Idu

Idu, also known as Idu Mishmi or Digaro Mishmi, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Idu Mishmi people in Arunachal Pradesh, India. It is typically considered part of the Tani group within the broader Sino-Tibetan family, though exact classification varies among linguists. The language is mainly used in the Dibang Valley and surrounding areas, with smaller speaker communities in adjacent districts and among migrants in other parts of India.

There is no single standardized writing system for Idu. Various orthographies using Devanagari and Latin scripts have been developed for education and linguistic documentation, while much traditional knowledge remains oral. Idu has regional dialects or varieties, and mutual intelligibility can vary across communities.

The number of speakers is not always consistently reported, but the language is generally described as endangered or vulnerable due to continued language shift toward dominant regional languages such as Assamese and Hindi, especially among younger generations. Community efforts in documentation, language transmission programs, and cultural preservation projects aim to support intergenerational use and revitalization.

Linguistically, Idu shares features common to Tibeto-Burman languages, including rich verbal and nominal morphology and a tendency toward agglutinative affixation. Its lexicon reflects contact with neighboring languages and cultures. The Idu Mishmi people maintain a distinctive cultural heritage, including oral literature and traditional practices, with ongoing efforts to preserve both language and culture in the face of modernization and external linguistic influences.