LANGUAGE IN INDIA

PHONOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN MAKING ENGLISH-MANIPURI DICTIONARY FOR MANIPURI SPEAKERS

Leihaorambam Sarbajit Singh, Ph.D.
Soibam Imoba Singh, Ph.D.

Abstract

The Manipuris, by virtue of their schooling and educational systems are bilinguals. They use two languages in different situations depending upon the context. Most of them learn English/second language straight from their school stage and they could be called school made bilinguals. Even then, errors in English learning are sustained due to the interference from the learner's mother tongue. The importance of a good bilingual dictionary as an aid to over-come the gravitational pull of the mother tongue cannot be exaggerated.

In fact, the lexicographical art in Manipur is in its primal stages. Manipuri dictionaries, which can match the high standards of bilingual dictionaries available in developed languages, are still a long way off. English-Manipuri dictionaries have mostly been compiled and edited by non-English speaking people as well as un-trained lexicographers. Unfortunately, trained compilers are of very limited numbers in Manipur. Therefore, the qualitative values of English-Manipuri dictionary are very poor. The problems in making a bilingual dictionary broadly comprise- a) Phonological, b) Grammatical, and c) Semantic. In this paper, the phonological problems confronted in making English to Manipuri Dictionary for Manipuri speaker will be discussed vividly.

Introduction

In all existing English-Manipuri Dictionaries, the pronunciation of the English entry words are transcribed in Manipuri with Bengali script, which creates many problems to the user (Manipuri speaker) as Bengali has a distinct character of its own. As a matter of fact, Manipuri has a traditional writing system with indigenous alphabets called 'Meetei/Meitei Mayek' (Manipuri script). With the advent of Hinduism (early 18th century) the Bengali alphabet has been adopted in lieu of the traditional one in education etc.

According to different scholars the number of script for Manipuri is varied. Grierson, (1973) has mentioned 35 alphabets in his well-known book 'Linguistic Survey of India' (Vol. III Part III) while some Meitei scholars are of the opinion that it is 27 in number (Singh, L. Sarbajit, 2002). However, in 1980 the Government of Manipur has recognized the purposed 27 one.

Despite the traditional/indigenous writing system the Bengali alphabet is being continued for all practical purposes. In 1992, the Government of India has also included the Manipuri language in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India as 'Manipuri written in Bengali script'. It can be mentioned that Meitei script for written Manipuri (Meiteiron) is in the implementation stage. The Government of Manipur have replaced the Bengali script with Meitei script from Class I to III and also assured that Bengali script would be completely replaced in a phase-wise manner (Singh, L. Sarbajit, 2002).

Information about the pronunciation becomes a primary need for a dictionary as the dictionary making has been increased by new attitude towards speech. "The printed word is no longer the only means of mass communication; the spoken word has become as important in the age of radio, telephone, phonograph, television, tape recorder, video-tape recorder, cinema, and telstar." (Al-Kasimi, 1983).

Every lexicographer has provided the pronunciation of headword at least and the transcriptions used in the dictionaries are based on purpose of the dictionary especially in bilingual dictionary. However, the application of transcription is the most important task for dictionary makers. "Transcriptions can be used only in relating the written form to a spoken one. So, the lexicographer has great responsibility in this respect, as unreliable information may lead to wrong performance."

As pronunciation is to be included in a bilingual dictionary, it is necessary to choose an appropriate type of transcription. Again Piotrowski pointed out: "when selecting the appropriate transcription, lexicographers must consider their position between two attitudes-usage of a transcription widely known on an international scale, and keeping to the traditional one used in their country. International transcription makes it easier for the user to use other dictionaries (monolingual one, for example), while following traditional is reassuring for the user and relates the dictionary to other books published in his or her country." (Piotrowski, 1987).

Berkov puts a case clearly: lexicographers in their choice of the system of transcription are restricted only by the convenience of the user (ibid). The purpose of this study is to discuss the phonological problems confronted in making English to Manipuri Dictionary for Manipuri speaker. In section 2 of the paper, we discuss briefly about the Manipuri sounds. Section 3 says about the Manipuri sounds and Bengali script. In the section 4, brief information about English and Manipuri Sounds is given. Section 5 deals with pronunciation in existing English-Manipuri dictionaries. Section 6 concludes by giving some suggestions.

Manipuri Sounds

The inventory phonemes of Manipuri varies from author to author of Manipuri grammars, for instance, (Thoudam, 1980), (Chelliah, 1994), (Bhat, 1997), (Singh, Ch, 2000), (Singh, I. 2002), etc. It is clear that there are some disagreements among the linguists regarding the number of Manipuri phonemes. It is observed that the affricate sounds are not included by the above authors except by (Chelliah, 1994) and the symbols used are based on old IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) or some other systems. Accordingly some controversies have been encountered, as the transcription no longer corresponds to any of those found in major dictionaries. The modern dictionaries have adopted the new IPA symbols. At least a movement towards the using of a standard transcription for Manipuri sound is highly essential. However, it can be resolved to a more relevant one that Manipuri has 38 phonemes in all- 24 consonants, 12 vowels (6 monophthongs and 6 diphthongs), and 2 tones.

Bengali Script and Manipuri Sounds

The Manipuri speakers always have a tendency to use all the symbols of Bengali/Assamese script in normal orthography. The present Bengali script written using Manipuri spelling is 55 symbols against actual 38 phonemes (including two tones) of Manipuri. The symbols more than 38 are being used unconsciously or very sparingly. It is of course in English, for example, an alphabet represents more than one sound. In case of Manipuri with Bengali script, mapping of extra alphabets to a fix number of sounds produced originally is very contradictory as well as purposeless. Eventually, the extra alphabets make obscure performance to the users. However some symbols are very useful to indicate the tonal variations in writing Manipuri.

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