The southern variety has most
of the significant sounds found in English and Hindi, though voiced
aspirated stops are unstable even with the speakers of this variety.
The voiced aspirated series are not available in English but are found
in Hindi. The entire voiced series is either absent or unstable with
the central and northern varieties. And between the voiced unspirated
series and voiced aspirated series, the former is considered important
from the point of the functional yield of opposition, and is essential
to set it up in the standardized Naga Pidgin in order to avoid an
unusually large number of homonyms within the Naga Pidgin itself.
Hence only the voiced unaspirated series are set up. This would,
however, only the voiced unaspirated series are set up. This would,
however, require the children of the northern and central group to
learn these oppositional sets of phonemes as a new item. It is also
considered essential to retain the opposition between r and l, though
in the case of northern variety, l shows a one way alternation with r.
The children of the northern variety, would therefore have to learn to
eliminate the alternation of l with r. Similarly some of the members
of the northern and central groups show random alternation of s with
and h and also alternation between s and
. It is considered essential to retain the
opposition amongst the three unvoiced fricatives, lest the
communication fails particularly in formal situations where gestures
may not be available to signal the actual message the speaker intents
to convey.
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The propriety of
introducing
these new oppositional features at this stage itself may be
questioned. The answer to such a question is that they are required to
be introduced on two counts viz., (i) these features are found in the
southern group which accounts for about 50% of the speakers and
further without these features the communication in Naga Pidgin
itself, particularly in formal situations including in classrooms, may
be severely hampered, and (ii) the findings of researches have
convincingly established that it is easier to learn new sounds at the
early age than at a later age. Taking all these into account the
unvoiced unaspirated and aspirated stops, the voiced unaspirated
stops, the lateral, the flap, the three nasals, the three unvoiced
fricatives and the two frictionless continuants have been set up for
the standardized Naga Pidgin. Of these, unvoiced unaspirated and
aspirated stops, three nasals and the two frictionless continuants are
found with most of the varieties. The voiced aspirated stops can be
learnt as a new oppositional feature when Hindi is introduced in the
class room as a II language. By then the voiced unaspirated stops in
the Naga Pidgin would have been fully established with all the groups.
The remaining consonants set up in this language are common with all
the groups.
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| 2. |
GRAMMAR:
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| 2.1. |
Grammatical
categories: Nominals
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| 2.1.1. |
Number:
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A feature that is common with
the Naga languages and also with the different varieties of this
language is the optional deletion of the plural marker whenever the
context indicates plurality. In the previous study, only the
yimchunger variety marked plurality uniformly, while the other
varieties deleted the plural marker whenever the context indicated
plurality. This feature of deleting the plural marker when context
indicates plurality is therefore accepted for the standardized
grammar.
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It may, however, be noted
that different varieties do not show any uniformity in respect of the
use of plural marker with different sub-groups of nouns, for instance,
whereas some varieties mark the plurality with all sub-class of nouns,
some others mark only with NH being class and yet some others with
Nani Class of nouns. Another variant feature is that some varieties
mark the plurality with itu, the III person non-human pronoun, when it
substitutes a NanH class of nouns but not when it substitutes a Nina
class of nouns. Such a usage leads to confusion and ambiguities as itu
substitutes nouns of both Nina and NanH being groups. Taking all
factors into account, the plural marker is set up only for Nani being
class of nouns with Nina class of nouns not marked for plurality.
Secondly itu does not take plural marker irrespective of the fact itu
substitutes a noun of Nina or Nanh being class.
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Another variant feature is in
respect of the selection of the plural marker. There are two markers
for expressing plurality: These are:bil k and kan. Some varieties mark
plurality of the nouns with bik and of the pronouns with khan,
while some others use kan for both. A frequency count of the
occurrence of bilk and khan shows that khan
occurs in more varieties that bilk and hence khan
ie set up as the sole plural marker for both the nouns and pronouns.
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| 2.1.2. |
Gender:
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Theoretically,
the opposition found in, a pair of words like:
|
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cokhra
‘boy’
cokhri ‘girl’
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| could be
considered as opposition in gender and -a/-i marked respectively as
masculine and feminine markers. This, however, is not done mainly
because in the entire vocabulary of this language, the occurrences of
such pairs are limited in number. And that too, |
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