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SUMMARY:The Aka-Miji language cluster of the Kameng region\, Arunachal Pra
 desh\, India. - Professor K. David Harrison (Swathmore College\, USA)
DTSTART:20110324T171500Z
DTEND:20110324T190000Z
UID:TALK25341@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor Mari Jones
DESCRIPTION:The Aka-Miji language cluster is spoken by a group of peoples 
 in West Kameng and East Kameng Districts\, in the northeasternmost Indian 
 State of Arunachal Pradesh. They live in small villages and practice subsi
 stence\njhum cultivation\, using the forest for hunting\, gathering and fi
 rewood collection. Aka is also known as Hruso in some Tibeto-Burmanist lit
 erature\n\nIt has been conventionally assumed to be the case\, although hi
 ghly divergent phonologically from many regional languages\, that once the
  peculiarities of the languages of the Aka-Miji cluster are stripped away\
 ,\nthen the Tibeto-Burman core of the languages can be revealed. Most Tibe
 to-Burman classifications rightly side-step the issue of the place of the 
 many languages from Arunachal Pradesh which lack adequate documentation or
  propose areal groupings rather than linguistic taxa for these. Thus\, the
  languages of the Aka-Miji cluster have lurked about in an\nunclassified\,
  obscure region of Tibeto-Burman since being first identified to science i
 n the late 19th century. In this report in addition to\noffering new prima
 ry data on these poorly known languages\, we hope to shed a little light o
 n the issue of their classification\, or at least to move\nthis discussion
  forward a step.\n\nGiven that the languages offer significant challenges 
 to the trained analyst on several levels\, that earlier sources can be use
 d only with caution seems obvious but nevertheless worth stating since tha
 t is all that has previously existed to date on the languages. The few sou
 rces that exist are either secondary (e.g. Shafer) or recorded by people l
 acking adequate linguistic training (e.g. Simon\, J. Anderson\, Singh\, Gr
 ewal).\n\nIn this presentation we offer some basic phonological\, morpholo
 gical and syntactic data on the various languages of the Aka-Miji cluster 
 collected on three field trips to several villages in West Kameng and East
  Kameng Districts\, in Arunachal Pradesh\, India. The questions of how man
 y languages constitute the Aka-Miji cluster and how\, if\, or to what degr
 ee the languages of this cluster appear relatable to one another (i.e. is 
 it\nan areal or a genetic-taxonomic unit)\, or to other putative Tibeto-Bu
 rman languages of the region and the Tibeto-Burman language group as a who
 le (and of course to selected non-Tibeto-Burman ones of the macro-region a
 s well) are each examined and presented.\n
LOCATION:CRASSH Seminar Room\, 17 Mill Lane
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