Papers by Satarupa Dattamajumdar
The Buckingham journal of language and linguistics, Nov 12, 2013
Kanashi, a Tibeto-Burman language is spoken in the Malana district of Himachal Pradesh in India. ... more Kanashi, a Tibeto-Burman language is spoken in the Malana district of Himachal Pradesh in India. The present discussion concentrates on a particular grammatical phenomenon known as "reduplication". By definition the concept of Reduplication stands for repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or with partial change in the phonological or morphological structure and the copied part is affixed to the base element in order to bring some modification in the semantic interpretation of the base element or to convey some special meaning. (Dattamajumdar, 2001:3). This study of reduplication is a part of the grammatical study of the Kanashi language which is an ongoing work. The data of the present work has been collected from Kanashi mother tongue speaker, an inhabitant of Malana district of Himachal Pradesh. The data has been collected and presented here using International Phonetic Alphabet.
The Buckingham journal of language and linguistics, Dec 11, 2020
and East Khasi Hills Districts). Koches are found in West Bengal (Northern part) and also in Bang... more and East Khasi Hills Districts). Koches are found in West Bengal (Northern part) and also in Bangladesh. The speaker strength of Koch in India according to 2011 census is 36,434. Koch community is the bilingual speakers of Assamese, Bengali, Garo, Hindi, and English. Contact situations of Koch with Assamese and Bengali languages have made the language vulnerable to language shift. The UNESCO report mentions Koch as 'Definitely Endangered' 1. Koch has gained the status of a scheduled tribe in Meghalaya in 1987. Kondakov (2013) traces six distinct dialects of Koch, viz., Wanang, Koch-Rabha (Kocha), Harigaya, Margan, Chapra and Tintekiya. He (2013:24) states, "The relationship between the six Koch speech varieties are rather complex. They represent a dialect chain that stretches out from Koch-Rabha in the north to Tintekiya Koch in the south." This is diagrammatically represented as-Koch-Rabha(Kocha)→Wanang→Harigaya →Margan, Chapra→Tintekiya where the adjacent dialects exhibit more lexical similarity than those at the ends. Nine ethno-linguistic varieties of Koch (also mentioned in Kondakov, 2013:5) have been reported during field investigation. These are Harigaya, Wanang, Tintekiya, Margan, Chapra, Satpariya, Sankar, Banai and Koch Mandai. The Koch people practice animism as their traditional religion and also practice some of the practices of Hinduism in the form of Sakti worship. Some Koch-Rabha people also follow Christianity. 2 LINGUISTIC FILIATION OF KOCH Damant (1880:252) provides us with a classification of the Bodo group of languages which he termed as 'Kachári-Koch sub-family'. Koch is considered 1 Depending mainly upon the extent of intergenerational language transmission, UNESCO (Ref: http//www. unesco.org/languages. atlas/accessed on 02.09.2018: 13:20 hours) establishes six degrees of vitality/endangerment-'safe', 'vulnerable', 'definitely endangered', 'severely endangered', 'critically endangered' and 'extinct'.
The Buckingham journal of language and linguistics, Oct 14, 2015
Kanashi is identified as a Tibeto-Burman language of Sino-Tibetan language family. The language h... more Kanashi is identified as a Tibeto-Burman language of Sino-Tibetan language family. The language has been classified as a Kinauri language belonging to West-Himalayish group of Tibeto-Kanauri branch of Tibeto-Burman group. Kanashi has been referred by UNESCO as definitely endangered. Retrospective literature survey reveals that the language is yet to be documented properly. Therefore as a part of language documentation the phonological studies of Kanashi have been undertaken. The study of diphthongs of the language has been considered in the present paper. Diphthongs are the phonological segments where two vowels form clusters to form a single syllable. The data of the present paper has been collected from Kanashi native speakers during field investigation in Malana village of Himachal Pradesh. IPA has been used for data collection.
The Buckingham journal of language and linguistics, Jun 22, 2010
Reduplication is defined as repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or parti... more Reduplication is defined as repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or partially in order to bring modification in the semantic interpretation or to convey some special meaning. As observed in Lepcha, (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district of West Bengal) reduplicated expressives (structures which represent sounds or senses) may belong to the category of full reduplication as well as partial reduplication. Being an important structural phenomenon of the South Asian languages reduplicated expressives play a vital role in the system of communication and so demands a vivid description of its form and function with reference to the semantic interpretation. The data of the present paper has been collected from field investigation conducted in Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. INTRODUCTON: PRESENT STATUS AND FILIATION OF LEPCHA The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim and are mostly settled in Dzongu valley of north Sikkim. They are also settled in Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Apart from Sikkim and West Bengal, Lepcha is also spoken in Bhutan (lower valleys in the West and South) and Nepal (Mechi zone, Ilam district). Lepcha speech community is considered constitutionally a schedule tribe pertaining to the states of West Bengal and Sikkim in India. According to 2001 census, total Lepcha population in India was 50,629. The population strength of Lepcha in Sikkim is 35, 728 according to 2001 census and 14,721 in West Bengal according to 2001 census. [according to: http://www.census India.gov.in/ Census_Data_2001/ census_Data_ online / Language/partb.htm]. Lepchas are also settled in Bhutan (Samasti district)-the population strength being 2,000(2001 Van Driem) and in Nepal (Ilam district)-the population strength being 1,272 (1961 Census
Journal of Biosciences, Jul 1, 2019
The convergence of the scientific currents of archaeology, linguistics and human genetics in deal... more The convergence of the scientific currents of archaeology, linguistics and human genetics in dealing with the existence of the early Aryan people, that has been dealt with in this article, is a testimony to a qualitative interdisciplinary approach to the topic. By 'Aryans', here we mean the speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. Keeping in view the established parlance of the history of linguistic science (with special reference to India), the data fetched from the Vedic literature undoubtedly stands as the one and the only textual evidence regarding the presence of the Aryans and the establishment of the Aryan civilization. Philological evidence has suggested beyond all reasonable doubt that there was an influx of Aryan speakers into India, even though there are no written documents to substantiate this. The postulation of Indo-Iranian branch (of the Indo-European family of languages), to which belongs the Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Dardic, linguistically establishes a stage where Iranian and Indo-Aryan-speaking people had a common speech, and that the common region of the Indo-Iranian people has been located somewhere in Iran or southeastern part of Mesopotamia. The reconstruction of Indo-Iranian was done by comparing the morpho-phonological structures as attested in the Avestan (Av.) texts, Old Persian (OP) texts and Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) (Vedic Sanskrit) texts, keeping in view the sound lawstheir divergence and convergence. Some instances (Banerjee SR 1987 A Handbook of Sanskrit Philology. Calcutta: Sanskrit Book Depot (P) Ltd.) can be cited in this regard. Phonological rule: The Indo-European (IE) sonant nasals ṃ, ṇ [ a (m/n) in Indo-Iranian (IIr.). e.g. IE. * kṃtom [ IIr. *satam, Av. satəm, OIA. sátam Phonological rule: The Indo-European (IE) long vowels ā, ē, ō, and short vowels ă, ĕ, ŏ became short ă and long ā in Indo-Iranian (IIr.) e.g. IE. * mātēr [ IIr. *mātā [ OIA mātā, OP. mātā, Grk. mātēr Linguistics being a natural science and grammar, being most scientific among the traditional sciences (Staal JF 1974 The origin and development of linguistics in India; in Studies in the History of linguistics: Traditions and paradigms D Hymes (ed.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press), the insight of studying the phonological affinity across the languages and the proof of cognates as key concepts of linguistic divergence from a common source substantiates the linguistic relationship of Old Indo-Aryan with Avestan and Old Persian. Such an exercise also traces the time of separation of Iranian and Indo-Aryan as sometime between 1750 to 1500 B.C. Of the Indo-European languages, Sanskrit (in the form of Vedic literature) is one of the oldest members, which originated in Europe. The only possible way by which a language belonging to the Indo-European language family could be carried all the way to India was a migration of the people speaking the language (in its earlier form). (Burrow T 1975 The Early Aryans; in A cultural history of India AL Basham (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press) 'The Aryans whose presence in north western India is documented by the Rigveda had reached the territory they then occupied through a migration or rather a succession of migration from outside Indian subcontinent. The final stage of this migration cannot have been very far removed from the beginning of the composition of Rigveda' (ibid Burrow 1975 p 20). The study of the languages of the substrate cultures and their existent in the region truly bears the potential to focus the issue with more objectivity, which is yet to be attempted methodically and exhaustively. In the issue of linguistic substratum, the observation of Suniti Kumar Chatterji (Chatterji SK 1951 Kirata-Jana-Kriti. The Indo-Mongoloids: Their Contribution to the History and Culture of India p.4. Kolkata: The Asiatic Society) can be cited: 'Sanskrit in its origin is an Aryan or http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci
Quest : the journal of UGC-ASC Nainital, 2021
Indian Journal of History of Science, Dec 1, 2017
Linguistics or in other words the scientific study of languages in India is a traditional exercis... more Linguistics or in other words the scientific study of languages in India is a traditional exercise which is about three thousand years old and occupied a central position of the scientific tradition from the very beginning. The tradition of the scientific study of the languages of the Indo-Aryan language family which are mainly spoken in India's North and NorthWestern part was brought to light with the emergence of the genealogical study of languages by Sir William Jones in the 18 th c. But the linguistic study of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in NorthEastern part of India is of a much later origin. According to the 2011 census there are 45486784 people inhabiting in the states of NorthEast India. They are essentially the speakers of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages along with the Austro-Asiatic and Indo-Aryan groups of languages. Though 1% of the total population of India is the speaker of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages (2001 census) the study of the language and society of this group of people has become essential from the point of view of the socio-political development of the country. But a composite historical account of the scientific enquiries of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages, a prerequisite criterion for the development of the region is yet to be attempted. Therefore, the present paper essentially concentrates on tracing the history of the scientific studies of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in NorthEast region of India.
Reduplication is defined as repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or parti... more Reduplication is defined as repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or partially in order to bring modification in the semantic interpretation or to convey some special meaning. As observed in Lepcha, (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district of West Bengal) reduplicated expressives (structures which represent sounds or senses) may belong to the category of full reduplication as well as partial reduplication. Being an important structural phenomenon of the South Asian languages reduplicated expressives play a vital role in the system of communication and so demands a vivid description of its form and function with reference to the semantic interpretation. The data of the present paper has been collected from field investigation conducted in Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. INTRODUCTON: PRESENT STATUS AND FILIATION OF LEPCHA The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim and are mostly settled in Dzongu val...
Lepcha being a language of the Tibeto Burman language family exhibit structural traits of the of ... more Lepcha being a language of the Tibeto Burman language family exhibit structural traits of the of the kinship terminological system realised in the Indian subcontinent. Kinship terminology has been analysed by different scholars from different points of view like, generation, sex, affinity, collaterality, relative age, polarity, affinity, etc. The present paper examines the Lepcha kinship terminology keeping the existing structural criteria in view along with culture and language specific aspects into consideration. KeyWords:
IJDL. International journal of Dravidian linguistics, 2001
The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2015
Kanashi is identified as a Tibeto-Burman language of Sino-Tibetan language family. The language h... more Kanashi is identified as a Tibeto-Burman language of Sino-Tibetan language family. The language has been classified as a Kinauri language belonging to West-Himalayish group of Tibeto-Kanauri branch of Tibeto-Burman group. Kanashi has been referred by UNESCO as definitely endangered. Retrospective literature survey reveals that the language is yet to be documented properly. Therefore as a part of language documentation the phonological studies of Kanashi have been undertaken. The study of diphthongs of the language has been considered in the present paper. Diphthongs are the phonological segments where two vowels form clusters to form a single syllable. The data of the present paper has been collected from Kanashi native speakers during field investigation in Malana village of Himachal Pradesh. IPA has been used for data collection.
Ijdl International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 2001
Journal of Biosciences, 2019
The convergence of the scientific currents of archaeology, linguistics and human genetics in deal... more The convergence of the scientific currents of archaeology, linguistics and human genetics in dealing with the existence of the early Aryan people, that has been dealt with in this article, is a testimony to a qualitative interdisciplinary approach to the topic. By 'Aryans', here we mean the speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. Keeping in view the established parlance of the history of linguistic science (with special reference to India), the data fetched from the Vedic literature undoubtedly stands as the one and the only textual evidence regarding the presence of the Aryans and the establishment of the Aryan civilization. Philological evidence has suggested beyond all reasonable doubt that there was an influx of Aryan speakers into India, even though there are no written documents to substantiate this. The postulation of Indo-Iranian branch (of the Indo-European family of languages), to which belongs the Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Dardic, linguistically establishes a stage where Iranian and Indo-Aryan-speaking people had a common speech, and that the common region of the Indo-Iranian people has been located somewhere in Iran or southeastern part of Mesopotamia. The reconstruction of Indo-Iranian was done by comparing the morpho-phonological structures as attested in the Avestan (Av.) texts, Old Persian (OP) texts and Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) (Vedic Sanskrit) texts, keeping in view the sound lawstheir divergence and convergence. Some instances (Banerjee SR 1987 A Handbook of Sanskrit Philology. Calcutta: Sanskrit Book Depot (P) Ltd.) can be cited in this regard. Phonological rule: The Indo-European (IE) sonant nasals ṃ, ṇ [ a (m/n) in Indo-Iranian (IIr.). e.g. IE. * kṃtom [ IIr. *satam, Av. satəm, OIA. sátam Phonological rule: The Indo-European (IE) long vowels ā, ē, ō, and short vowels ă, ĕ, ŏ became short ă and long ā in Indo-Iranian (IIr.) e.g. IE. * mātēr [ IIr. *mātā [ OIA mātā, OP. mātā, Grk. mātēr Linguistics being a natural science and grammar, being most scientific among the traditional sciences (Staal JF 1974 The origin and development of linguistics in India; in Studies in the History of linguistics: Traditions and paradigms D Hymes (ed.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press), the insight of studying the phonological affinity across the languages and the proof of cognates as key concepts of linguistic divergence from a common source substantiates the linguistic relationship of Old Indo-Aryan with Avestan and Old Persian. Such an exercise also traces the time of separation of Iranian and Indo-Aryan as sometime between 1750 to 1500 B.C. Of the Indo-European languages, Sanskrit (in the form of Vedic literature) is one of the oldest members, which originated in Europe. The only possible way by which a language belonging to the Indo-European language family could be carried all the way to India was a migration of the people speaking the language (in its earlier form). (Burrow T 1975 The Early Aryans; in A cultural history of India AL Basham (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press) 'The Aryans whose presence in north western India is documented by the Rigveda had reached the territory they then occupied through a migration or rather a succession of migration from outside Indian subcontinent. The final stage of this migration cannot have been very far removed from the beginning of the composition of Rigveda' (ibid Burrow 1975 p 20). The study of the languages of the substrate cultures and their existent in the region truly bears the potential to focus the issue with more objectivity, which is yet to be attempted methodically and exhaustively. In the issue of linguistic substratum, the observation of Suniti Kumar Chatterji (Chatterji SK 1951 Kirata-Jana-Kriti. The Indo-Mongoloids: Their Contribution to the History and Culture of India p.4. Kolkata: The Asiatic Society) can be cited: 'Sanskrit in its origin is an Aryan or http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci
Quest-The Journal of UGC-HRDC Nainital
Indian Journal of History of Science, Mar 1, 2019
The scientific enquiry of language in India is an ancient exercise which started with the interpr... more The scientific enquiry of language in India is an ancient exercise which started with the interpretation and standardization of the correct recitation and pronunciation of the Vedic texts. It can be traced back to 'Prātiśākhyas' (600-500 BCE) and later to Pāini's work 'Aādhyāyī', a text on Sanskrit Grammar belonging to the 5 th century BCE. Further, the scientific study of the languages of the Indo-Aryan family spoken in north and northwestern part of India was brought to light in the genealogical study of languages by Sir William Jones with his famous deliberation on 'comparative philology' in 1786. But the history of the science of language/s or in other words 'linguistic historiography' started drawing attention only in the twentieth century when history of science emerged as a separate organized field of study. The present paper traces the history and development of linguistic science in the Indian context with a focus on Tibeto-Burman languages like Bodo, Garo and Kokborok spoken in northeastern region of India.
The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics
The Koch language is spoken in the states of Assam (Goalpara, Nagaon, Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Chirang,... more The Koch language is spoken in the states of Assam (Goalpara, Nagaon, Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Chirang, Bongaigao, Barpeta, Baksa, Udalguri, Karbi Anglong, Golaghat districts), Meghalaya (West Garo Hills, South-West Garo Hills, South Garo Hills and East Khasi Hills Districts). Koches are found in West Bengal (Northern part) and also in Bangladesh. The speaker strength of Koch in India according to 2011 census is 36,434. Koch community is the bilingual speakers of Assamese, Bengali, Garo, Hindi, and English. Contact situations of Koch with Assamese and Bengali languages have made the language vulnerable to language shift. The UNESCO report mentions Koch as ‘Definitely Endangered’1. Koch has gained the status of a scheduled tribe in Meghalaya in 1987. Kondakov (2013) traces six distinct dialects of Koch, viz., Wanang, Koch-Rabha (Kocha), Harigaya, Margan, Chapra and Tintekiya. He (2013:24) states, “The relationship between the six Koch speech varieties are rather complex. They represent a d...
The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics, Nov 12, 2013
Kanashi, a Tibeto-Burman language is spoken in the Malana district of Himachal Pradesh in India. ... more Kanashi, a Tibeto-Burman language is spoken in the Malana district of Himachal Pradesh in India. The present discussion concentrates on a particular grammatical phenomenon known as "reduplication". By definition the concept of Reduplication stands for repetition or copying of a word or a syllable either exactly or with partial change in the phonological or morphological structure and the copied part is affixed to the base element in order to bring some modification in the semantic interpretation of the base element or to convey some special meaning. (Dattamajumdar, 2001:3). This study of reduplication is a part of the grammatical study of the Kanashi language which is an ongoing work. The data of the present work has been collected from Kanashi mother tongue speaker, an inhabitant of Malana district of Himachal Pradesh. The data has been collected and presented here using International Phonetic Alphabet.
IJDL. International journal of Dravidian …, Jan 1, 2001
Praci bhasavijnan: Indian journal of …, Jan 1, 2001
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Papers by Satarupa Dattamajumdar