Nagamese creole

Not to be confused with Naga languages.

Nagamese
Naga Pidgin
Native toNortheast India
EthnicityNaga people
Native speakers
4 million (2024)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3nag
Glottolognaga1394

Nagamese ("Naga Pidgin") is an Assamese-lexified creole language. Depending on location, it has also been described and classified as an "extended pidgin" or "pidgincreole".[2][3] Spoken natively by an estimated 4 million people in the Indian northeastern state of Nagaland, it developed primarily as a means of marketplace and trade communication. Despite the official language of the state being English, Nagamese functions as a lingua franca and is spoken by nearly all Nagaland inhabitants. It is also used in mass media as well as in official state-regulated domains, including news and radio stations, education and political and governmental spheres.[4][3] Nagamese is classified as a creole as, despite it being spoken as an "extended pidgin" by the majority of speakers across Nagaland, it is also spoken as the native mother tongue of the Dimasa community in Nagaland's largest city, Dimapur.[4]

  1. ^ Nagamese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Bhattacharjya, Dwijen (1994). "Nagamese: Pidgin, Creole or Creoloid?". California Linguistic Notes. 24 (2): 34–50. ProQuest 85612728.
  3. ^ a b Velupillai, Viveka (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages. An Introduction. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 266.
  4. ^ a b Bhattacharjya, Dwijen (2001). The genesis and development of Nagamese: Its social history and linguistic structure (Thesis). City University of New York. ProQuest 304688285.