The Turung language is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language, closely related to Singpho, spoken in seven villages in central Assam. Many older Turungs maintain that their parents and grandparents spoke Tai, and that the Turung community was once Tai speaking, whereas the present-day Turungs are a mixed community. In the late 18th or early 19th centuries the Turung lived with the Singpho and adopted their language. At least a substratum of Tai influence remains in lexicon, phonology and syntax. Furthermore, a complex pattern of contact between Singpho and Tai languages was present for several centuries before the Turung adopted the Singpho language. There are therefore several strata of contact between the two language families.