LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:5 May 2016
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.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Typological Characteristics of Liangmai Language

Kailadbou Daimai. Ph.D. Research Scholar

Abstract

This paper investigates the typological perspective of Liangmai, a language of the Tibeto-Burman family which is spoken in the states of Manipur and Nagaland in the northeastern region of India. The language has SOV type of word order. The goal of the present paper is to examine the typological characteristics of the language in the light of Greenberg’s principles of language universals and see the features it attests to as a verb final language.

Keywords:Liangmai, typological characteristics

1. Introduction

Liangmai is a Tibeto-Burman (henceforth TB) language which is of the Kuki-Chin-Naga sub group (Bradley 1997). The bulk of Liangmai speaking population resides in the Tamenglong and Senapati districts of Manipur and Peren district of Nagaland. According to 2001 census the total Liangmai speaker was 34,232. It is one of the ethnic groups of the ‘Zeliangrong’, a collective term given to embrace the Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Puimei under one generic term. Grierson (1903), in his Linguistic Survey of India, assigned each of the Naga language a definite place in the family of TB languages. According to him, between Angami-Naga and the Bodo languages there is a group, which he calls the Naga-Bodo group, bridging over the difference between the characteristic features of the two forms of speech, and similarly, between Angami-Naga and the Kuki languages there is another group which he calls the Naga-Kuki group. The Naga-Bodo group consists of two main languages, viz., Mikir and Kachcha Naga. Subordinate languages closely akin to but not dialects, of, Kachcha Naga, are Kabui Naga and Khoirao Naga. He did some work on ‘Kachcha Naga’ or ‘Empeo’ and ‘Kabui’ or ‘Kapwi’ and the language of specimen he used for ‘Kachcha Naga’ is Zeme and for the ‘Kabui’ he used Rongmei. May be he was not aware of the fact that ‘Kachcha Naga’ clubbed together Zeme and Liangmai and ‘Kabui’ represent Rongmei and Puimei, and these are separate languages though closely related. In this way Liangmai was missed out and no work was done on it.

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

Kailadbou Daimai
Centre for Advanced Studies in Linguistics
University of Delhi
Delhi-110009
India
kailadboudaimai@yahoo.co.in
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