LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:4 April 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

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         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
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Studying the Adjectives of Tai-Phake, An Endangered Language of Assam

Dr. Jyoti Rupa Deka, M.A. (Double), M.Phil., Ph.D.

Abstract

An endangered language is a language that is at the verge of extinction for factors like its speakers’ shift to another language. Language endangerment is a major concern of contemporary world. History and culture of a particular society is passed down through its language. Due to this, when a language dies, it may take with it important information about the early history of the community. Language experts and linguists are working closely with communities of endangered languages around the world in an attempt to preserve these languages. They are trying to offer help with language documentation, maintenance, and revival so that even if the language dies due to some reason, the knowledge of the language will still survive. Tai-Phake is one such language of Assam with a speaker of around 2000 (17th edition, Ethnologue, 2013). It is one of the six languages of Tai- kadai language family. Till date various researchers and linguists have worked on this language. However, it is still comparatively lesser studied and lesser documented language of Tai- kadai language family. In this paper an attempt will be made to give a detailed description of the Adjectives found in Tai-Phake. Adjectives are described as expressions that alter, clarify, or adjust the meaning contributions of nouns. They are used in the grammatical classification of words to refer to the main set of items, and they specify the attributes of nouns. This paper presents the semantic protypes of adjectives. This paper will also touch upon adjective reduplication process available in this language.

Keywords: Tai-phake, Language endangerment, adjectives.

I.1. Introduction

Endangered language, also known as moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages (Wikipedia.) Even though death of a language is a pertinent issue throughout human history however at present, they are disappearing rapidly due to various interlinked socio- economic and socio-political factors like globalization, migration, cultural replacement, imperialism and neocolonialism.

Ethnologue's 2005 survey of world languages gives a total 6,912 languages, of which 32.8% (2,269) were in Asia, and 30.3% (2,092) in Africa. Out of these languages many of the lesser-known languages are being replaced by other dominant languages that are more widely used in the region or nation. For example, in USA English replaces many native languages, the way that many of the regional languages of India is replaced by dominant language like Hindi. If this situation continues 80% of these endangered languages may vanish within the next century. Today, there are many such languages that are no longer being learned by new generations of its speakers and eventually these languages will become extinct with the death of its last speakers.

UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment. In this work, UNESCO has presented six types of endangered languages.

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

Dr. Jyoti Rupa Deka, M.A. (Double), M.Phil., Ph.D.
Department of English, Kampur College
Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India
jyotirupadeka@gmail.com
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