LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 8 : 7 July 2008
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.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

HOME PAGE


AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

  • We seek your support to meet the expenses relating to the formatting of articles and books, maintaining and running the journal through hosting, correrspondences, etc.Please write to the Editor in his e-mail address mthirumalai@comcast.net to find out how you can support this journal.
  • Also please use the AMAZON link to buy your books. Even the smallest contribution will go a long way in supporting this journal. Thank you. Thirumalai, Editor.

In Association with Amazon.com



BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!


REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES


  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to mthirumalai@comcast.net.
  • Contributors from South Asia may send their articles to
    B. Mallikarjun,
    Central Institute of Indian Languages,
    Manasagangotri,
    Mysore 570006, India
    or e-mail to mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net. PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.
  • Your articles and booklength reports should be written following the 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 © 2007
M. S. Thirumalai


 
Web www.languageinindia.com

Kinship and Gender in Meiteiron

Th. Indrashakhi Devi, Ph.D. Candidate


Meitei Woman

Introduction

Kinship system is the system of organizing people who are relatives into different kinds of groups. This system is bound to have an important effect upon the ways in which relatives are labeled in a given society. Therefore kinship terminologies are the reflections of positions that individuals occupy within their society. In particular, kinship terminology is affected by and adjusted to the kinds of kinship groups that exist is a society.

Kinship System in Meiteiron

Kinship system is also a very important aspect of Meiteiron (known also as Manipuri or Meithei language, spoken primarily in the state of Manipur in India, but also in other states of India as well as in Myanmar and Bangladesh) and in which gender relations are manifested.

The kinship terms in Meiteiron are distinguished primarily on the basis of age, generation and gender. Kinship terminologies reflect the patterned interactions of related individuals. Here, in this article, kinship system of Meitei is presented with an attempt to show how gender relations are crystallised in the system.

Meiteiron kinship terminology is interesting in the sense that kinship terms are different for the same person based upon the gender of the speaker and the gender of the linked relative. For example, an elder cousin-brother is referred to as well as addressed by using it?y, ibai - 'elder male cousin' respectively by women and men. And the term im?w - 'niece' is used for the brother's daughter by a female ego and for the sister's daughter by a male by male ego. Therefore we can approach the problem of kinship terminologies with reference to the following three determinants:

  1. Gender of the person addressed or/and referred to
  2. Gender of the liking relative
  3. Gender of ego

The gender differentiation in kinship terminology is the case of reference terms than in address terms. This may be due to the fact that the address terms undergo changes more easily with the societal changes.

Meitei Family Festival
Cheiraoba: The Manipur New Year Feast

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


Kinship and Gender in Meiteiron | The Use of Layout in Malay Language Newspapers' Front Pages | Exploring Ethnolinguistic Vitality - A Case Study of Lepchas in Dzongu Valley | Tamil Advertisements in Television | The Use of Second Person Pronoun in Tamil and Telugu | Survival of the Minority Kristang Language in Malaysia | Meaning and Technique in Walt Whitman's Poetry | Syntactic Errors in English Committed by Indian Undergraduate Students | Form and Function of Disorders in Verbal Narratives - A Doctoral Dissertation | Problems of Assamese Speakers Learning Manipuri | Stylistic Changes in English-Arabic Translation - With Reference to BBC News Texts | HOME PAGE of June 2008 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR


Th. Indrashakhi, Ph.D. Candidate
Tronglaobi Makha Leikai
Moirang Bazar -795133
Bishnupur District
Manipur
India
Indrashakhi_22@yahoo.co.in

 
Web www.languageinindia.com
  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    mthirumalai@comcast.net.
  • 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 acknolwedged the work or works of others you either cited or 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 scholarship.