Keeping the Khamyang Tongue Alive in Upper Assam through Documentation and Community Revival

Khamyang is a Southwestern Tai language spoken by a small Buddhist community in Upper Assam in North East India. Although the Khamyang people number roughly one thousand or slightly more, only a handful of elderly villagers in Pawoimukh near Margherita in Tinsukia district still use the language with full command, and recent field reports suggest that only one person remains fully proficient in speaking, reading and writing it. The historical background of the Khamyang community, the linguistic character of the language and the social forces that have pushed it to the edge of extinction is written. It then reviews the major efforts to document the language, from the colonial Linguistic Survey of India to the detailed grammatical and textual work of Stephen Morey, the oral literature collection supported by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme and the digital archiving initiative completed in 2026. Finally, it discusses community led revitalisation measures such as evening language classes, script workshops and textbook production, and it evaluates their prospects against established frameworks of language vitality. The article argues that documentation has secured a valuable record of Khamyang, but that the survival of the language as a living medium depends on sustained intergenerational transmission, institutional support and the continued commitment of the community itself.