Paper short abstract:

Consequent upon the recent migration of the Santhals from Purbi Singhbhum to Kolkata, their Dehati Bangla (DB) has come in contact with Standard Colloquial Bangla (SCB). The paper examines the nature of such lexical, semantic and phonological alternations DB has undergone in this contact situation.

Paper long abstract:

Santhals (a tribal community in India) hailing from Mohanpur in Ghatshila, Purbi Singhbhum, India, generally speak Santhali as L1. But Dehati Bangla (henceforth DB) being used as a medium of interaction in formal situations, it's a bilingual situation for them. Now very recently, a large number of people from this community, after migrating to the cities like Kolkata for professional purposes, are exposed to Standard Colloquial Bangla (SCB), and consequently the DB has undergone many linguistic changes as a sort of convergence. Examining the data collected from the migrants and the body of literature written in DB available in Ghatshila, the paper clearly marks the changes the migrants' Bangla has already undergone. Our data collected from field investigation reveal many alternations like:

/aɡuɻ/ → /daroɟa/ 'door' (Lexical) /kãhi/ → /kotʰaḙ/ 'where' (Lexical)

/ũdur/ → /ĩdur/ 'rat' (Phonological, vowel fronting)

/ɟacʰi/→ /ɟacʰcʰi/ 'I'm going' (Phonological, gemination)

/maʈʰ/ 'playground'→ /maʈʰ/ 'playground' / 'field for cultivation' (Semantic).

By exploring such a corpus available, the paper aims to substantiate the claim that, being in close contact with SCB, their Bangla exhibits a converging tendency in terms of their vocabulary, semantics, accents and other phonological parameters, but still retains the Santhali accent as a mark of linguistic interference. Thus, it's no case of language shrinkage. Rather, the contact situation gives birth to a certain Pidgin Bangla.

Paper short abstract:

India has 18.60 million Bengali speakers outside West Bengal and Tripura. The paper investigates the linguistic impact of internal migration on Bengali. Key words: Migration, Language contact, Change in Bengali

Paper long abstract:

According to the Census of India (2001) Language, there are 83.36 million Bengali (here after Bangla) speakers in India out of which 64.76 million live in Bengali majority states of West Bengal and Tripura. The rest are scattered all over India. The paper proposes to explore the linguistic impact on Bangla when the Bengali migrants, whose first language is Bangla, communicate with the speakers of the dominant languages of the host states after domestic migration.

To study what happens when Bangla, an Indo-European language encounters Hindi, a fellow Indo-European language or when Bangla meets Telugu, a Dravidian language or comes in contact with Austro-Asiatic language, Khasi, a sample of fifty educated, urban, migrant Bangla speakers in the age group of 15-75 are chosen from three Indian cities—Delhi, Hyderabad and Shillong. Hindi, Telugu and Khasi are the dominant respective state languages. The respondents supply the requisite data through questionnaires and unstructured interviews.

Though Bangla is the home language, most of the young subjects (15-30) cannot use the language for reading or writing but are able to use it for speaking. Irrespective of the dominance of the state languages, Hindi has the maximum influence on Bangla, the language of the migrant Bengalis. The speech of the respondents exhibits some deviation from the standard Bangla at the morphological, pragmatic and phonological level. This change, though largely noticeable, is not indelible and hardly threatens the maintenance of standard Bangla.

Paper short abstract:

English entered into the South Asia with the migration of the British and plays a dominant role in South Asia. Accordingly this paper will focus on the migration of the British in South Asia and their linguistics impact in South Asia especially in Bangladesh.

Paper long abstract:

Most of the postcolonial countries of the world such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh have suffered long periods of political, economic and linguistic domination. Bangladesh has also taken English as a medium of instruction for political, economical, educational and other purposes.

Language is one of the most important instruments in the mechanism of imperialism. English entered into the South Asia with the migration of the British. Most of the postcolonial countries in South Asia such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal suffered long periods of political, economic and linguistic domination. Although these postcolonial countries have taken different paths to nation building, the medium of instruction policies has been a key component in national development. English plays an important role in India with dozens of local languages including Hindi. English is taught in the largest number of schools and it is used in Radio, Television and newspaper. In India, it is regarded as one of the tools of national building. With the above backdrop of English in India, this paper will focus on the migration of the British in South Asia and their linguistics impact in South Asia especially in Bangladesh.

Viswanathan (1989) mentioned that the use of English language teaching in India could of itself be regarded as a form of social, cultural and political control. It basically produced a class of people who are alienated from their own language and culture and discontented with the colonial rule. At present, in the field of Indian education as well as in Bangladeshi education, English is no longer a medium of instruction either in primary schools or in the secondary schools, except English medium schools, but English does play a special role in both countries. English is used as a language of administration, inter-state communication, and higher education in many states in India and also in Bangladesh, for projecting cultural heritage, economic programs, tourism, politics, industry trade, foreign policies and research findings overseas.

Paper short abstract:

This study analyzes the usage of the term hindu appeared on the hagiographies Caitanya(1486–1533), who is well known as the medieval Bengali saint.

Paper long abstract:

This study analyzes the usage of the term hindu in the Gauriya Vaisnava literature, which is a series of hagiographies of the saint Caitanya (1486-1533). Caitanya is well known as the medieval Bengali saint of the Bhakti movement. The term hindu appeared on two masterpieces of the hagiographies, namely the Sri Caitanya Bhagavata (completed around 1545) and the Sri Sri Caitanya Caritamrita (around 1612-15). Joseph T. O'Connell has discussed the term hindu in these texts, and several scholars have referred to his study for their arguments over the modern construction of the concept of 'Hinduism'.

The author categorises the meanings of the term hindu in the texts, and analyze the transition in usages. This analysis sheds light on a process of the formation of 'self-conscious religious identity', in which the native people became aware of a 'religious community', who suppose to share the same beliefs and practices as Muslims. The author also discusses that the role of the kaji, a judge of Islamic law, is to mediate the conflict within a local Hindu community.

Paper short abstract:

The study investigates to what extent Southeast Asian marriage immigrants have shifted their native languages in Taiwan. Data will be collected from questionnaires on Vietnamese, Indonesian, Philipino, and Thailand immigrants and analyzed in terms of dentity, language use, and language proficiency.

Paper long abstract:

This study investigates to what extent the Southeast Asian marriage immigrants have maintained or shifted their native languages in Taiwan. Marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia became noticeable in Taiwan since the late 1980s when commercial marriage migration brokers introduced brides from Southeast Asia to Taiwan's fishery and agricultural villages due to 'bride famine' in those rural areas. The number of marriage immigrants has been increase dramatically since the turn of this century. Their arrival has brought their languages into contact with the national or local languages of Taiwan. As a result, language conflicts occurred. This consequently contributes to the maintenance or shift of their native languages. However, little research has been done in this aspect. This study intends to do so.

For the purpose of the study, data will be collected from the use of questionnaires on four ethnic groups of marriage immigrants, i.e. Vietnamese, Indonesian, Philipino, and Thailand immigrants, who are the four largest groups of marriage immigrants in Taiwan. The data will be analyzed in terms of the following three perspectives: self ethnic- identity, language use in selected domains, and self-reported language proficiency by the marriage immigrants. The result will show the extent to which the native languages of those marriage immigrants has been maintained or shifted. Implications on factors contributing to immigrants' language maintenance or shift and proper language policy implemented for immigrants in a country will be drawn from the results.

Paper short abstract:

This study hypothesizes the situation of language contact which was created due to the social processes of migration of both Aryan, and non-Aryan speech communities, and facilitated the development of Proto-Bengali involving the processes of pidginization and creolization.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this study is to hypothesize the situation of language contact with regard to the migration which instigated the development of Proto-Bengali with the assumption that the Indic languages have evolved from a common ancestral language, i.e. Old Indo-Aryan language following a route of development as shown below.

Old Indo-Aryan>prakrit>apabhramsha>Modern Indic languages

Hence, Indic languages have been a decreolized variety developed from the Apabhramshaes which shows adherence to the post-creole continuum presently existing in South-Asia. They had developed in stages from the old Indo-Aryan involving the linguistic processes like pidginization and creolization in a situation of language contact which was created due to the contact between the Indo-Aryan vernaculars and the indigenous languages having been supplemented with the social processes of migration, Aryanization, colonization and religious conversion.

Against the above-mentioned backdrop on the development of Indic languages, this paper will focus on the issue of situation of language contact which was created due to the migration of both Aryan and non-Aryan (including Austric, Dravida, and Tibetan) speech communities. The migration of various speech communities would happen due to the colonization of Bengal as well as spread of both Aryan religions, i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and Islam in Bengal. Given these fact of migration in South Asia, this study will investigate how the immigration of non-Indo-Aryan speaking immigrants required for administrative and military establishment by different colonial powers like Aryan and Tibetan, and joined as disciples in the monasteries, e.g. Nalanda facilitated the creation of situation of language contact in the way to development of Proto-Bengali from the Gaudiya creole Indo-Aryan.

Paper short abstract:

An attempt is being made to relate human migration into Bengal since Indo-Aryans with development of modern Bengali language through historical times. However vocabulary is closely associated with land formation and climate. Religion and culture influence dialects

Paper long abstract:

A new angle of study envisages that in development of Bengali language, both literary and vocabulary including pronunciation, migration of people from different parts of Euro-Asian countries through ages is the most important factor supplemented by other controlling agents like the geological processes in developing this coastal land of Bengal and climate. The southern land of Bengal evolved 3000 years before. Distinct climate in the Himalayas and plains affects pronunciation.

People migrate with their intellect, culture and language and so happened in case of Indo-Aryans too. The initial Austroasiatic (Dravidian and Tibeto-Burmese group) vocabulary words used by different tribes in distinct landforms get influenced with mixing of Indo-Aryan language. Magadhi prakrit develops typical eastern pronunciations following series of modifications and evolution with time. It later evolves into the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages including Bengali (1000-1200 AD), a dialect close to, but different from, Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Later, words used by linguistics, traders and rulers from Middle and West Asia and Europe in successive time have enriched the Bengali language with Arabic, Turkish, Pashtun and Persian words followed by Portuguese, French, Dutch and English words. However, close contact with neighbouring peoples facilitates the borrowing of words from Hindi, Assamese and several indigenous Austroasiatic languages (like Santali). Study reveals that dialects in entire Bengal exhibit a greater variety. South-eastern West Bengal speaks in Standard Colloquial Bengali while a majority in Bangladesh uses notably different dialects. Due to cultural and religious traditions, Hindus and Muslims use Pali/Sanskrit-derived and Perso-Arabic words respectively.

Paper short abstract:

A band of the Bengalies from East Pakistan migrated to Bihar, India just after independence in 1947 and it continued till 1956-57. They were made to settle in and around Betia. The number of the migrated people is around 3.5 lakhs. The present paper will try to look into the linguistic consequences of this migration.

Paper long abstract:

A band of Bengalies from East Pakistan started migrating to India just after independence in 1947 and settled in Bihar, India. It continued till 1956-57. They settled in and around Betia as there was enough barren land in the district. Ever since they settled in the area they were discriminated in respect of livelihood, education and other human rights. Till 2005 they did not get the caste certificate. Till today they do not have opportunity to have mother tongue education, that is Bengali. They are denied of basic human rights in every respect.

So far as basic education and language use is concerned they are deprived of having education through Bengali as there is no Bengali medium school. Bengali is not even taught as a subject. The state being Bihar the state language is Hindi and there is no special provision for the linguistic minorities. If they like to have education it is through Hindi. As for the language use they have little scope to speak Bengali outside the ingroup. While interacting with the outgroup they have to use the dominant form of eastern Hindi. As a result the younger generation is loosing interest in using Bengali as they believe if they have to survive they have to use local language. There is extensive code-mixing in sound, grammar and syntax.

Under this backdrop the paper will attempt on the basis of participant observation and historical records to unearth the situation of the Bengali-speaking the migrated minority of Bihar.

Paper short abstract:

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the linguistic consequences of the migration of the religious minorities from East Bengal to West Bengal in the aftermath of the Partition of Bengal in 1947.

Paper long abstract:

Migration is a leading external and extra-linguistic factor of language change. In this paper we would like to make an attempt to understand the linguistic consequences of the migration of the religious minorities from East Bengal/East Pakistan to the West Bengal due to the Partition of Bengal in 1947. The coming of millions of East Bengali refugees to West Bengal in the aftermath of Partition led to a closer contact between the migrants from East Bengal and host population of West Bengal, popularly known as Bangal and Ghati respectively. This contact has a far reaching impact on the Bangla dialect in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax. For example, the local people previously used to pronounce 'lebu'(lemon) as 'nebu', 'nati'(grandson) as 'lati', 'lekha' (writing) as 'leka', 'majhkhan' (middle point) as 'majkhan', 'bandho' (closed) as 'bando', 'shok' (mourning) as 'shog' and so no. This sort of pronunciation has been discarded nowadays and new words have poured into the Bangla vocabulary due to the process. Moreover, the local people were habituated to apply the suffix 'um' in first person past tense, namely 'kortum'(used to do), 'jetum'(used to go) etc. which has gradually been replaced by the suffix 'am'('kotram', jetam', 'khetam' and like that). Similarly, the speech of the migrants from East Bengal was also transformed to a great extent in this process. They quickly acquired a common speech in vogue and actively helped the process of the development of a standard dialect of Bangla which is extensively used nowadays in print and electronic media all over West Bengal.

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies a section of native speakers of different Dravidian languages, who are staying in Kolkata for at least ten years. The aim of the study is to see how and to what extent migration affects the language use pattern and language attitude of a community.

Paper long abstract:

Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta) has been a city that has attracted migrants for a long period of time. Even though these are mostly cases of in-migration from various states of India, due to the great linguistic diversity of the country, which has 122 recognised languages, migration has made Kolkata an extremely diverse and multilingual city. The 1991 census recorded the presence of no less than 91 languages in the city. 0.62% of the total residents of Kolkata are native speakers of one of the four Dravidian languages - Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. The percentage is rather small compared to a language group like Hindi native speakers in Kolkata (21.14%). However, Hindi comprises of linguistic-ethnic groups like Marwaris and Bhojpuris who, unlike the Dravidians, are typically known to migrate and settle away from their place of origins for many generations. The Dravidian migrants in Kolkata are therefore a minority faced with many dominant and non-dominant languages in everyday life in Kolkata. This paper aims to find out how this situation shapes the linguistic attitude and pattern of language use of the community. In order to do so, it analyses the responses, elicited through a questionnaire based survey, of a cross section of people, who are native speakers of one of the Dravidian languages and those who are residents of the city for at least ten years.

Paper short abstract:

Language change in Lepcha (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in India), a result of languages in contact is studied diachronically from the point of view of socio-political history of migration (Tibetans, Nepalese), colonialism (British), geo political fragmentation and modern democratic set-up.

Paper long abstract:

Keeping in view the complexity of bilingualism, an offshoot of languages in contact, the language situation of Lepcha (a Tibeto-Burman language mainly spoken in Sikkim and in Darjeeling district of West Bengal in India) has been studied in the multicultural and multilingual context. The socio-political history of migration (by Tibetans, Nepalese), colonialism (British), geo political fragmentation and modern democratic set-up that the speech community experienced across the time period have been discussed for the purpose of substantiating the linguistic consequences of the Lepcha speaking community. The paper concentrates on 'language maintenance' (non-convergence) and 'language shift (shrinkage)' or broadly speaking, 'language loss' in terms of language structure, viewing the Lepcha language from the diachronic point of view. Co-relation of the use or choice of language(s) in different social domains and the societal factors has been established throughout the study.

Contact situation of languages cannot be viewed only as a dichotomous situation of 'convergence' and 'non-convergence' or 'divergence', but also situation of 'language loss' or 'language shrinkage' where the speech community ceases to use particular language structure which was once in use as found or available in the earlier literature. Such 'language loss' or 'language shrinkage' can be the result of different social and demographic factors which ultimately help us in determining and justifying the present socio-linguistic position of Lepcha. The discussion focuses on language change from the view point of phonological and morphological aspects of the Lepcha language. The present work is based on the data collected from field investigation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the historical as well as sociolinguistic factors for the linguistic convergence between the two major language families when they come into contact because of migration in the new cosmopolitan city i.e. Kathmandu.

Paper long abstract:

Nepali is the official language as well as lingua franca in Kathmandu city which is being used widely for official, business and other purposes since the unification movement in Nepal i.e 1769 AD. It has got a very long history and relationship with other languages mainly spoken in Kathmandu valley and other places. Contact Nepali has become the part of daily lives of all the people in Kathmandu valley these days. Newar is the most dominant language used by Newari people as their mother tongue. They use Newar for their domestic as well as religious and cultural purpose but speak Nepali for business as well as social activities. Kathmandu is now a multilingual city where we find people speaking at least 3 or more languages. Because of urbanization a large number of other language speaking communities like Indo-Aryan(Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu etc.) and Tibeto-Burman( Sherpa, Tamang, Gurung, Rai, Limbu etc.) are migrating in the capital day by day. This movement has made the language contact and convergence possible.

Accordingly, this paper presents a brief outline of language contact situation in Kathmandu valley focusing on the possible historical and sociolinguistic features of contact Nepali like code Switching/Mixing, Borrowing etc. of the three communities i.e.Newari, Other TB and Madhesi speaking Nepali as a language of wider communication along with their domains of Nepali language used in various other activities..The data is collected informally from different sources like interview, Conversation, Speech and social gatherings like religious and cultural festivals.

Paper short abstract:

The Igbo people co-habit with the Oring people in Southeastern part of Nigeria. This paper intends to examine the linguistics effects of the Igbo migration on the Koring language. Koring lexical items were investigsted and the result showed that Koring borrowed extensively from Igbo. Also the two languages’ contact resulted in Koring lexical change.

Paper long abstract:

Lexicostratigraphy is an aspect of historical linguistics that makes use of interlingual borrowings in determining the original settlers of a given speech environment. This paper explores this theoretical framework in an attempt to determine the original settlers in Ebonyi state, southeastern Nigeria. The two groups of people being investigated are the Oring people numbering less than three hundred thousand and the Igbo people with a numerical strength of about fifteen million. The Oring and Igbo people speak Koring and Igbo respectively. The two groups occupy the southeastern geopolitical zone in Nigeria but their languages belong to different language families within the Benue-Congo phylum. Koring belongs to the East Benue-Congo while Igbo belongs to the West Benue-Congo. Borrowings were used for two purposes. Firstly, to determine the Oring settlement; then, to examine linguistic change in Koring. An investigation of the two languages' lexical items revealed that the Oring were the first to settle in their present location. This study also showed that the two languages' contact has resulted in Koring lexical change.

Paper short abstract:

Rais of Nepal migrated to north India where Maithili is the dominant language. They lost much of their culture and language, and adopted Nepali as a link language not to lose their identity. This Nepali is a curious mixture of Rai languages, Nepali and Maithili –result of language contact.

Paper long abstract:

Some 250 years ago, Rais of Nepal migrated to the north India to save their life from the King of Gorakha. This area is inhabited by Maithili speaking communities. Rais are culturally one but they speak different languages. In course of time their culture and language suffered. They adopted Nepali as a link language to maintain their identity. This Nepali is different from the Nepali spoken in Nepal. Today, they speak a language which is a curious mixture of Rai languages, viz. Chamling, Bantaba, Koyu and Puma, Nepali and Maithili. This language is predominantly Nepali with fragments of Rai languages and borrowings from the Maithili language. It has adopted an ingenious way of nativizing the foreign words. The language shows complex constructions -a clear case of language contact. Some examples are given below.

•Pum-Nep-Pum-Pum: kʌ-risa-ket-ku(ACT.PTCP-anger-V.NATIV-CAUS-NMLZ)'an angry man'

•Maith.-Maith.-Pum: nʌi-mʌja-bo (NEG-good-GEN) nʌimʌjabo 'uninteresting'

It is also believed that language does not borrow affixes. But lot of examples were found in which Rais borrowed prefixes and suffixes from Nepali and Maithili and digested them in their language. Here are some examples.

•DAT - lagi: kitap-a cha-ci-bo-lagi las-i 'To bring the children's book.'

(book-N.NATIV child-ns-GEN-DAT bring-3P)

•VOC - re: kʌta gʌ-is re 'Where are you?'

(where go-PT VOC)

This shows that language develops its own means for survival when it is surrounded by more dominant languages.

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies the influence of Hindi on Saraiki, the language of the Hindu migrants from Pakistan in Delhi. Saraiki has fricatives [z x ɣ] in its phonemic inventory but Delhite Saraiki is expected to substitute these fricatives with [ʤ kh g] respectively under the influence of Hindi.

Paper long abstract:

A large scale migration of population occurred across Pakistan and India in 1947. Among those who migrated from Pakistan to India were Saraiki speaking Hindus. Saraiki became one of the minority languages in Delhi. Since then, the Delhite Saraiki has been under the influence of Hindi. In Delhite Hindi [z x ɣ] are substituted with [ʤ kh g] (Shapiro 2007).

This paper aims to study the change which occurred in the language of the Saraiki migrants who moved to Delhi after the partition. The foci of the study are [z x ɣ] consonants. Two groups of speakers, one comprising 60 migrants and another 60 made up from their offspring, will participate in the study. Both groups have equal number of male and female participants. 20 Saraiki speakers from Pakistan will also participate in the study as a control group. The target sounds are recorded in an imitation task. The recordings will be evaluated by four native speakers of Saraiki.

The interaction of factors like gender, frequency of use, (un)markedness status of the target consonants, dialectal variation among the speakers and the distribution of the target consonants will also be considered in identifying the influence of migration. Currently, the project is in the final phase of data collection. It is hypothesized that as Hindi has a strong influence on the Saraiki spoken in Delhi, the Saraiki speakers of Delhi will substitute Saraiki [z x ɣ] with [ʤ kh g] under the influence of Hindi.