LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:7 July 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
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         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
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Phonological Adaptations of Some English Loanwords in Sylheti

Kh. Dhiren Singha & Md. Isthaque Ahmed
Assam University, Silchar

Abstract

Sylheti is one of the dialects of Bengali which is mainly spoken in the Sylhet district of present Bangladesh. It is also spoken in the Northeastern part of India particularly in the Barak Valley of South Assam, Tripura, United Kingdom, United States and some of the Gulf countries in the Asian sub-continent. There are 11 million speakers of Sylheti throughout the globe, including 8,000,000 speakers in Bangladesh (Mikeal, 2007). Like many other languages/dialects of the world, the contemporary Sylheti borrowed a large number of loanwords from English language in different semantic domains particularly name of objects, cultural, administrative, official, and technical terms to fulfill their day to day communication. However, when they borrow lexical items from English, lot of phonological changes taken place to fit into the phonological structure of the Sylheti. So the present paper is a humble attempt to discuss the phonological adaptation of English loanwords in Sylheti spoken in Karimganj district of South Assam.

Keywords: Sylheti, Bengali, Indo-Aryan, South Assam, loanwords, phonological adaptation

1. Introduction

The study of loanwords has become prevalent during the past decade. For example, a recent issue of Lingua in 2006 was devoted to loanwords, while a special issue of the Journal of East Asian Linguistics (2008, issue 4) concentrated on the discussion of loanword phonology in East Asian languages. Interestingly, most recent studies on loanwords have focused on how the segments of the source languages are incorporated into the recipient languages (e.g. Kang 2003, Kenstowicz 2001, Yip, M. 1993). However, it is comparatively less well studied area in the languages of Indian sub-continent neglecting the fact that most of the Indian languages borrowed a large number of loanwords from English in different semantic domains as English became the common donor language in the globe. Similarly, the contemporary Sylheti borrowed a large number of loanwords from English language in different semantic domains particularly name of objects, cultural, administrative, official, and technical terms to fulfill their day to day communication. However, when they borrow lexical items from English, lot of phonological changes taken place to fit into the phonological structure of the Sylheti. So the present paper is a humble attempt to discuss the phonological adaptation of English loanwords in Sylheti spoken in Karimganj district of South Assam. More specifically, the present paper focuses on the basic strategies that Sylheti used in adapting the foreign elements in terms of phonemes or syllables.

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

Kh. Dhiren Singha, M.Phil., Ph.D.
Department of Linguistics
Assam University
Silchar-788011
Assam
India
dhirensingha@rediffmail.com

Md. Isthaque Ahmed, PhD Scholar
Department of Linguistics
Assam University
Silchar-788011
Assam
India
isthiaquebdp@gmail.com

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