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CHAPTER 1 |
| 1.
Introduction |
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Nagaland became a full-fledged state in India on December1, 1963.
Between December 1, 1957 and December 1, 1963, the area consisting
of the present Nagaland was known as Naga Hills and Tuensang area
(NHTA). Prior to 1957, Naga Hills formed a district of Assam, some
parts of the Tuensang area in the North Eastern Frontier Agency
(NEFA) now redesigned as Arunachal Pradesh and the rest were unadministered
area. The Zunheboto district, the main centre of the Semas, were
in the administered area nd formed part of the Naga Hills. Till
December 20, 1973, Zunheboto sub-division, consisting almost exclusively
of Semas, was administered by an additional Deputy Commissioner,
under Mukokchung District. On the basis of language and ethnic consideration
a few additional districts in Nagaland were created by the state
Government and the Zunheboto sub-division became a fulfledged district
from December 20, 1973. Kohima situated at a height of 4,800 feet
was the headquarters of the NHTA and now is the capital of Nagaland.
Nagaland has in the east a long international border with Burma.
It borders Manipur in the south, Assam in the west and north west
and Arunachal Pradesh in the north west. It has an area of 6,366
square miles iwth a population of 5,16,4491. The population of Nagaland
consists of 232 indigenous speech communities and a few immigrant
communities from the other parts of India. The indigenous Naga communities
form 94%3 of the states population. Of these the Semas rank the
third position with a population of 65,2274. The first and the second
places go to the Konyaks and the Aos with a population respectively
of 72,338 and 65,275. The Angamis who wield a great deal of political
influence in the state rank only a fourth place with a poupulation
of 43,569.
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| 1.1.
MIGRATION |
|
Nagas are a sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman Community. According to
Marrison (1967: 196) the origion of this community |
| 1.Census
of India, 1971, Series, India paper 1 of 1972 A. Chandra Sekhar, Delhi.
|
2.Naga
Pidgin: A sociolinguistc study of Inter-lingual communication pattern
in Nagaland.
M.V. Sreedhar : 1974, p: 12 Mysore. |
| 3.Bulletin
of the Government of Nagaland: Kohima (not dated) |
| 4.Census
Centenary Monograph No. 10.1966. |
| appears
to have been in Eastern Tibet and Western China and the general trend
of their movement has been southwards along the line of Valleys of
this region where the great rivers of south-East Asia have their beginnings.
The Tibeto-Burmans who in the course of this movement entered the
Naga Hills made their first entries at different points, and penetrated
them in various directions, viz: |
| (I)
From Tibet through the Dihand (Brahmaputra) valley across the upper
Assam valley and thence into northern Naga Hills. |
| (II)
From northern Burma, across the Patkoi range into the northern Naga
Hills. |
| (III)
From north-east Burma, across the river chindwin up the Nantaleik
(Tizu) valley,into the Central Naga Hills. |
| (iv)From
Manipur valley northwards, to the southern Naga Hills and onwards
by the Doyang valley; and |
| (v)From
the Manipur valley and thence by the upper Borak valley into the Barail
range.Some of these movements have been described earlier by Hutton
(1921). |
| 1.2.
LINGUISTIC AFFINITY |
|
Sema
is a Naga language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family of language.
The Sino-Tibetan family of language can be conveniently sub-divided
into two sub-families, viz: Siamese-Chinese and Tibeto-Burman (TB).
The most important feature that marks out the TB sub-family from
that of the Siamese-Chinese is the difference in the arrangement
of the word-order, i.e. whereas the Siamese-Chinese sub-family has
the subject-verb-object pattern, the TB sub-family has the subject
object-verb-pattern, a Pan Indian feature found with Munda, Dravidian
and Indo-Aryan languages spoken in India. The TB Sub-family of language
in the first instance may be sub-classified into three, viz: Tibeto-Himalayan,
Assam-Burmese and North-Assam branches. Of these, the Assam-Burmese
branch which has the largest number of language is further sub-divided
into six groups viz: Bodo, Naga, Kuki-Chin, Kachin, Burmese, Lolo
Mso’s and Sak or Lui. Of these six groups Bodo and Naga groups are
closely connected to the Tibeto-Himalayan branch. In addition to
these six groups, there are two intermediate groups groups showing
points of contact with Naga group and others. These are Naga-Bodo
and Naga-Kuki. Mikir is the principal Naga-Bodo language, others
in this group includes Kabui, Zemi and Khoriao. Theprincipal Naga-Kuki
languages include, Thanghkul, Mao,
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