The Rangpuri Alphabet

Rangpuri (ISO 639-3: rkt), also called Koch or Rajbangshi, is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken across North Bengal and Assam in India and in the Rangpur Division of northern Bangladesh. It belongs to the Bengali-Assamese branch of the Indo-Iranian language family — the same branch as Standard Bengali, Assamese, and Chittagonian. Speaker estimates range from 5 to 10 million depending on classification, with significant populations on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border.

The name Rangpuri derives from the historic Rangpur region, which today comprises the Rangpur Division of Bangladesh and adjacent areas of North Bengal, India. The language is the mother tongue of the Koch-Rajbangshi community — an ethnic group that spans North Bengal and Assam and has historically maintained a distinct cultural identity. Rangpuri shares ISO 639-3 code rkt with Kamtapuri, reflecting their close linguistic relationship.

Rangpuri is written in the Bengali script (Unicode Block U+0980–U+09FF) — the same left-to-right Brahmic abugida used for Standard Bengali and Assamese. The Bengali script includes 36 consonant letters, 11 independent vowel letters, vowel diacritics (কার, kar), the chandrabindu (ঁ) for nasalisation, the hasanta for suppressing inherent vowels, and Bengali-specific digit forms (০–৯).

Written Rangpuri text is visually identical to Standard Bengali script, since the same letterforms are used. In digital and informal contexts, Rangpuri speakers may also write using Latin script (romanisation), especially in messaging platforms, though no standardised romanisation has been officially adopted. Literacy in Rangpuri benefits from existing Bengali-script literacy infrastructure, given that the same script is used for standard education in the region.

Rangpuri and Standard Bengali share the same script but differ substantially in spoken form. Phonologically, Rangpuri has a distinct vowel system with North Bengali vowel qualities, characteristic final vowel dropping, and a different intonation pattern compared to Standard Bengali. The consonant inventory is largely the same, but the phonetic realisation differs — particularly in the treatment of aspirated stops and the inherent vowel in unstressed syllables.

In vocabulary, Rangpuri retains archaic Indo-Aryan lexical items and has absorbed influence from the indigenous Koch tribal heritage. Many common words for everyday items and family relationships differ significantly from Standard Bengali. Grammatically, Rangpuri uses distinct verb paradigms, different pronouns, and different tense formations. Standard Bengali speakers generally find spoken Rangpuri difficult to understand without prior exposure, confirming the two as distinct linguistic varieties.

Rangpuri and Kamtapuri are very closely related varieties — they share the ISO 639-3 code rkt and are spoken by the same Koch-Rajbangshi community of North Bengal. The distinction between them is primarily geographic: Rangpuri is more broadly associated with the Rangpur plains (spanning North Bengal and northern Bangladesh), while Kamtapuri is more specifically linked to the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts and the cultural heritage of the historic Kamata Kingdom.

Some linguists treat Kamtapuri and Rangpuri as dialects of the same language, while community advocates sometimes draw distinctions between them for cultural and political reasons. Both varieties are also closely related to Rajbongshi (ISO 639-3: rjs), forming a dialect continuum. The boundaries between these varieties are fuzzy, and speaker self-identification often depends on the district or community of origin.

Rangpuri is spoken across a wide area spanning North Bengal (West Bengal, India) — including the Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and North Dinajpur districts — and Assam (particularly the Dhubri and Bongaigaon areas). Across the border, Rangpuri is a significant community language in the Rangpur Division of northern Bangladesh, where the Koch-Rajbangshi community has maintained the language for generations.

The Rangpur region historically extended across the present-day India-Bangladesh border, and Rangpuri speakers on both sides share a common linguistic and cultural heritage. The North Bengal section of the speaker population lives in the Dooars and Terai foothills — a biodiversity-rich zone at the base of the Eastern Himalayas. There are also urban diaspora communities in Kolkata and other Indian cities.

The ISO 639-3 code for Rangpuri is rkt, shared with Kamtapuri. This shared code reflects the high degree of mutual intelligibility and shared linguistic features between the two varieties. In Glottolog, Rangpuri is documented under the languoid identifier "rang1268". The language is known by several names in scholarly literature, including Koch, Rajbangshi, Kamrupi, and Rajbansi, depending on the region and the source.

Rangpuri is listed separately from Standard Bengali (ISO 639-3: ben) and Assamese (ISO 639-3: asm) in SIL International's language databases, reflecting its distinct phonological and lexical character. It is also related to Rajbongshi (ISO 639-3: rjs), which is separately coded and associated with the same broader community. The Koch-Rajbangshi community has advocated for official recognition of the language in India, including its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.