LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 1 January 2012
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.

HOME PAGE

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2012
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Bilingualism and Language Maintenance in Barak Valley, Assam -
A Case Study on Rongmei

Debajit Deb, Ph.D. Scholar (Linguistics)

A Scene from a Rongmei Village

Abstract

Rongmeis are one of the linguistic groups of Northeast India which constitute an important ethnic group in the region. They were considered as the aborigines of Barak Valley (this valley includes three districts of Assam, namely, Cachar, Karimgang and Hailakandi) and even today they are an integral part of the Barak Valley diaspora. Rongmei is one of the tribes of Zeliangrong Naga. Zeliangrong is a name given to the amalgamation of three tribes, namely, Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei. The Rongmei population has been divided into a number of exogamous clans: Kamei, Gonmei, Gangmei, Ruammei, Dahengmei, Golmei, Panmei and Reammei. Rongmei Nagas have their own language, and they also speak Sylheti Bengali. As the area has large Sylheti Bengali population, the lingua franca is Sylheti Bengali, and almost all the Rongmeis are bilinguals. It is also to be noted that those who are educated and who went out in search of jobs can also speak English and Hindi. It should be mentioned here that Bengali is the dominant language in BarakValley and Rongmei is highly influenced by Bengalis. For the fact, Rongmei people used to borrow some lexical items to fulfill the needs of their day to day communication.

The present paper attempts to discuss the issues of language maintenance by the bilingual Rongmeis of Barak Valley, Assam.

1. Introduction

This paper presents a case study exploring the language maintenance by the Rongmei community in Barak Valley, Assam. Over the past few decades, Barak Valley has been transformed from being predominantly bilingual to a dynamic potpourri of multilingual society. (Reference taken from Mishra,A.K. and Rajasree Dutta.1999. The Manipuries in Barak Valley: A Case Study of Language Maintenance. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, Vol. 22.1) There are many different languages spoken by the different linguistic communities in the Valley but most of them are considered as minority or lesser known languages because of their negligible numerical strength and some other socio-political reasons. One such community is the community of Rongmei speakers, who are bilinguals, i.e., along with their mother tongue, they are well versed in Bengali (an Indo–Aryan language). The present paper will show the issues of bilingualism and language maintenance in Barak Valley with special reference to Rongmei.

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

Debajit Deb, Ph.D. Scholar
Department of Linguistics
Assam University
Silchar 788011
Assam
debojit.rm@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.