The present paper aims at providing a preliminary description of the endangered linguistic identity of the Rabha community of West Bengal through historical point of view. According to UNESCO (ISO 639-3), this is a severely endangered language in India. Rabha consists of an indigenous community in the northern part of West Bengal. Historically major population of Rabha community were distributed around different regions of North Bengal, particularly in the districts of Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Dinajpur and the plain areas of Darjeeling district and Cooch Behar. Other than North Bengal, they are now living at Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Goalpara, Kamrup, Shonitpur and Darrang districts of Assam; and West Garo-Hills district of Meghalaya and Bangladesh. They are also scattered in a small number almost in all other districts of Assam and six other states of North Eastern India. The 2011 census of India put the number of speakers at 31,119. There are many debates on the origin; ethnic identity of the Rabha, in spite of that it is agreed by most of the scholars, and historians that the Rabha originated from Rabha, a tribal community belonging to Tibeto-Burman language family (Grierson, 1903).
Key words: linguistic identity, Rabha community, endangered language, cultural history.
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