Context: The Kamtapur Progressive Party has again raised its demand for recognition of Kamtapuri language and warned the government to go on democratic protests, if the language is not included in the 8th Schedule.

Kamatapuri Language:

• Kamtapuri, Rangpuri or Rajbangshi is a Assamese-Bengali language spoken by the Koch-Rajbongshi people in India, Rajbanshi and Tajpuria in Nepal, and in Bangladesh. Many are bilingual in either Bengali or Assamese.
• The main dialects are Western Rajbanshi, Central Rajbanshi, and Eastern Rajbanshi.
• The Central dialect has the majority of speakers and is quite uniform. There are publications in this language. The Western dialect has more diversity. Lexical similarity is 77 to 89% between the three dialects. Rajbonshi shares 48 to 55% of its vocabulary with Assamese and Bengali and 43 to 49% with Maithili and Nepali.

Kamatapur:

Kamtapur is a proposed state of India in the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts in the existing Indian state of West Bengal and parts of Assam and the Kishanganj district in Bihar.