Historical and Sociolinguistic Studies of Tibeto-Burman Languages of Two Provinces in Northwestern India

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The goal of our project was tripartite : (1) to investigate Tibetan dialects in Lahaul-Spiti district, Himachal Pradesh (HP) (by T. Takeuchi) and Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages in the northwestern hill districts of Uttarkashi, Chasoli and Pithoragarh, of Uttar Pradesh (UP), i. e. Uttarakhand (by S. R. Sharma and Shree Krishan), (2) to survey the distribution of Tibetan dialects in HP and TB languages in Uttarakhand, and to study the, sociolinguistic situation (diglossic/poliglossic) of the TB speakers of the region, and (3) to make a historical comparative study of all the languages under investigation (by Y. Nishi, project leader) when all the language data and sociolinguistic reports were accumulated.The first and second parts of our goal were successfully attained. We could obtain the basic language data (consisting of a phonemic summary, a skeleton grammar, and a vocabulary with more than 1, 000 items and more than two hundred sample sentences) of two Tibetan dialects, Tot (Stod) and Khoksar, in HP and three TB languages, R*ngp* (Rangpa), Byans and Darma in UP. The information on the detail of the distribution of TB languages in HP and UP is now available, and the triglossic situation of the TB co@ties in Uttarakhand, UP became clear. The third part of our goal, a historical comparative study will be made later.A collection of all the language data and sociolinguistic reports, together with a comparative study, will be published as a number of the Monuments Serindica series (Institute for the study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) in fiscal 1992.