Mizo language

Mizo is a language from the Tibeto-Burman family. It is mostly spoken in the Indian state of Mizoram, where it is both the official language and the most commonly used one. The Mizo people speak this language as their mother tongue, and even those from Mizo communities living outside Mizoram also use it.

Mizo
Mizo ṭawng or Duhlián ṭawng
Region	Mizoram, India Chin State and Sagaing Region, Myanmar Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh Other regions inhabited by the Mizo diaspora
Ethnicity	Mizo
Native speakers	1,000,000+[a] (2011–2022)[1][2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Central Tibeto-Burman (?) Kuki-Chin-Naga Kuki-Chin Central Mizo
Writing system	Latin (Mizo alphabet)[3][4] Bengali-Assamese script[3]
Official status
Official language in	Mizoram (India)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	lus
ISO 639-3	lus
Glottolog	lush1249
Regions where Mizo is educational, and official   Regions where Mizo is educational, but not official   Regions where Mizo is not official and not educational   Regions with significant Mizo speakers, and where Mizo is a working language
Mizo is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Besides Mizoram, Mizo is also spoken in other parts of India like Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, and Assam. Outside India, people speak Mizo in the Sagaing Region and Chin State of Myanmar, and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

The language is mainly based on the Lusei dialect, but it also includes words from other Mizo clans such as Hmar, Pawi, and others. This gives the language a mix of vocabulary from different Mizo groups.^[5]

The language is also known as Duhlian and Lushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among the Mizo people to be encountered by the British in the course of their colonial expansion.^[6]