Analysis of the Phonological Typology of Ao, ...

Analysis of the Phonological Typology of Ao, Boro, Dimasa, Garo and Tenyidie

Author Name : Dr. Amanda Aski Macdonald Momin

ABSTRACT

Linguistics, as we all know, is the study of language while typology shows the similarities and differences or both that exists in a language. Linguistic typology is a very important aspect in terms of learning and knowing a language or languages. In this concise paper, the Phonological typology among few of the Tibeto-Burman languages of the North Eastern region of India is being discussed here. There exist similarities or unity and differences of diversity in them and it is interesting to note that even in a culture that has different aspects; there exists certain similarities in the language that shows that there might be some form of “unity” that exists in the spoken as well as the written language. Linguistic typology is defined as a cross-linguistic, descriptive as well as explanatory enterprise devoted to the unity and diversity of language with respect to linguistic form or the relation between linguistic form and meaning or function. The term “cross- Linguistic” means that observations should be based on a wide variety of languages. In principle, one cannot do typology on the basis of one language, not even if the language is a conglomerate of divergent dialect. Typologists always need to describe the facts first.  Descriptions are based on analytic concepts, which are unavoidably inspired by theories. Hence, no description can be theory-independent. However, this is a matter of degree. Since typological descriptions should be useful to linguists of diverse theoretical orientations, it is however, essential to reduce their theory-dependence as much as possible. In some corners of linguistics, typologists attempt to explain the regularities they observe. However, their explanations are taken to be of negligible or insufficient quality. The reason is that explanation requires a theory and not all theory are compatible.

Keywords: Ao, Boro,Dimasa, Garo, Lotha, Meithei, Phonological Typology, Tibeto-Burman Languages of the North East, Tenyidie.