The Zou tribe is a less well-known indigenous community living along Indo-Burma frontier. In India, Zous are officially recognized as a “Scheduled Tribe” within the state of Manipur (See List of Scheduled Tribes of India, Modification 1956). Though there are no official figures, the Zou population in India is estimated to be around 20,000 to 25,000. The community is concentrated in Churachandpur and Chandel districts of Manipur in North-East India. The Zou language is one of the prescribed MIL (Major Indian Languages) in the high schools and higher secondary schools of Manipur. The Zou community has a script of its own known as “Zolai”. Zou youngsters learn their script as a piece of curiosity; but the Roman script is the official script used by the Zomis of Burma and India. Bible translations in the Zomi language too adopted the Roman script and it served their purpose very well. The bulk of Zo people or Zomis lived in the Chin Hills of Upper Burma. With a slight variation in spelling convention, the Burmese Zous called themselves “Zo“. The Indian Zou and Burmese Zo belong to the same dialectal community. The Zou dialectal group is only a branch of the larger Chin-Kuki-Lushai ethnic group. Like their ethnic Mizo cousins, the Zous are a tribal Christian community undergoing profound social change and modernization since mid-20th century.

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