LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 12 December 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Phonology of Uchai

Tamojoy Brahma, M.A., M.Phil.

Abstract

Uchai is a small ethnic group of Tripura speaking a dialectical variant of Kokborok, the language of the Tippera. The paper discusses the major features of Uchai phonology. The phonetic inventory of Uchai is discussed in the first three sections. While Section 1 and Section 2 present Uchai vowels and diphthongs respectively, Section 3 deals with Uchai consonants. In each of these Sections, the phonemic inventory of Uchai is identified and a list of contrastive minimal or near minimal pairs are offered. Moreover, each of the phonemes is described while discussing the distributional pattern in detail. In Section 4, the syllable structure of Uchai, its syllabic pattern, division and syllabification is dealt with. Section 5 discusses the consonant clusters and sequences and traces out the various positional occurrences. Section 6 deals with the supra-segmental phonemes, i.e., different tones perceptible in Uchai. Finally, Section 7, while concluding the paper focuses on the salient phonological and distributional features of Uchai.

Keywords: Uchai, phoneme, contrasting pairs, distribution, syllable, tone

The major tribal community of Tripura is variously called Tipra, Twipra and Tippera (Tipperah) with reference to the region wherein they have been settled for several centuries. The community speaks Kokborok. Kokborok, one of the Baric languages, has a number of dialects and one such dialectical variant is Uchai. The Uchai, spelt ‘Osuie’ by Thomas H. Lewin, (1869), is a small ethnic group living chiefly in the southern parts of Tripura and has a population of only 2,015 souls in the Census of 2001. Ethnically, however, Uchai is closer to Bru than to Tippera; their tradition makes Bru and Uchai brothers. Linguistically, Uchai belongs to the Bodo group of the Tibeto-Burman sub-family of Sino-Tibetan languages; they now speak a dialectical variant of Kokborok, the language of the Tippera.

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

Tamojoy Brahma, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Michael Madhusudan Dutta College
Sabroom 799 145, South Tripura
Tripura
India
kreativjoy@gmail.com
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