Khamti people
The Tai Khamti (Khamti: တဲး ၵံးတီႈ), also known as the Hkamti Shan (Burmese: ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး; Chinese: 康迪人) or simply as Khamti, are a Tai ethnic group of India, China and Myanmar. The Tai-Khamti are followers of Theravada Buddhism. The Tai-Khamti have their own script for their language, known as 'Lik Tai', which originated from the Shan (Tai) script of Myanmar. Their mother tongue is known as Khamti language. It is a Tai language, closely related to Thai and Lao.
တဲး ၵံးတီ
景頗 | |
|---|---|
Diorama and wax figures of Tai Khamti people in Jawaharlal Nehru Museum, Itanagar | |
| Total population | |
| c. 212,890 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Myanmar | ~200,000 |
| India | 12,890 |
| China | 5,000 |
| Languages | |
| Khamti, Burmese | |
| Religion | |
| Theravada Buddhism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
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| Khamti people | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Chinese | 康迪人 | ||||||
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| Burmese name | |||||||
| Burmese | ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး | ||||||
| Thai name | |||||||
| Thai | ชาวไทคำตี่ | ||||||
According to 2001 census of India, the Tai Khamtis have a population of 12,890. In Myanmar their total population is estimated at 200,000 people.
The Tai Khamtis who inhabit the region around the Tengapani basin of Arunachal Pradesh were descendants of migrants who came during the eighteenth century from the Hkamti Long region, the mountainous valley of the Irrawaddy.