Centre for Endangered Languages, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan

Turi is an endangered linguistic community in India that belongs to the Austro-Asiatic language family and is very akin to the Santhali language. Turi community people can be found in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Odisa.

Population:- Turi population in India is nearly 3.5 lakhs, where only 2000 of them speak in their mother tongue, and the rest have shifted to either Sadri or the dominant language of there are.

Survey Area:- The present study is based on the Turi community live in Kalna and Paule village in Maldah district. The field-surveyor team visited the Turi community in Bandhpukurpara, Kolapukurpara and Karjana in Bardhaman district and Kamarpara and Nichupara in Birbhum district earlier. 17-18 Turi families live in Kalna village and 42 Turi families live in Paul village.

Language:- Turi is a severely endangered language. Even the older generations have restricted themselves to using the language only at home domain. However, even in the home domain, they prefer to use Bangla instead of Turi. They have lost most of their vocabulary. Most of the children are not at all familiar with their mother tongue. They have a negative attitude towards their language and feel that their ethnic, linguistic identity is keeping them in isolation in the villages of West Bengal. Thus, the young generation people initially denied their linguistic identity to the surveyor team and instead claimed Bangla as their mother tongue.

 Clan and Society:- Turis are divided into two clans, namely, surja and kush. The people belong from kush clan consider kush tree as their ancestor. Their society is patriarchal, where husband or the senior male person is the head of the family. Their marriage is allowed only with the same clan people. Their society do not allow polygamy or more than one marriage.

Festivals and Rituals:- Turi community people have lost their ethnic culture, festivals and rituals. They have adopted the dominant Bengali group’s culture and observe durgapuja, kalipuja, diwali following the neighbourhood Bengali families. Except Jeeta Ashtami pujo and karma pujo they could not name their ethnic festivals even. They worship manasa devi and offer duck to the deity. However they follow some rituals specific to their community. After five days of the birth of a new-born, male and female members of the family shave themselves, which is known as jatan. The rice-ceremony is known as bhaat-chuyani in their community. Female babies’ bhaat-chuyani happens after 3 months of birth, while male babies’ bhaa-tchuyani happens after 5 months of birth.

Literacy:- Literacy rate is very poor among people. Young people go to school and continue their study either in Bangla medium or in Hindi medium.

Occupation:- People are mostly engaged in farming and agriculture. However, they do not have their own land and does the farming as a daily-wage labor in others land.

Concluding Remarks:- Turi is an endangered tribe in West Bengal, who resides in several villages of West Bengal over many decades and lost their ethnic linguistic and cultural identity.