Boro language (India)

With the Assamese Language Movement in Assam peaking in the 1960s the Boro community felt threatened and decided to not use the Assamese script.[13] After a series of proposals and expert committees the Bodo Sahitya Sabha reversed itself in 1970 and unanimously decided to adopt the Latin script for the language in its 11th annual conference.[11] The BSS submitted this demand to the Assam Government in 1971, which was rejected on the grounds that the Latin script was of foreign origin. This instigated a movement for the Latin script which became a part of the movement for a separate state, Udayachal, then led by the Plains Tribe Council of Assam (PTCA). In this context, the Boro leaders were advised by the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to choose any Indian script other than Latin.[14] In defiance of the Assam Government the BSS ,in April 1974, went ahead and published Bithorai, a Boro textbook, in Latin script and asked school teachers to follow it.[15]

Retaliating against the unilateral decision, the Assam Government withheld grants to schools using the Latin script. This triggered a phase of active movement that was joined by the All Bodo Students' Union (ABSU) and the PTCA. This led to a critical situation in November 1974 when fifteen volunteers of the movement died in a police firing, and many others were injured. Unable to resolve the issue, the Assam Government referred the matter to the Union Government.[16] In the discussion, the Union Government suggested Devanagari script as the solution to the problem, which the BSS accepted in the Memorandum of Understanding in April 1975, and adopted later year in the Annual Conference.[17] This ended the Boro Script Movement.

Boro-language textbooks for secondary schools written in Devanagari script

The Devanagari script for Boro was an unexpected development and it was not immediately accepted by the wider Boro community.[18] The BSS failed to implement the use of the Devanagari script, and writers continued to use the Assamese/Bengali and Latin scripts.[19] In 1982, ABSU included the demand of the Latin script in Boro schools in its charter of Demands. Following an expert committee report, constituted by BSS, the Bodoland Autonomous Council adopted a resolution to use Latin script in its territory, which the Assam Government too accepted.

Nevertheless, in the discussion with the Bodo Liberation Tigers, the Union Government demanded the implementation of the earlier agreement with the BSS on the use of the Devanagari script if the Boro language was to be included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Following this, the ABSU and the BSS agreed to use the Devanagari script exclusively, and the matter was finally settled.

There are 6 vowels in Boro.

• All vowels occur at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of syllables.

Boro has 16 consonants.

• The three voiceless aspirated stops, /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/, are unreleased in syllable final position. Their unaspirated voiced counterparts are released and cannot occur word final position.
• Sometimes, /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ, s/ are pronounced as /b, d, g, z/ respectively.
• The consonants /b, d, m, n, ɾ, l/ can occur in all position.
• The consonants /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ, g, s, ɦ/ cannot appear at the end of indigenous Boro words but occur in loanwords.
• The consonants /ŋ, j, w/ cannot appear at the beginning of words.

Since Boro is a tonal language, changes in tone affect the meaning:[21]

Sentences in Boro consist of either a "Subject + Verb" or a "Subject + Object + Verb".

Bodo has a decimal system and counts to 10 with unique words, after which the number words combine to add to the larger number as shown in the chart below.[22]