grammatical categories, quite
often neutralizes these oppositions by using a single form to convey
two or more meanings, e.g.:
|
/moy huyse/may mean ‘I
slept/I had slept/I have slept’.
|
Under the circumstances, no
need is felt, at least for the present, to maintain these differences.
The same procedure can be adopted in all other instances and the
standardized form, for the present, need have only the features shared
by most of the varieties. The shared features that may form part of
the standardized Naga Pidgin are
summarized below.
|
| 1. |
Opposition
between the singular and plural, with the optional deletion of
the plural marker when plurality is indicated elsewhere, e.g.:
|
| |
suali
‘girl’ ‘sualikhan
‘girls’
duy suali ‘two girls’
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| |
This
feature of the optional deletion of the plural marker is found
in the Naga languages and also in Indo-Aryan and Dravidain
languages9.
|
| 2. |
The
nomination case is unmarked in all the varieties. Only the
dative and the locative cases show separate case suffixes in all
the varieties. The functions of the other cases are taken care
of either by taking the appropriate postpositions or by word
order.
|
| 3. |
At the
morphological level, all the varieties show a two-way opposition
in tense, viz., simple past vs non past.
|
| 4. |
A
three-way opposition in the progressive aspect is found in all
the varieties, but they show a difference in the form of the
past progressive. The form huy tkse ‘was sleeping’ seems
to be more appropriate, because of the suffixing of the past
tense marker to the auxiliary. An additional consideration for
choosing this form is that all the varieties suffix the future
tense marker to the same auxiliary to obtain the future
progressive aspect.
|
| 5. |
In some
varieties, the perfective aspect shows a two-way opposition in
tense, viz., the present perfective and the past perfective.
However, in all the varieties, the simple past tense form is
also used to express the present and past perfective aspects.
Hence the need for this aspect may not be felt for the present.
|
| 6. |
Even in
the varieties where the habitual aspect is marked
morphologically, an adverb is also used, which in itself can
indicate the aspect. Hence the habitual marker becomes a
redundant feature and therefore need not be retained.
|
| 7. |
Of the ten
modals available in some varieties, only seven, viz.,
indicative, polite imperative1, permissive, injunctive,
probability, conditional, and infinitive are available in all
the varieties. The probability and the potential modals get
merged in most of the varieties. The difference between the
expression, ‘may go/can go’ on the one hand and ‘may go/might
go’ on the other hand are being lost even in English. Hence this
Pidgin in the initial stage of its standardization need not
retain these features and may have only a seven-way opposition in
modals.
|
| 8. |
As far as
the vocabulary is concerned not much variation is found.
|
|
In the preceding paragraphs,
an attempt to standardize the Naga Pidgin was made. It might, however,
be noted that no standard language has absolute uniformity and every
standard language has a series of standards at different levels like
the local standard, the provicial standard, the national standard,
etc. The Naga Pidgin is unlikely to be an exception to this rule. In
this attempt, due care has also been taken to retain the properties of
a standard language, which according to Paul Garvin (1964:521) are
flexible stability and intellectualization.
|
| A major objective of this
exercise is to see how best the Naga Pidgin could be exploited for
improving the educational standards in Nagaland. It is commonly
accepted that the instruction through the medium of mother tongue is
the most efficient and effective means of education. But in the case
of Nagaland, it was found (Sreedhar 1973) that despite its best effort
to function bilingually at the state level, the State failed to cater
to the needs of even the recognized linguistic groups. It is in fact
an Eldorado for a small hill state like Nagaland with harldy any
internal resources to function in a large number of languages. Even
though every village in Nagaland has a L.P. School, year after year
Naga boys and girls fail in mathematics and science subjects at the
H.S.L.C. Examination, even in the lower classes. This failure is
attributed to the lack of intelligence amongst them, whereas in
reality the root cause of their failure at the examinations is the
lack of meaniingful communication between the teachers and the
students owing to the use of a totally alien language, English, as the
sole medium of instruction. Thus the used of English as the medium of
instruction has done and is doing incalculable damage to the interests
of the Naga children. A situation similar to that of Nagaland exists
in New Guinea where a large number of languages are spoken, many of
the by small communities of a few hundred speakers. Robert Hall
(1970:144-53) claims that "in New Guinea a large population |
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