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
paricular analysis are kept to a minimum.The Grammar is divided
generally into two broad categories of noun morphology and
adverbs precedes verb morphology.The chapter on syntax describes
the order of the constituents at the surface level.
Though the Grammar is primarily aimed at the language learner
and the teacher,it is hoped that it will also be useful to
linguists interested in typology and universals.
Data for the Grammar were collected in the field primarily
from one informant by elicitation through word and sentence
lists.They were then cross-checked with some other
informants.The description may not be exhaustive and there might
be gaps.There might be possibilities for alternative
analyses.Comments and suggestions passed on to us will be useful
to improve our future publications in this series.
.
E.Annamalai.
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