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Kokborok language

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Kokborok (also spelled Kakborok or Kok Borok) is the native language of the Tripuri people in the Indian state of Tripura and its neighbouring areas of Bangladesh. The word Kokborok is composed of two words, kok which means "language" and borok which literally means "man" but is used to denote the Tripuri people. Thus Kokborok means "the language of man" or "the language of the Borok people".

Contents

History

Kokborok existed in its various forms since at least the 7th century AD, when the historical record of Tripuri Kings began to be written down. The script of Kokborok was called 'KOLOMA'. The Chronicle of the Tripuri Kings were written in a book namely 'Rajratnakar', this book was originally written down in Kokborok using the Koloma script by Durlobendra Chontai.

Later, two Brahmins, Sukreswar and Vaneswar translated it in into Sanskrit and then again translated the chronicle into Bengali in the 14th century AD. The chronicle of Twipra in Kokborok and Rajratnakar are no longer available. Kokborok was relegated to a common people's dialect during the rule of the Tripuri Kings in the Kingdom of Tripura, in contrast to Bengali language, from the period of the 14th century till the 20th century.

Kokborok got recognised as an official language of Tripura state only in 1979 AD and is being now considered for recognition as a National language of India.

Classification and related languages

Kokborok is a Tibeto-Burman language falling under the Sino-Tibetan language family of East Asia and South East Asia.

It is closely related to the Bodo language and the Dimasa language of neighbouring state of Assam. The Garo language is also a related language as spoken in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Kokborok Sounds and phonetics

It is a typical Tibeto-Burmese language and consists of the following sounds:

vowels

Vowels
  Front Central Back
High y  
High-mid    
Low-mid    
Low    

  1. 'a' as in Father
  2. 'e' as in end
  3. 'i' as in in
  4. 'o' as in hot
  5. 'u' as in put
  6. 'w' as in German ü and french u (represented by IPA symbol y).
Original writers decided to use the letter w as a symbol for a vowel which does not exist in theEnglish.

Consonants

Consonants
  Labial Dental Apico-
Alveolar 		Lamino-
Postalveolar 		Velar Glottal
Voiceless
stops 		pʰ t̪ʰ   kʰ  
Voiced
stops 		   
Voiceless
fricatives 		       
Nasals      
Liquids     r      

The consonants are b, d,g, h,j, k,l, m,n, p,r, s,t, y along with combined consonants ch, kh, ph, th, ng.

N' is the pronunciation of the nasal sound. eg, In'-yes.

Ng is a conjoint letter and is generally used in the last syllable of a word. eg, Aming-cat; Holong-stone.

Ua is used like, uak-pig; uah-bamboo; uatwi-rain.

Uo is used like, thuo-sleeping; buo-beat.

diphthong

A diphthong is a group of 2 vowels. The wi diphthong is spoken as ui after sounds of the letters m and p. Two examples are: chumui meaning "cloud" and thampui meaning "mosquito". The ui diphthong is a variation of the wi diphthong. Other less frequently occurring diphthongs such as oi are called closing diphthongs. A closing diphthong refers to a syllable that does not end in a consonant.

Syllables

A majority of words are formed by combining the root with an affix. Some examples; *kuchuk is formed from the root chuk meaning"to be high", with the prefix, ku'. *Phaidi meaning"come" is formed from the root phai, meaning "to come", with the suffix di''.

There is no Kokborok word beginning with ng. At the end of a syllable, any vowel except w can be found, along with a limited amount of consonants: p, k, m, n, ng, r and l. Y is found only in closing dphthongs like ai and wi.

Clusters

"Clusters" are a group of consonants at the beginning of a syllable, like phl, ph + l, in phlat phlat" "very fast", or sl in "kungsluk kungsluk "foolish man". Clusters are quite impossible at the end of a syllable. There are some " false clusters" such as phran "to dry" which is actually phw-ran. These are very common in echo words : phlat phlat, phre phre, prai prai, prom prom, etc.

Tone

There are two tones in kokborok, a high and a low tone. To explain the high tone of a word, h letter is fixed with the syllable when the high tone is pronounced.

example: low tone High tone

  1. lai-easy laih-crossed
  2. bor-senseless bohr-to plant
  3. cha-correct chah-to eat
  4. nukhung-family nukhuhng-roof

Morphology

Morphologically kokborok words can be divided into five categories. They are the following.

(a) Original words: thang-go; phai-come; borok-man; kotor-big; kuchu-small; kwrwi-not;etc.

(b) Compound words, that is, words made of more than one original words: nai-see; thok-sweet; naithok-beautiful; mwtai-god; nog-house; mwtainog-temple; bwkha-heart; kotor-big; bwkhakotor-brave; etc.

(c) Words with suffixes: swrwng-learn; swrwngnai-learner; nugjak-seen; kaham-good; hamya- bad; etc.

(d) Naturalized loan words: gerogo-to roll; gwdna-shoulder; tebil- table; poito-faith; etc.

(e) Loan words: yar-friend; etc.

Kokborok Grammar

See full article Kokborok Grammar

There is a clear cut difference in Kokborok between nouns and verbs. All true verbs are made with a verbal root followed by a number of suffixes, these suffixes are not placed at random but according to definite rules.

Dialects

The Tripuri or the 'Borok' community consists of many tribes and sub-tribes in the Indian state of Tripura, Assam, Mizoram and the neighbouring provinces of the country Bangladesh mainly in Chottogram. The main tribes have their own dialects, which differ only slightly among each other, though the dialect spoken around the capital Agartala, the western dialect spoken by Debbarma tribe, is taken as the standard for teaching and in literary writings. It is understood by all the other tribes and is the lingua franca of the Hill Indegenous Tripuris in the state. It is taught as medium of instruction up to class fifth and as subject language up to Graduate level.

The tribes and their dialects are listed as follows.

1. Debbarma (Western)

2. Reang (Eastern and Southeastern)

3. Noatia or Tripura (Southern)

4. Jamatia (Central)

5. Darlong (Northern)

6. Koloi

7. Molsom

8. Rupini

9. and other smaller tribes such as aiang,dahula,laitong,mrung,muslung.

Institutions and Organisations

Some Tripuri cultural oragnizations have been working fruitfully for the development of the language since the last century. Foremost among them are the :

Statistics

KOK BOROK (TRIPURI, TRIPURA, TIPURA, MRUNG, USIPI) [TRP] 78,000 in Bangladesh (1993 Johnstone); 658,000 in India (1994 IMA); 736,000 in all countries. Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Baric, Konyak-Bodo-Garo, Bodo-Garo, Bodo. Dialects: JAMATIA, NOATIA, RIANG (TIPRA), HALAM, DEBBARMA.

TIPPERA (TIPPERA-BENGALI, TIPPERAH, TIPRA, TIPURA, TRIPERAH, TIPPURAH, TRIPURA) [TPE] 105,000 (1993 Johnstone). Chittagong Hills. Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Unclassified. Many men can speak Bengali. 36 dialects.

-Part of the Ethnologue, 13th Edition, Barbara F. Grimes, Editor, 1996, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc.

Script

See the article Script issues of Kokborok

Kokborok had a script known as Koloma which has disappeared now. Since the 19th century the Kingdom of Tripura used the Bengali script for writing in Kokborok. But, since the independence of India and Tripura's merger with India the Roman Script is being used by most of the native people.

At present both the scripts are being used in the state, in education as well as in literary and cultural circles.

See also

References

External links

 

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