Alpana Baidew,
I doubt that. How things are spoken across the dialects is a
"phonological" difference. It is not something that shows up in
writing. Individuals from the different dialectical regions possibly
will read the same piece of written text differently, with different
"accents". In the Kamrupi ("Dhekeri") dialect, the pronounced tendency
is to place the stress in the initial part of many words which is not
the case in the Eastern ("Standard") dialect.
Morphogical variation among the dialects
-----------------------------
Anyways, the differences in writing show up because of many reasons.
One is the so-called morphological reason, i.e., how we take a basic
word and form plurals, different tenses, etc., out of it. The
morphological endings for the Eastern and Western dialects are
different. These will show up in writing if the spoken word was
directly transcribed without any learned (i.e., what we learned in
school as more appropriate for writing) modification.
According to Banikanta Kakati (BK) in his "Assamese, Its Formation and
Development" (AIFD), here are some morphological differences between
the Eastern and Western dialects.
Suffixes, etc.
----------------
"37. (a) Both the groups have different sets of plural suffixes. For
St. Coll. -bor, bilak; Western Assamese has -gilan, -gilak, -h~un,
-ah~un, etc. The Pl. suffix -h~ot is common to both the groups, but its
use is restricted to Western Assamese.
(b) Pronominal derivatives are often different in both the groups,
for Western Assamese temporal adverbs kethen (when), tethen (then),
etc.; Eastern Assamese has no parallel formations. So, also, Western
Assamese kah~e (where), zah~e (wherever) etc., are peculiar to it.
(c) For the third personal conjugation affix -ile after transitive
verbs, Western Assamese has -ilak, -ila.
(d) For St. Coll. he~ten, to indiciate the past conditional, Western
Assamese has h~aj, etc."
In the above "St. Coll." means "Standard Colloquial" or the Eastern
dialect.
What the above says that although the basic or root word used by the
two dialects may be the same in many cases, but when used in sentences,
the words start to look different (i.e., their spelling would look very
different if printed) when people start to make plurals out of them,
use them in different tenses to describe time sensitive information,
etc. Since written Assamese has mostly accepted the suffixes of the
Eastern dialect, the printed words in everyday context look more like
the Eastern dialectical forms, not the Western or "Dhekeri" forms. So,
the same basic root noun "manuh" (man) will become "manuhbor" in
Eastern and "manuhgilak" in Western, for example.
BK also says that there is a significant difference in so-called
"glossarial" vocabulary between the two dialects. Glossrial vocabulary,
as I understand is composed of words that are special purpose words,
used for sub-languages, say, medical terms, names of plants, names of
day-to-day tools. So, if such glossrial terms were printed, usually the
Eastern one is used in writing. He gives examples with names of plants.
E.g., "nilazi lota" is used in the Eastern dialect instead of "lazeti
lota" in the Western.
But, then BK continues "In spite of these divergences, however, a large
measure of agreement is noticeable in common case endings,
conjugational affixes, pronominal roots, derivatives and vocabulary.
All this establishes the fundamental unity of hte dialects of Eastern
and Western Assam."
Jugal Kalita
-----Original Message-----
From: Alpana B. Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]
Sent: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:43:33 -0500
Subject: Re: [Assam] Dialects of Assam: Classification in two ways
>*** This is very common in Jokaisuk as well. We grew up speaking
like that .
That is why I think there are more words from lower Assam, Guwahati -
to be precise, in 'likhito Oxomiya' than from upper Assam.
BTW, I thought Tilok was from Jokaisuk and you were from Namti. Is
Namti called Jokaisuk in kothito bhaxa? :)
--------
From: Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Assam] Dialects of Assam: Classification in two ways
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:33:03 -0500
J:
> So, you would hear someone say "loa-sOwali" instead of
"lora-sOwali" (boys and girls), "Ghooloi jao~" instead of "Ghoroloi
jao~" (I am going home), etc.
*** This is very common in Jokaisuk as well. We grew up speaking
like that .
c-da
At 1:21 PM -0400 8/17/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Below, I first present the distinguished linguist Banikanta
Kakati's classification and then modify a little bit to fit my
perception of dialectical variation in Assam.
Banikanta Kakati's classification
-----------------------------------------
According to Banikanta Kakati (BK), in his "Assamese, Its
Formation and Development" (LBS Publications, GNB Road, Guwahati,
Fifth edition, 1995), there are two main dialects of Assamese,
Eastern and Western.
According to BK, "33. Assamese may be divided dialectically into
Eastern Assamese and Western Assamese. The language from Sadiya,
the easternmost frontier down to Gauhati exhibits a certain
homogeneity and hardly presents any notable point of difference
from the spoken dialect of Sibsagar, the capital of the late Ahom
kings. And for purposes of literature this dialect is generally
regarded as the standard language."
I would say, there are some minor differences between the language
spoken in Sonitpur and Nagaon (old district) and Golaghat district
and the eastern regions. Some of the most pronounced are uses of
"kahanikoi", etc., in the eastern regions and not in the
Nagaon/Sonitpur region, possibly even in Lakhimpur region further
to the east (I know several people from Uttar Lakhimpur, but hardly
hear them say words like "kahanikoi" or "pase"), but on the North
Bank of the Brahmaputra. So, I think BK is right in the
geographical demarcation and not Rajen Barua. I have repeatedly
heard, primarily, in All-Assam sports meets in Colleges and High
Schools when youngsters make fun of Guwahati and western regions as
"Dhekeri". This has happened in Nagaon town. So, it seems Nagaon
doesn't include itself in the "Western" or "Dhekeri" region.
BK continues: "34. The two Western dialects of Kamrup and Goalpara
possess several local dialects which betray sharp points of
difference from one another and the standard colloquial of eastern
Assam. The spoken dialects of Goalpara district seems to have been
greatly contaminated with admixtures of the Rajabamsi dialect--the
dialect that was evolved under the domination of the Koch kings of
Koch-Bihar, whose descendants ruled over Goalpara and contiguous
portions of Kamrup. In between the standard colloquial of Sibsagar
in the east and the mixed dialects of Goalpara in the West stand
the dialect of Kamrup district".
Thus, BK sets the Kamrup dialect, which I suppose is called
"Dhekeri" by some, as the one between the eastern boundary of
Guwahati city and Goalpara district (old). I doubt if people in the
Eastern areas call the Goalpara dialect "Dhekeri". I think it's
simply called "Goalporia" or by some even "Bengali".
BK continues to the description of the Kamrupi dialect "35. The
Kamrup district is not a homogeneous dialectical area. There are
different dialects in different localities." BK adds a little
later, "It will be noticed, however, that the points of difference
amongst the dialects of Kamrup are mostly confined to the details
of phonetics and hardly spread over to morphology and vocabulary.
The differences, however, between the Eastern and Western Assamese
are wide and range over the whole fields of phonology, morphology
and not infrequently vocabulary."
My classification:
-----------------------
I will venture to add the following based on my observations and
knowledge. I am sure linguists have done this already, but I don't
have any references sitting in my office. So, I am not going to
claim any credit.
This may be a way to classify the dialects:
1. Eastern (non-Dhekeri) dialect: Ranges from Sadiya to almost
Guwahati:
There are at least two sub-dvisions within this dialect.
1.1. The Jorhotiya or Sibsagoriya dialect spoken in Jorhat,
Sibsagar Dibrugarh, and Golaghat. These were the initial and
primary domains of the Ahom kings.
1.2 The Central dialect spoken in Nagon, Marigaon, Sonitpur,
and even in Lakhimpur and Dhemaji. The Central dialect is spoken in
Central Assam and the
North Bank Districts to the east of Tezpur. The Ahom influence
spread to these regions slowly, but it was not the initial and
primary Ahom domain. Also, these regions were not influenced by the
Western dialectical region politically when the Assamese language
emerged as a distinct language.
The main difference between these two dialects is the use of
words such as
"kahanikoi", "kahaniba", "pase", "mithoi" instead of "gur", etc. In
additon, there is a marked tendency in the Nagoya dialect to not
pronounce the ra-sound
in informal situations. So, you would hear someone say "loa-sOwali"
instead of "lora-sOwali" (boys and girls), "Ghooloi jao~" instead
of "Ghoroloi jao~" (I am going home), etc.
2. The Kamrupi dialect: Ranges in the old Kamrup district from
immediately east of Guwahati to the boundary of old Goalpara
district. This area also includes probably Mangaldoi and all of
Darrang (new) district. However, this area doesn't seem to include
the area called "Uttor Guwahati" where there is a pronounced
"Eastern" dialectical influence in some families. The Kamrupi
dialect is also called "Dhekeri" by some in informal terms.
3. The Goalporia dialect: It seems to be quite distinct from the
various Kamrupi dialects in my observation.
Jugal Kalita
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