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CONFERENCE REPORT the 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE of the NORTH EAST INDIAN LINGUISTICS SOCIETY 12-14 February 2010, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

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CONFERENCE REPORT the 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE of the NORTH EAST INDIAN LINGUISTICS SOCIETY 12-14 February 2010, Shillong, Meghalaya, India Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area Volume 33.1 — April 2010 CONFERENCE REPORT THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE NORTH EAST INDIAN LINGUISTICS SOCIETY 12-14 February 2010, Shillong, Meghalaya, India Stephen Morey La Trobe University The 5th conference of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS) was held from 12th to 14th February 2010 at the Don Bosco Institute (DBI), Kharguli Hills, Guwahati, Assam. The conference was preceded by a two day workshop, hosted by Gauhati University,1 but also held at DBI. NEILS is grateful to the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University, for providing funds to assist in the running of the workshops and conference. The two day workshop was in two parts: one day on using the Toolbox program, run by Virginia and David Phillips of SIL; and one day on working with tones, presented by Mark W. Post, Stephen Morey and Priyankoo Sarmah. Both workshops were well-attended and participatory in nature. The tones workshop included an intensive session of the Boro language, with five native speakers, all students of the Gauhati University Linguistics Department, providing information on their language and interacting with the participants. The conference itself began on 12th February with the launch of Morey and Post (2010) North East Indian Linguistics, Volume 2, performed by Nayan J. Kakoty, Resident Area Manager of Cambridge University Press India. This volume contains peer-reviewed and edited papers from the 2nd NEILS conference, held in 2007, representing NEILS’ commitment to the publication of the conference papers. A notable feature of the conference was the presence of seven people, from India, Burma, Australia and Germany, working on the Tangsa group of languages spoken on the India-Burma border. Papers relating to Tangsa included those by Mathew Thomas and Ahkhi, containing reports of the large amount of survey work that has been ongoing on both sides of the border. Two other survey based papers were presented—that by Alexander Kondakov on Koch, and that by Liahey Ngwazah on Western Arunachal Pradesh. Another language strength of the conference was Boro, with papers by native speakers Krishna Boro, Bihung Brahma and Prafulla Basumatary being augmented by an overview of the genesis of Boro adverbial suffixes presented by Scott DeLancey. The other languages of the Boro-Garo group were also explored, with papers on Meche (Kazuyuki Kiryu), and Dimasa (Monali Longmailai). The 1 Gauhati is the Roman spelling of the Hindi version of the name, used for the University, whereas Guwahati is the Roman spelling of the Assamese name, used for the town. 115 116 Stephen Morey richness of presentations on both Boro and Tangsa exemplify one of the key aims of NEILS: cooperation between local Indian scholars, especially native speakers, and those from outside India who are working on local languages. We were fortunate to hear reports and analysis of languages of Arunachal Pradesh that are little known: Bugun, a possible isolate (Madhumita Barbora), the Tani languages (two papers, Mark W. Post and Yankee Modi) and Tagin (Sudanshu Shekhar and Kepor Mara). It is not possible to list every one of the papers given at the conference, ranging from Tones in Karbi (Linda Konnerth) and Tiwa (Priyankoo Sarmah) through to papers of a sociolinguistic nature such as that by Joy Dasgupta and Sarit Chaudhuri on Language, Culture and Biodiversity. Languages discussed at the conference included many of the Tibeto-Burman languages, such as Mizo, Meitei, Mising, Paite, the East Bodish languages and several varieties of Chin. Assamese was also the topic of several papers on question formation, reduplication, reciprocals and genitive marking. The Austroasiatic family didn’t miss out either, with a paper on numbers in various Pnar, Khasi and War varieties by Anne Daladier. At the close of the conference, plans were announced to publish a volume of proceedings in the book series North East Indian Linguistics, to be edited by Gwendolyn Hyslop, Stephen Morey and Mark W. Post and to be submitted for publication with Cambridge University Press India; it was also announced that Volume 3 of the series is currently in press, and is expected to be available in bookstores in late 2010. With over 50 attendees from Australia, Burma (Myanmar), France, Germany, Japan, Thailand and the United States as well as from South India, Delhi and all over the Northeast, NEILS 5 was again a successful presentation. REFERENCES Morey, Stephen & Mark W. Post (eds) 2010. North East Indian Linguistics Volume 2. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press India. .
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