Sal

The Sal, or Brahmaputran, languages form a Tibeto-Burman branch around the Brahmaputra valley, spoken across northeast India, Bangladesh, northern Myanmar and adjacent Yunnan. They comprise Bodo–Garo, Konyak and the Kachinic branch headed by Jingpho; the group is named after the shared root sal, meaning sun.

Most of these tongues long remained without writing. The exception is Meitei, the language of the Manipur valley, whose Meitei Mayek letters appear on sixth-century coins and whose literature runs from the first-century epic Numit Kappa to the Loyumba Shinyen, a law code finalised in 1100. After king Pamheiba adopted Bengali-Assamese letters in the early 1700s, the old script fell out of use for several generations.