For a more accurate map of the Atong-speaking area

The map Ethnologue uses to indicate the area where Atong is spoken, URL: https://www.ethnologue.com/language/aot/map, is, I think, not entirely accurate. According to my own research, Atong is also spoken in the streaming area of he Symsang River (see van Breugel, 2014:1, 2019:1)  within the South Garo Hills District, which more to the west of the aread indicated on Ethnologue's map. Atong roughly starts in the village of Nongal Bibra in the north of the district, and is spoken all the way down to Baghmara, roughly along the road between Williamnagar and Banghamara drawn in yellow on Ethnologue's map. Both within the Garo and Kahsi Hills, Atong-speaking villages occur side by side with villages speaking other languages (dialects of Garo, Lyngam etc.). It even occurs that villages are split between language communities. The village of Shallang (a.k.a. Cha'lang in Atong and Garo) in the West Kahsi Hills District for example, is spilt in two: the Lyngam speakers living on one side of the main road, and the Atong/Garo speakers living on the other side. Therefore, it is good to note that any map indicating the extent of the Atong-speaking area will necessarily cover places where other languages are (also) spoken. Maps of the Atong language area have been published in van Breugel (2014, 2019, 2020). These maps are not very precise about the situation in Bangladesh, given that the author did not do research on Atong in that country.

References

van Breugel, Seino. 2014. A grammar of Atong. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

van Breugel, Seino. 2019. Atong Texts: Glossed, translated and annotated narratives in a Tibeto-Burman language of Meghalaya, Northeast India. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

van Breugel, Seino. 2020a. New perspectives on Atong kinship terms. In: Q. Marak & Sarit K. Chaudhuri (eds.). The cultural heritage of Meghalaya. Oxford, New York: Routledge. 205-250.