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Hmar
shows a number of dialectical variations . Different
sub-tribes and clans speak different varieties. Of these
the more prominent dialects are Kh sak,
Thíek, Hrá khól,
bìeté, Fáihríem, and Sakachap.
The differences among them however, are marginal. Among
these dialects, Kh sak
dialect, literally, the dia½ect of eastern group, has
been adopted as the common and Standard language and
this has been reduced to a written language during the
thirties. The present account of Hmar, literally speaking,
is the descriptive account of Khsak
dialect only. |
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Until recently Hmar remained as an unwritten language.
In the thirties when it was reduced to writing, an alphabet
of 25 Roman characters was adopted. Some religious books,
articles and some literary works were written in this
script. The modified Roman Script as are being used
for Hmar is as under |
| A |
AW |
B |
CH |
D |
E |
|
| F |
G |
NG |
H |
I |
J |
|
| K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
|
| R |
S |
T |
 |
U |
V |
Z |
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Hmar
follows the Roman convention of using capital letters
for proper nouns and the first letter in a sentence
and small letters in all other places. It uses some
diacritic marks such as a dot below the letter to indicate
its retroflex pronunciation and a stroke above a vowel
to indicate its length. Largely disadvantaged by scattered
settlement, written form of Hmar could not make much
headway, A good beginning has been made in the fifties
but due to marketing problems and small readership only
a few books have been written and published. Till date
the total number of published works stands at about
300. |
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| 1.6.1 |
Tone
plays a very important role in Hmar. With the
change of tone, same word may mean two different
things. This generally puts non-native speakers
into a lot of difficulties in comprehending the
contents of the expressions. |
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| 1.6.2 |
Three
distinct tones could be identified for Hmar. They
are- |
|
i) |
Level
tone which indicated that the constituent sounds
of the word are pronounced at the same pitch as
in the normal speech in a non-tonal language,
and this is unmarked. |
ii) |
Raising
tone which suggests that the pitch over the pronunciation
of a vowel suddenly rises from that of the level
tone, and this is represented as (
') |
iii) |
Falling
tone which suggests that there is sudden fall
of the pitch over the pronunciation of a vowel
from that of the level tone, and this is represented
as (`). |
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| All
the three tones may be present in initial, medial or final
positions in the words spoken. |
| The
contrast of the rising and falling tones could be seen
in the following pairs of illustrations. |
| /bù/ |
‘rice’ |
as in /vate bù/ |
‘bird feed’ |
| /bú/ |
‘nest’ |
as in /vate bú/ |
‘bird’s nest’ |
| /bè/ |
‘ornament’ |
as in /nabe bè/ |
‘wear earrings’ |
| /bé/ |
‘beans’ |
as in /bé sei/ |
‘long beans’ |
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| /leí/ |
‘fines’,tongue’ |
| /leì/
|
‘reason’, ‘cause’ |
| /dá/
|
‘other’ |
| /dà/
|
‘obstruct’,
‘prevent’ |
/v /
|
‘keep
safe’ |
/v /
|
‘entire’ |
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