Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My The Tangkhulic Tongues Background How I Started Working on Endangered Languages Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai David R. Mortensen Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom September 18, 2014 Sorbung Lessons Learned Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My Background Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom Sorbung Lessons Learned Overview Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen A bit about my early background, with relation to Introduction documentation of endangered languages. My Background How I happened on to documenting an endangered Tangkhul language (Kachai). Field Methods Encountering How this led to work on another, much more Kachai endangered, language (Huishu). Working on Huishu How that led to more extensive work on two other A Second endangered languages, both of which were previously Couple East Tusom undescribed (East Tusom and Sorbung). Sorbung Lessons The morals of this story. Learned Theoretical and Area Interests Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Areal interest in Southeast Asia. Introduction Previously carried out work on “Sinospheric” My Background languages, especially Hmong. Tangkhul Prior to Tangkhulic, did a very small amount of work Field Methods on a more “Indospheric” language, Hakha Lai. Encountering Kachai Theoretical interests: Working on Huishu Phonology Morphology A Second Couple Historical linguistics/language change East Tusom Sorbung Typology Lessons Learned Previous Work on Minority Languages Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My main language, prior to my work on Tangkhulic, My was Hmong. Background A minority language of China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand Tangkhul Field Methods (and also the US, Australia, France, French Guiana, etc.) Encountering Threatened in some countries, but not endangered. Kachai Large speaker population for a minority language. Working on Children learning the language in many communities. Huishu A Second Hmong served as a “gateway drug” to work on Couple East Tusom endangered languages. Sorbung Lessons Learned Previous Work on Minority Languages (cont.) Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction Why did I start working on Hmong? My I was assigned to learn Hmong while working as a Background missionary during my late teens and early twenties. Tangkhul Field Methods I turned out to be a rather poor missionary, but a much better linguist. Encountering Kachai After working as a missionary, and finishing my Working on Huishu undergraduate degree, I entered the MA/PhD program A Second in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, Couple East Tusom a fact which is pivotal in our story. Sorbung Lessons Learned Field Methods on Tangkhul Tangkhulic Tongues Linguistics graduate students at UC Berkeley are David R. Mortensen required to take a two-semester course in Linguistic Introduction Field Methods. My I was excited to take this course because I was Background interested in field linguistics. Tangkhul Field Methods I was especially excited that the language to be Encountering investigated, when it was my turn to take the course, Kachai was a Tibeto-Burman language of North Eastern India. Working on Huishu I had been working as a Graduate Student Researcher A Second for STEDT (the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary Couple East Tusom and Thesaurus), a research project that concentrated Sorbung primarily on Tibeto-Burman languages. Lessons I was also interested in tone, and I knew that TB Learned languages of North Eastern India sometimes had very interesting tonal patterns. Field Methods on Tangkhul (cont.) Tangkhulic Tongues David R. As a field methods class, we started working witha Mortensen graduate student of theology who was a speaker of Introduction Tangkhul, a language spoken near the border of My Manipur, India and Burma (Myanmar). Background Tangkhul Tangkhul is not endangered. Field Methods It has about 142,000 speakers, according to a recent Encountering Kachai census. It is used in education. Working on Huishu What is it like typologically? A Second Couple Tonal (three tones); moderately complex syllable East Tusom Sorbung structure. Lessons Agglutinative; primarily suffixing; Learned nominative-accusative alignment. Verb final. Map of Ukhrul District Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My Background Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom Sorbung Lessons Learned Old Tangkhul Naga Men Enjoy a Rice Beverage Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My Background Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom Sorbung Lessons Learned An Accidental Discovery Tangkhulic Tongues One day, my elicitation partner and I were working David R. with our consultant. Mortensen We asked her the word for ‘spider’. Introduction She answered, “ʃimconpʰəron.” My Background Then she corrected herself: “No, that’s my language.” Tangkhul We asked, “What do you mean ‘my language’? Isn’t Field Methods Tangkhul your language?” Encountering Kachai She explained that each village in the Tangkhul area Working on Huishu had it’s own language variety. The language of Ukhrul A Second town (Standard Tangkhul) was used as a lingua franca. Couple East Tusom Her native language was called Kachai (after her Sorbung village), and was spoken only there (and by a few Lessons Learned expatriate families). I immediately took up the project of documenting Kachai, which had not been documented previously. Map of Kachai Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My Background Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom Sorbung Lessons Learned Language Endangerment in Ukhrul District Tangkhulic Tongues The “village dialects” of the Tangkhul ethnicity had David R. become endangered for a variety of reasons. Mortensen They never had a large number of speakers since they were typically confined to a single village or cluster of Introduction villages. My Background Most were probably never spoken by more than 1,000 Tangkhul individuals. Field Methods Conversion to Christianity (primarily the American Encountering Kachai Baptist Denomination) brought Standard Tangkhul to Working on each village as a language of worship and literacy. Huishu The same forces brought English to each village as the A Second language of the international Baptist community. Couple East Tusom Incorporation of the Tangkhul area into the state of Sorbung Manipur brought Meithei (Manipuri) as a language of Lessons Learned government and education. On a larger scale, incorporation into the nation of India brought Hindi as a language of military, government, and commerce. Kachai and Limitations Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen I worked on Kachai and Ukhrul simultaneously. They were closely related, but not nearly so closely related Introduction as to be considered dialects of one language. My Background I worked on Ukhrul to complete course responsibilities. Tangkhul I worked on Kachai because it was previously Field Methods undocumented and apparently endangered. Encountering Kachai This had the disadvantage of limiting the amount of Working on time I could spend on either one. Huishu A Second My consultant’s time was also limited. Couple East Tusom Our work on Kachai consisted mostly of collecting Sorbung Lessons lexical material and working on some basic Learned morphosyntax. A Spousal Referral Tangkhulic Tongues David R. My consultant was married to a Tangkhul man. Mortensen She mentioned that he spoke a “dialect” that was very Introduction different from Kachai or Standard Tangkhul. My Background Although he was very busy—he worked in a Christian Tangkhul ministry in inner-city Oakland—he made time to meet Field Methods with me often enough for me to elicit a substantial Encountering Kachai word list. Working on Huishu I also found that his language, Huishu, was even more A Second endangered than Kachai. Couple East Tusom I found him to be an excellent speaker of his native Sorbung Lessons language (something that cannot always be counted Learned on), but he was too pressed for time to meet with me often. An Additional Consultant Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Fortunately, the Huishu consultant’s younger brother Introduction was in town for some of the summer during which I My Background was working most intently on Tangkhulic language Tangkhul documentation. Field Methods Encountering Tangkhulic is the name that I settled on for the group of Kachai languages closely related to Tangkhul and spoken by Working on Huishu members of the Tangkhul ethnicity. A Second This additional consultant was not as strong a speaker Couple East Tusom of Huishu as the first, but the data I gathered from him Sorbung Lessons were nonetheless useful. Learned Map of Huishu Tangkhulic Tongues David R. Mortensen Introduction My Background Tangkhul Field Methods Encountering Kachai Working on Huishu A Second Couple East Tusom Sorbung Lessons Learned Phonological Discoveries Tangkhulic Tongues Around the same time that I was working on Huishu David R. and Kachai, I was learning a lot about the historical Mortensen phonology of Tibeto-Burman. Introduction I noticed something unusual: in Huishu there were My Background unexplained /k/’s at the ends of syllables after what Tangkhul should historically have been high vowels (/i/ and /u/, Field Methods mostly). Encountering Kachai Changes like this go against the usual direction