The entire data for the grammar was collected during the various field trips to Nagaland between December 1970 and August 1974 in connection with the study of Naga Pidgin (Sreedhar: 1974). the places visited for the collection of the Sema language data include Dimapur including the Sema villages in and around Dimapur, Pherima, Kohima, Zunheboto, Sakalu, Atoiz* and Mokokchung. In addition to the regular full time informants, the writer had the benefit of consultations and discussions with Sema speakers of awide range of life including Shri Shikhu former speaker of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly, Shri Hokishe Sema, the former Chief Minister of Nagaland and Chirman Sema Literature Committee and a number of M.L.A.’s from the Sema community.

The persons who assisted this writer most in the data collection for this grammar include Shri Avito Kibami, Shri Vihoto Shayempu, Shri Lukhashe Sema, all from Zunheboto, Shri I. Lozhevi Sema, Language Officer, Education Directorate Kohima and Shri Inai Sema, teacher, Kohima. The first two are educated agriculturists, while the third one was a special officer, A.D.C. Office, Zunheboto. Shri Vihoto is thorough with the various rituals performed by the Sema community on different occasions and also with the various other social customs. All except Shri Inai are members of the Sema literature committee. Religion-wise, Shri Inai is a Roman catholic while others are Baptists. Age-wise Shri Lozhevi and Shri Inai are about 30 years while others are past fifty. Education-wise Shri Inai was a student at B.E. in Calcutta university but discontinued in III year. Shri Lozhevi is B.A. B.Ed., and others are matriculates. After the grammar was written out, some additional data were collected from Shri S*khato Sema, for filling up of some gaps. Shri S*khato, who is presently a medical student, at Hubli (Karnataka) hails from Ashukika village in Kohima district. For the analysis of the data basically the Bloomfield Ian approach is followed. But this did not prevent this writer from adopting other approaches also, whenever they were found useful. For instance, though the grammatical classes were set up on the basis of the inflectional characteristics found with different words, the functional basis is also taken into account. For example a noun having the case relationship of possession is treated as adjective and a noun/pronoun having the case relationship of location is treated as adverb etc. because they have respectively adjectival and adverbial functions.