Surjapuri people

The Surjapuri people are an ethnolinguistic indigenous minority community primarily found in the eastern Gangetic plains of South Asia. They are concentrated in parts of northern Bihar and northern West Bengal in India and have populations in adjacent districts of Bangladesh and eastern Nepal. The group is closely associated with the Surjapuri language, an Indo-Aryan tongue of the Bengali-Assamese branch, and the community includes both Muslim and Hindu adherents.

The name "Surjapuri" is commonly understood to derive from "Surjapur" or "Siripuri", historical toponyms used in colonial and local records for parts of the present Kishanganj and adjoining areas. Older linguists and colonial administrators sometimes recorded related local names such as "Surjapuriya", "Siripuria", "Surjayi" or "Kishangunjia".

The Surjapuri community is defined largely by its speech of the Surjapuri language (ISO 639-3: sjp), an Indo-Aryan language classified within the Eastern group and closely related to the Bengali-Assamese cluster. Surjapuri exhibits lexical and structural influence from neighboring languages such as Bengali and Assamese and displays typological features that have been discussed in descriptive studies. According to the 2011 Indian census the number of Surjapuri speakers recorded was over two million; later community surveys and regional studies estimate a higher figure in the mid millions.

Surjapuri speakers and the related ethnic community are mainly concentrated in the Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar and Araria districts of northeastern Bihar and in parts of Uttar Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri divisions of northern West Bengal. Smaller Surjapuri populations live across the nearby international frontiers in Thakurgaon District of Bangladesh and in Jhapa District of southeastern Nepal. Local settlement is largely rural with market towns serving as cultural and commercial hubs.