page_title: Rabha tribe
section_title: Ethnicity and language
hierarchical_section_title: Rabha tribe / Ethnicity and language
caption_attribution_description: A traditional Rabha hut at the Village complex in Crafts Museum, New Delhi, India.
context_page_description: Rabha, also, Rava, etc., are an indigenous Tibeto-Burman community of Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, and the Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya and West Bengal. The language/dialect spoken by the Rabha people is mostly Rabha, a Tibeto-Burman language, as well as Assamese. In Assam, the Rabhas live mostly in Goalpara, Kamrup, Kokrajhar, Udalguri, and Baksa districts; and also in some places of Bongaigaon, Chirang, Sonitpur, and Karbi Anglong districts. In Meghalaya, Rabhas are mostly found in Garo Hills districts. In West Bengal, Rabha people mainly live in Jalpaiguri district, Alipurduar district and Cooch Behar district. The whole area of Eastern and Western Dooars may be termed as the cradle land of the Rabhas. The Rabhas refer to themselves as Koch, and assert a connection to the historical Koch Kingdom in part of West Bengal.
  “ Nak kocha machah
  Nak kochah chih cha
  Nemrosong
  Kwnchwkwn... ”
context_section_description: The Rabhas have similarities with Boro kachari and other members of Koch group such as Garos, Kachari, Bodo people, Hajong and others. Most of the Rabhas of Dooars refer to themselves as Rabha, but some of them often declare themselves as Kocha.
  The Rabha language is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family which "encompasses a great deal of linguistic diversity and the geographical area over which the languages are spoken does not coincide with any conveniently designated geographical or political area". The two long-established and widely cited classification of TB are that of Shafer and that of Banedict besides that of Grierson, Egerod and Voegelin-Voegelin. With additional data available about several languages David Bradley proposes a revised scheme.A very general statement that can be made about the place given to Rabha is that at the lowest level all taxonomies place it along with Garos and it's dialects.
caption: A traditional Rabha house
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