Bookkeeping: Khumi Awa Chin

This entry has been retired and is featured here only for bookkeeping purposes. Either the entry has been replaced with one or more more accurate entries or it has been retired because it was based on a misunderstanding to begin with.

Retired in ISO 639-3: merged into Mro-Khimi Chin [cmr]

  • Change request: 2011-037
  • ISO 639-3: cka
  • Name: Khumi Awa Chin
  • Reason: merge
  • Effective: 2012-02-03

Excerpt from change request document:

The 1931 Census of Burma report contains an appendix about the “Awa Khami”, “Ahraing Khami”, and “Mro”. Clan lists as well as some vocabulary items are included and make it easier to identify which groups were being referred to.

The Awa Khami and Ahraing Khami vocabulary items from the 1931 Census are very similar to each other and match with wordlists collected from the group today known as Mro-Khimi.

The Mro-Khimi today recognize two broad sub-groupings, Wakung (“downstream”) and Areung (“upstream”). The speech variety spoken by the vast majority of people is known as Wakung. ‘Wa’ is a Rakhine/Burmese word meaning “mouth of a stream”. ‘Kung’ is a Mro-Khimi word also meaning “mouth of a stream’. This “Awa Khami” clan lists from the 1931 Census match with the current Wakung clans, making identification clear.

The Areung sub-group includes multiple speech varieties, including Hrengna and Xata. This sub- group matches with the Ahraing Khami in the 1931 Census.

The Wakung and Areung groups consider themselves to belong to one common overall group, Mro- Khimi, and speak similar speech varieties. Thus, they are grouped together here under one ISO entry.

Regarding the name for the group, there is currently some disagreement. While most of the group uses the name Mro-Khimi, those living in Buthidaung Township use the name Khimi. The majority group has chosen to include Mro in their name to distinguish themselves from the Khumi, who live in Paletwa Township, Chin State. However, the group living in Buthidaung Township does not have contact with the Khumi. Instead, they distinguish themselves from the Mru who live nearby by not including “Mro” in their name. Both groups agree, however, that they do not want to be called “Chin”.

For the ISO entry, we have chosen to use the name chosen by the majority with a note about the situation in Buthidaung Township.

In the 1931 Census, the vocabulary lists of "Mro" match with wordlists from the group today known as Mru (mro), not Mro-Khimi. This group lives in Bangladesh and Myanmar and speaks a very divergent speech variety from the Mro-Khimi. They are known by a variety of other names including Mrung, Mrusa, Dak, Launghu, and Taung “mountain” Mru.

Mru (mro) is already represented by a distinct ISO entry, and the current Mro (cmr) entry has up until now been used to refer to the Mro-Khimi. Thus, for clarity, it would be better to merge the Chin, Khumi Awa (cka) and Chin, Mro (cmr) entries and change the name to Mro-Khimi.

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