LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:2 February 2014
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.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Tense System of the Mech (Bodo) Language of North Bengal

Rujab Muchahary, M.A.

Abstract The Bodos of North Bengal are known as Mech under the record of Government of West Bengal. Racially they belong to Mongoloid stock and linguistically to the Tibeto- Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. Their concentration is found throughout the districts of Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, some parts of Cooach Behar of West Bengal. They have been maintaining their culture and language from the time immemorial. Tense is a type of grammatical category which indicates situation of time i.e. past, present and future. It is closely related to action of verb. Morphologically, this language has three distinct tenses, viz., past, present and future. They use tense markers {-bai, -a, -m?n} for past, {-?, -d??} for present and {-n?ch?i, -nai} for future tense. The tense markers are normally suffixes. The main objective of this paper is to find out the different types of tense, as well as case markers used by the Mech people of North Bengal.

Key words: Mech (Bodo) language, Tense, Past tense, Present tense, Future tense, tense markers

1.0. Introduction

The Bodos are known with different names in different places. Sir Edward Gait describes, the Bodos are identical with the people called Mech in Goalpara and North Bengal. In the Brahmaputra valley of Assam the Kacharis call themselves Bodo fisa (sons of the Bodo). In the north Kachar Hills they call themselves Dimasa (History of Assam, 2008). According to Charu Chandra Sanyal, the Bodos of Jalpaiguri and Terai call themselves as Mech because they settled on the banks of the river ‘Mechi’ (The Meches and the Totos, 1973.). The Government of West Bengal recognizes the Bodos of North Bengal as Mech. Racially they belong to Mongoloid origin and linguistically to the Tibeto-Burman sub-family within the Sino-Tibetan language family.

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

Rujab Muchahary
Assistant Professor
Department of Bodo
Rangia College
P.O: Rangia 781354
Kamrup
Assam
India
rujab31@gmail.com
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