Wancho language


Wancho is a Konyak language of north-eastern India. Wancho is spoken in 36 villages of southeastern Longding district, Tirap district, Arunachal Pradesh, as well as in Assam and Nagaland. Alternate names include
Banpara Naga, Joboka, Jokoba.

People

Wancho is spoken by the Wancho people who have a population of 56,866 according to a 2011 consensus, and mainly populate the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Although a minority, these inhabitants have a rich culture with rituals, ceremonial practices, religion, and various dialects of Wancho.

Dialects

Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Wancho.
There is significant variation among the dialects spoken in the upper and lower regions.

Orthography

Wancho is generally written in either Devanagari or Latin script.
Between 2001 and 2012 teacher Banwang Losu devised a unique alphabetic Wancho script which is taught in some schools. In 2019, the script was officially published into the Unicode Standard in version 12.