Well in Assam, language is politics and nothing else but politics. And Tai language (or more like Tai label) unfortunately
has become a tool for identity politics of some Assamese leaders with inferiority complex and their
construction of a neo Tai-Ahom identity has infact implied construction of a pseudo Tai language
whose purpose is only politics and propaganda. Khuptang! Chu mu ka sang?
Chu kao puja gogoi. If you say this to an actual Tai speaker he will be puzzled and
wonder are you even saying, but this is what is being called as 'Tai' or particularly 'Ahom' language
in Assam.
Or atleast by the propagandists who despite being humiliated by BJ Terwiel still haven't left behind their
wicked ways and promote pseudo-Ahom words
for everyday usage
Who cares if 'Tai' is an actual living language, and is actually the identity of the tribes like Khamyang, Aiton,
Aiton, Phake who have been calling themselves Tai long before these Ahom leaders even knew what is Tai.
There shall be no mercy in hijacking this minority identity, because some people want ST-status and
minority benefits, while also having no sympathy for the actual minorities and actual tribes
whose languages have been endangered and even become extinct
cause of their hegemony.
Identity Invasion
I don't want to make it a victimization article especially since I am not the victim here, but when a huge population of people
suddenly start calling themselves
a certain thing (which is not in fact who they are) then it leads to a cultural anxiety. Assamese people might
sympathise when a lot of non-Assamese people living in Assam identify as Assamese even though they don't even speak Assamese
at home or celebrate Bihu. They just want that label Assamese, maybe because it sounds good to them
or maybe because they want to loot the tourists that come to this region while pretending to be a native. There are
lots of different reasons, sometimes it is just inferiority complex.
Similarly a lot of people who don't even celebrate Poi Pee Mau Tai or don't know even basic
things about Tai culture or can speak even basic Tai language when they call themselves Tai, that too leads to
dare I say an identity invasion or in more simple words hijacking of an identity which is
very different from claiming or reclaiming an identity. And Pseudo Ahom projects by Pathsaku,
Moran Tai Institue, Tai Sahitya Sabha, etc are all a path to hijacking this identity. And worse they even get paid for it
and in crores !
Tonal to Toneless language
Tai is a tonal language, meaning kón means a person but kōn means a butt, kài means a chicken but kái is a taboo-word for male-organ. kón tái means Tai people, while kón taai means dead people and unless you have prior experience with Chinese, just listening these words on loop will mess your mind. But you only really need tones if you want to speak a language, if you only want to do propaganda and fool other people then you can completely remove tones and that's exactly what Pathsaku Moran Tai Institute and their gang have done. For decades they have looted crores of funds in the name of Assam Accord, established institutions in name of Tai precisely to steal money but even after spending literally decades in Ahom Revivalism none of these propagandists can even speak one word of Tai properly as is proven from the pseudo-ahom words that they use which I consider a litmus test, where even without interviewing a person personally you can tell if they can speak Tai or not.
Propaganda vs Education
Now personally speaking, I am quite interested in Ahom Revivalism, not as a propaganda movement like lot of
its opponents have claimed it to be but as an actual education movement making it as easy as possible
for someone even of indo-aryan heritage to learn Tai, despite the huge differences in both language
families. Now if we trace the movement then the first Ahom organization, with the goal of
reviving Ahom language was started in 1880-1890s (ref. Saikia 2004)
around same time as Hebrew language revivalism but while in a few decades Hebrew got literally millions of
native speakers, from absolute zero. But even after hundred years there is not a single Ahom family that can speak Tai,
and worse even the ones who have Khamti mothers, Phake mothers, Aiton mothers, they too can't speak even one word of
their mother-tongue (u see what i did there). So those who do propaganda in the name of Ahom should have this basic
amount of shame and accountability that not only you lost your own language but you were also an accomplice and catalyst for other tribes losing their
language, and that too assuming if these people are very sure about their family history.
My conclusion has been that most so-called Ahom people are interested in kanging and not learning,
weaponising history to show superiority over other tribes and even their interest in Dai language is just enough
that people do not insult them. Between learning Tai and convincing other people that you know Tai
or that there are some Ahoms who speak Tai daily, they will always chose the second option which is normal because
human beings always make comfortalbe choices. Learning a language takes thousands of hours while kanging
and lying takes minutes. But you are only really lying to yourself and no one else ! And that is what I call
a pseudo-Ahom behaviour.
