Bishnupriya Manipuri

Bishnupriya Manipuri, also known as Bishnupriya Meitei or simply as Bishnupriya, is an Indo-Aryan lect belonging to the Bengali–Assamese linguistic sub-branch. It is a creole of the Bengali language and the Meitei language (also called Manipuri language) and still retains its pre-Bengali features.

It is spoken in parts of the Indian states of Assam, Tripura, and Manipur, as well as in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, and uses the Bengali-Assamese script as its writing system. Bishnupriya Manipuri is a member of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages and evolved from Magadhi Prakrit; hence its origin is associated with the Magadha realm.

The Government of Tripura categorised Bishnnupriya Manipuri under the "Tribal Language Cell" of the State Council of Educational Research and Training.

Its speakers are given the "Other Backward Classes" status by the Assam Government and there is no legal status of the Bishnupriyas in Manipur. In the 2020s, Bishnupriya-speaking people started demanding that the Assam Government should give them the status of "indigenous people" of Assam and treat them the same as other indigenous communities of the state.

The Bishnupriya-speaking people in Bangladesh use Meitei language as their second language (L2).

According to Sahitya Akademi honorary fellow British linguist Ronald E. Asher and Christopher Moseley, Bishnupriya is a mixed language spoken by former Bengali immigrants, with substantial Meithei lexicon but basically Bengali structure and reduced morphology. According to linguist and historian Andrew Dalby, Bishnupriya (also known as "Mayang") is historically a form of the Bengali language once current in Manipur. According to American linguist David Bradley's research works published by the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in the Australian National University, Bishnupriya is spoken by former Bengali subjects, with some Manipuri lexicon and reduced morphology.