Searchable Archive of Annotated Lamkang Texts [ISO 639 lmk]

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Manipuri Lamkang, spoken primarily in the southeastern region of Manipur State, India by no more than 5,000 people, is under constant pressure from the dominant state language, Meithei. It is a member of the Northern Kuki-Chin branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. Using National Science Foundation support, Shobhana Chelliah will conduct a two year study of Lamkang to create a searchable archive of 25 hours of naturally occurring speech events, representative of a variety of Lamkang speaker interactions. Dr. Chelliah will work along with Manipuri linguist Dr. Harimohon Thounaojam to collect, transcribe, translate, and analyze Lamkang texts with the help of native speakers. Most grammatical descriptions published in Manipur do not include audio or video recordings. This project will demonstrate the importance and best practice methods of digital audio and video recording. The project will also illustrate a feasible methodology for the use of naturally occurring discourse to guide grammatical analysis. In doing so, it will contest the current paradigm of basing linguistic grammars of Manipuri languages primarily on questionnaires based on Meithei structure. Resulting materials will include a website dedicated to archived and annotated Lamkang texts; accompanying structural and cultural notes; a Lamkang lexicon; and print equivalents of texts in native speaker's accessible scripts. The Lamkang archive data will document the effects of intense language contact between Lamkang and Meithei and allow a comparison among theories of contact-induced language change. Massive lexical borrowing from Meithei is already changing Lamkang's lexicon and phonology thereby obscuring its relationship to other Kuki languages. Archive data will also be vital for understanding Tibeto-Burman discourse structure and the interaction of syntax with discourse and pragmatics. Archive data will provide a wealth of information for the preparation of pedagogical and cultural materials so that native speakers can use these materials in language programs for the younger speakers.