LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:8 August 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

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         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
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         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Sound System of Hawar Dialect in Dimasa

Pronomita Rajioung

Abstract

This paper discusses the Phonological Features in Hawar dialect of Dimasa spoken in Cachar district of Assam. Dimasa belongs to Bodo-Garo group of Tibeto-Burman language family. The paper discussed the phonological features of Hawar dialect of Dimasa into two sections: segmental and supra-segmental. The segmental section includes phonemes of vowel and consonant, description and distribution of vowel and consonant, diphthongs, consonant sequence, consonant cluster, and syllable structure in Hawar dialect of Dimasa. The supra-segmental includes two register tones: high tone and low tone.

Keywords: Hawar, Dimasa, Assam, Cachar, Bodo-Garo.

Introduction

Dimasa is one of the multi-cultured people of North-East India. They have well-preserved rituals and rich in history. They are racially Indo-Mongoloid origin (Barpujari, 2007) and linguistically they belong to Bodo-Garo group of the Tibeto-Burman language family (Lewis, Simons and Fennig, 2013). The term Dimasa means ‘son of the great river’ where ‘di’ means water ‘ma’ means big and ‘sa’ means son (Singha, 2007). Literally, they are called ‘son of the mighty Brahmaputra river’. According to 2001 census, the population of Dimasa in Assam is recorded 110,976 speakers. Based on geographical distribution, Dimasa has four main four main dialects namely Hasao, Hawar, Dembra and Dijuwa. Hasao is standard dialect spoken in Dima Hasao (formerly Narth Cachar Hills) district of Assam. Hawar is spoken in Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts of Assam and bordering areas of Mizoram and Manipur state. Dembra is spoken in Hojai district of Assam and Dijuwa is spoken in Karbi Anglong district of Assam and Dimapur district of Nagaland.

This is the first attempt to analyze the phonological features of Hawar dialect in Dimasa. In this paper, we will discuss the segmental and supra-segmental features of the dialect.

1. Segmental Inventories

This section presents the vowels, consonants, diphthongs, consonant sequence, consonant clusters and syllable structures.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Pronomita Rajioung
Research Scholar
Department of Linguistics
Assam University, Silchar
Mobile: 8811883997
rpronomita87@gmail.com
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