LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:6 June 2013
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.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

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

Sound System of Khoibu

Laishram Bijenkumar Singh, Ph.D. Research Scholar

1.0. Introduction

Khoibu is a language that belongs to the Kuki Chin Naga group of Tibeto-Burman family (Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III Part II, 1903). It is an undocumented and highly endangered Tibeto-Burman language being spoken by Khoibu tribe of Manipur. The literal meaning of this tribe is derived from khoi and pu, where khoi means bee and pu means owner. Thus the term refers to the speakers of this language as the ones who own bees, beehives and honey in the indigenous land of Khoibu territory. It is spoken by around 2800 speakers in Chandel district of Manipur. There are eight Khoibu villages in Manipur, viz., Khoibu Khullen, Biyang, Yamolching, Nungourok, Khamsing, Salemram, Thallem and Thawai.

The following analysis is based on a lexicon containing around 500 words which I elicited from Mosyel Syelsaangthyel Khaling (50 years), a native speaker of Khoibu from Khamsing village and some additional data from Donyaisen Hongsha (37 years), a native speaker of Khoibu from Khoibu Khullen. In the first section I provide an inventory of vowel phonemes along with their distribution. This is followed by consonants and allophones along with their distribution. In the second section, consonant cluster formation and syllabic structure of the language are illustrated with appropriate examples.

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

Laishram Bijenkumar Singh, M.A., Ph.D.Scholar, NET
Department of Linguistics
Assam University
Silchar-788011
Assam
India
bijenkumar1@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.