History of The Language
The immediate parent language from which Ahom is descended has been reconstructed as Proto-Tai, a language from 2000 years ago, in the Tai–Kadai family (unrelated to Chinese, but possibly related to the Austronesian languages), within the (proposed but debated) subgroup of Kam–Tai, although some say that Tai languages are a discrete family, and are not part of Tai–Kadai.
The Ahom people and their language originated in Yunnan in south-west China and they migrated, from the border between Northern Vietnam and the Guangxi province of China, into the south-east Asian peninsula and northern Burma. Ahom was then spoken by the Ahom people who ruled most of Assam, a civilization in the Brahmaputra river valley, in Southeast Asia, from 1228 to 1826. It was the exclusive court language of the Ahom kingdom till about the 15th–16th century, when it made way for Assamese, an Indo-Aryan language. The language fell into complete disuse by the 19th century and the phonology has completely been lost. The language today is used chiefly for liturgical purposes, and is no longer used in daily life. It retains cultural significance and is used for religious chants and to read literature. An effort has been made to revive the language by following the phonology of existing sister languages, especially Tai-Aiton and Tai-Phake.
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