LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 8 : 7 July 2008
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.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

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Kinship and Gender in Meiteiron

Th. Indrashakhi Devi, Ph.D. Candidate

Meitei Woman

Introduction

Kinship system is the system of organizing people who are relatives into different kinds of groups. This system is bound to have an important effect upon the ways in which relatives are labeled in a given society. Therefore kinship terminologies are the reflections of positions that individuals occupy within their society. In particular, kinship terminology is affected by and adjusted to the kinds of kinship groups that exist is a society.

Kinship System in Meiteiron

Kinship system is also a very important aspect of Meiteiron (known also as Manipuri or Meithei language, spoken primarily in the state of Manipur in India, but also in other states of India as well as in Myanmar and Bangladesh) and in which gender relations are manifested.

The kinship terms in Meiteiron are distinguished primarily on the basis of age, generation and gender. Kinship terminologies reflect the patterned interactions of related individuals. Here, in this article, kinship system of Meitei is presented with an attempt to show how gender relations are crystallised in the system.

Meiteiron kinship terminology is interesting in the sense that kinship terms are different for the same person based upon the gender of the speaker and the gender of the linked relative. For example, an elder cousin-brother is referred to as well as addressed by using it?y, ibai - 'elder male cousin' respectively by women and men. And the term im?w - 'niece' is used for the brother's daughter by a female ego and for the sister's daughter by a male by male ego. Therefore we can approach the problem of kinship terminologies with reference to the following three determinants:

  1. Gender of the person addressed or/and referred to
  2. Gender of the liking relative
  3. Gender of ego

The gender differentiation in kinship terminology is the case of reference terms than in address terms. This may be due to the fact that the address terms undergo changes more easily with the societal changes.

Meitei Family Festival
Cheiraoba: The Manipur New Year Feast

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

Kinship and Gender in Meiteiron | The Use of Layout in Malay Language Newspapers' Front Pages | Exploring Ethnolinguistic Vitality - A Case Study of Lepchas in Dzongu Valley | Tamil Advertisements in Television | The Use of Second Person Pronoun in Tamil and Telugu | Survival of the Minority Kristang Language in Malaysia | Meaning and Technique in Walt Whitman's Poetry | Syntactic Errors in English Committed by Indian Undergraduate Students | Form and Function of Disorders in Verbal Narratives - A Doctoral Dissertation | Problems of Assamese Speakers Learning Manipuri | Stylistic Changes in English-Arabic Translation - With Reference to BBC News Texts | HOME PAGE of June 2008 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

Th. Indrashakhi, Ph.D. Candidate
Tronglaobi Makha Leikai
Moirang Bazar -795133
Bishnupur District
Manipur
India
Indrashakhi_22@yahoo.co.in

 
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