Hrusso Aka Language | UNESCO x Royal Enfield | The Great Himalayan Exploration | Arunachal Pradesh

The Hrusso Akas, where the prefix ‘Hrusso’ refers to their language and ‘Aka’ refers to the tribe name, live in and around twenty-one villages in the Jamiri, Buragaon, Thrizino, and Bhalukpong administrative circles of the West Kameng district in Arunachal Pradesh. While they share a deep cultural affinity with the Koro Aka tribe of the East Kameng district, the two are separated by their different linguistic practices.

There are about 4000 estimated speakers of the Hrusso language today — most losing touch with their native tongue due to the popularity of Hindi in the state. Arunachal’s vast territory houses a multitude of tribes with their own distinct practices, customs and languages, such that a pidginized form of Hindi –– Arunachali Hindi –– soon became the link language to actively communicate with each other. Very few of the newer generation can fluently speak their native language, and the fact that most of these languages are orally passed down and have no scripts feeds fuel to the fire.

Aka lore suggests that their primaeval ancestor, Buslu Awu, gave them their script written on a buffalo skin, which they consumed, hence depriving themselves of a script. In 1999, the arrival of Vijay D’Souza, a Jesuit scholar, kickstarted the documentation of their language, following which the efforts of the community culminated in a romanised script made up of 55 alphabets (34 phonemes and 21 clusters).


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