The Ao community is one of the 14 major communities recognised by the state. Ao is taught as mother-tongue upto SSC. It is used as medium of instruction upto 6th standard. Besides religious books and textbooks, other kinds of books are also written now in Ao. There is a weekly news magazine called ‘Ao Milen’.

4. Informants:

All the infomants who rendered their service are bilinguals (Ao and english). All of them are over 25 years and below 60 years, and belong to both the sexes. Some of them are teachers and others are in government service. Most of the informants are from the Chungli dialect and known the Chungli dialect very well were also consulted for cross checking the data.

5. Data :

The data were collected during two field trips to Nagaland one from October, 1970 to January, 1971, and another from February to April, 1972. The data consist of over 2,000 words and over 1,000 sentences.

6.Earlier works:

The following is a list of earlier writings on the Ao language.

Avery,J.-’The Ao-Naga Language of southern Assam, proceedings of the American Oriental Society,May,1886.

Clark, Mrs.E.W-Ao Naga Grammar with Illustrative phrases and Vocabulary.Shillong,1893.

Grierson,G.A.-An Account of Ao in Linguistic survey of India. Vol.III, Part II, calcutta, 1903, (Reprinted 1967).