LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 17:6 June 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
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Phonology of Bongcher

Sayan Chaudhuri

Abstract

Bongcher is a small ethnic group of Tripura speaking a dialectal variant of Halam. The paper discusses the major features of Bongcher phonology. The phonetic inventory of Bongcher is discussed in the first three sections. While Section 1 and Section 2 present Bongcher vowels and diphthongs respectively, Section 3 deals with Bongcher consonants. In each of these Sections, the phonemic inventory of Bongcher is identified and a list of contrastive minimal or near minimal pairs are offered. Moreover, each of the phonemes is described while discussing the distributional pattern in detail. In Section 4, the syllable structure of Bongcher is dealt with. Section 5 discusses the consonant clusters and sequences and traces out the various positional occurrences. Section 6 deals with the supra-segmental phonemes, i.e., different tones perceptible in Bongcher. Finally, Section 7, while concluding the paper focuses on the salient phonological and distributional features of Bongcher.

Keywords: Bongcher, phoneme, contrasting pairs, distribution, syllable, tone]

Bongcher, a Sub-tribe of Halam

The Bongcher, also referred as Bongshel or Bongshi, is a sub-tribe of Halam, which has been derived from “bong” meaning “to cut into parts” and “cher” meaning “to sprout.” Linguistically, Bongcher is one of the dialects of Halam language which belongs to the old Kuki sub-group of the Kuki-Chin group under Tibeto-Burman languages (Sailo, 1992). The paper discusses the major features of Bongcher phonology. The phonemic inventory of Bongcher consists of thirty five phonemes – six vowels, six diphthongs, twenty one consonants and two tones – which are discussed in the following sections.

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

Sayan Chaudhuri, M.A., Ph.D. Research Scholar
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Dasaratha Deb Memorial College
Khowai 799202
Tripura
India
bongchertripura@gmail.com

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