The tribal people in India have for long lived in isolation except to
be exposed for exploitation. They have not participated to their benefit
in the socioeconomic development of the country. To come out of their
isolation, it is necessary for them to learn the language of the majority
people around them and a number of them have done so. But this bridges
the communication gap only in one way and the whole burden of building
up this bridge is carried by the minority group. It is necessary, however,
for developing mutual understanding and good-will, to increase bidirectional
communication between the tribal people and the majority of people of
the region. For this purpose, the majority people, especially those who
come in contact with the tribal people for various reasons such as civil
administration, security, social service, trade, etc., should learn their
language. The Grammar, which forms part of the package consisting of phonetic
reader, bi- or trilingual dictionary and teaching manual is prepared to
help them in their learning of the tribal language. |
The
organisation of the Grammar is based on grammatical functions rather than
on grammatical forms. This will help the new learner to find easily how
the different functions, which he already knows and wants to express,
are formalised in this language. Since this grammar is primarily meant
for pedagogical purposes, theoretical discussions and justifications for
a particular analysis are kept to a minimum. The Grammar is divided generally
into two broad categories of noun morphology and verb morphology. A description
of adjectives precedes verb morphology and that of adverbs follows it.
The chapter on syntax describes the order of the constituents at the surface
level. |
