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Accepted Paper:

Language maintenance and loss in North East India  
Stephen Morey (La Trobe University)

Paper short abstract:

Comparing languages of the Tai and Tibeto-Burman language family, this paper will study the effect of writing systems, orthography linguistic ecology and language history on the maintenance of minority languages in North East India.

Paper long abstract:

At the meeting point of South Asia with South East and East Asia, North East India is probably the most linguistically diverse area on the subcontinent, with long established communities speaking languages of four different families - Austroasiatic, Indo-European, Tai-Kadai and Tibeto-Burman and several language isolates.

We will compare the case of the Tai Ahom, former rulers of the Ahom kingdom that made up most of what is now Assam. Ahom has not been spoken as a mother tongue for perhaps 200 years, a decline that occurred despite its being the state language at one time. Today there is a large body of surviving manuscripts, and the language is still used in some rituals, and while both of these factors are foundational to a revival of the language that is ongoing, neither was able to maintain the language in its spoken form.

The various Tangsa languages (Tibeto-Burman), on the other hand, are largely unwritten and still healthy, despite small populations. At least 35 different Tangsa subgroups are found in India, with more across the border in Burma. Each has a distinct linguistic variety, many of which are mutually intelligible while others are not. Only one variety of Tangsa is known to have become moribund.

Since many Tangsas are now Christians, projects are underway to make Bible translations, necessitatating orthography and literacy development. Such programs would be in only a handful of the many varieties and this desire for standardisation is likely to lead to a significant loss of diversity.

Panel P36
Language death and language preservation in South Asia
  Session 1