Khamti people

Tai Khamti
တဲး ၵံးတီ 景頗
Diorama and wax figures of Tai Khamti people in Jawaharlal Nehru Museum, Itanagar
Total population
c. 212,890
Regions with significant populations
 Myanmar~200,000
 India12,890
 China5,000
Languages
Khamti, Burmese
Religion
Theravada Buddhism, Tai folk religion
Related ethnic groups
Khamti people
Chinese name
Chinese康迪人
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinKhamti
Burmese name
Burmeseခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး
Thai name
Thaiชาวไทคำตี่

The Tai Khamti (Khamti: တဲး ၵံးတီႈ), also known as the Hkamti Shan (Burmese: ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး; Chinese: 康迪人) or simply as Khamti, are a Tai ethnic group of India, China and Myanmar. The Tai-Khamti are followers of Theravada Buddhism. The Tai-Khamti have their own script for their language, known as 'Lik Tai', which originated from the Shan (Tai) script of Myanmar.[1] Their mother tongue is known as Khamti language. It is a Tai language, closely related to Thai and Lao.

According to 2001 census of India, the Tai Khamtis have a population of 12,890.[2] In Myanmar their total population is estimated at 200,000 people.[3]

The Tai Khamtis who inhabit the region around the Tengapani basin of Arunachal Pradesh were descendants of migrants who came during the eighteenth century from the Shan region of Hkamti Long, in the western source of the Irrawaddy River Valley.

  1. ^ Roland J. L. Breton (1997). Atlas of the Languages and Ethnic Communities of South Asia. SAGE Publications. p. 188. ISBN 0-8039-9367-6.
  2. ^ "India - Census of India 2001, Data Highlights - The Scheduled Tribes, Arunachal Pradesh". censusindia.gov.in. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  3. ^ Iglis D (2007). Nominal Structure in Tai Khamti. Payap University. p. 1.