Darmiya (ISO-639-3 code: drd)

Darma is the name of the community and the language too. The community is known after the name of the valley they belong to. The darma valley is situated along the Indo-Tibetan border. Darma belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family spoken by fewer than 3019 people (according to census 2001). Among the villages, about fourteen of Darma Valley in Pithoragarh District of Uttarakhand state. The habitat of the Darma community stretches along the ‘Dhauli Ganga’ river in the Darma Valley. In the ‘Linguistic survey of India’, Grierson had given another name for this language which is Darmiya based on settlement patterns, the community has two divisions: The lower Darma which has permanent shelters, whereas the upper Darma has temporary shelters. They are known by two different names which are PANG JINKHU comprising four villages (Banling, Nagling, Chal and Sela), YAR JINKHU comprising the rest of the villages (Baun, Filum, Saun, Dugtu, Daubu, Go, Tidang, Bedang, Maraksha and Sipu).

Darma is considered an endangered language, listed by (no the) UNESCO in 2001. Darma together with Byansi and Chaudansi comprise the Rang community, of which Darma is said to be the most conservative (WILLIS, 2007:8). These languages are said to share several linguistic features which may indicate a common genetic descent for them. The community claims to have had a common script for all Rang languages in the past,which is unfortunately, no longer preserved nor transmitted to the current generation: so the script was missing among the speakers. Due to the great efforts put in by the Rang community, some compilations of lexemes transcribed in Devanagari script exist which got published for preservation and future reference. Though the work is laudable, it nevertheless requires further linguistic improvements to be considered as proper documentation.

The Darmas are usually referred to as Bhotias, for all Rang community members have been referred to as by Britishers earlier and also the Government of India for their perceived similarity to the Tibetans in feature. The term bhot means ‘of Tibet’, and They are generally categorised as scheduled tribes (all Bhotias) by Government of India.

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