Documenting the languages of Manipur: Clues to the prehistory of Sino-Tibetan languages

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Understanding how linguistic systems develop over time provides important clues to human cognition and history. Critical information on this topic must be obtained from endangered languages before they are lost forever. Scott Delancey and Linda Konnereth of the University of Oregon will document Monsang, one of 14 closely related languages each spoken by fewer than 10,000 speakers in the Northeast Indian state of Manipur. The resulting audio and video documentation will be analyzed to create a grammatical description of Monsang. Comparing the Monsang data with other related languages in the region will help to build an accurate picture of the development of Kuki-Chin, the language subgroup to which they belong. It has recently been discovered that these languages preserve ancient elements from the ancestral Proto-Sino-Tibetan language which have been lost in all of the neighboring languages. A better knowledge and understanding of these archaic features will contribute greatly to our understanding of the prehistory and origins of the Sino-Tibetan languages, which include Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. The work will be done in collaboration with a local language preservation organization which was formed last year to encourage the documentation and preservation of languages spoken in southeast Manipur. Data will be archived and made freely accessible from the Endangered Languages Archive.