The Aiton language or Tai Aiton language is spoken in
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
(in the Dhonsiri Valley and the south bank of the
Brahmaputra
The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. I ...
). It is currently classified as a ''threatened'' language, with less than two thousand speakers worldwide. Its other names include Antonia and Sham Doaniya.
Classification
The Aiton language is a part of the Southwestern branch of the Tai family of languages. There are three other actively spoken languages in this branch:
Khamti,
Phake, and
Khamyang.
[Morey, Stephen. "Tonal change in the Tai languages of Northeast India." Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 28.2 (2005): 139-202.]
History
The Tai languages in Assam share many grammatical similarities, a writing system, and much of their vocabulary. The most prominent differences between the languages are their tonal systems.
According to the oral and written records of the Aiton people, they originated from a place named Khao-Khao Mao-Lung, a Burmese state near the Chinese border.
[Burgohain, Joya. "The Aitons: Some aspects of their life and culture." (2013).] It is generally believed that they came to India about two or three hundred years ago, seeking refuge from oppression.
Despite how long they have been in Assam, many members of the older generations are not fluent in Assamese, the official language of the state.
Geographic Distribution
Aiton is spoken predominantly in India, in the northeastern state of Assam.
According to Morey (2005), Aiton is spoken in the following villages:
Buragohain (1998) reports a total of 260 Aiton households, comprising a total population of 2,155.
Phonology
Initial consonants
Morey reports the following initial consonants:
Aiton, like some other Tai languages, have a "minimal three-way contrast in voicing".
It also only allows vowels to be voiced stops when they are in bilabial and dental/alveolar places of articulation. According to Morey, " and are variants for and , respectively".
Aiton, has voiced and four voiced nasals in its sound inventory.
It does not have voiceless sonorants.
Final consonants
Aiton has the following final consonants:
-
occurs after front vowels and
, -
occurs after back vowels and
.
[
]
Tones
Aiton today uses three tones, however it originally used five but two have merged with other tones. The first tone still used today is 'mid/high level', the second tone is 'high level then falling' and the third is 'mid falling'. Originally the fourth tone, 'mid rising', has merged with the first tone. The fifth tone, 'mid falling glottalised', has merged with the third tone.[Morey, S. (2008). North East Indian Linguistics. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press India.]
Vowels
Aiton has a vowel system of only seven vowels, , which is the smallest out of all the Tai languages spoken in Assam.
Grammar
Pronouns
The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Aiton language:
Demonstratives
Note: the form /-an2/ is a post-clitic form that approaches a definite article in function and may be attached to pronouns and even verbs.[
]
Classifiers
The most common classifiers are kɔ1 for persons, tu1/to1 for animals and ʔan for inanimate objects.[
]
Writing system
The Tai Aiton have their own writing system called 'Lik-Tai', which they share with the Khamti people
The Tai Khamti, ( Khamti: တဲး ၵံးတီႈ, ( th, ชาวไทคำตี่, my, ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး, Hkamti Shan) or simply Khamti as they are also known, are a Tai ethnic group native ...
and Tai Phake people
Tai Phake ( th, ชาวไทพ่าเก; also ''Chao Tai Faagae'', ), also known as Phakial or simply Phake, belong to the Tai-speaking indigenous ethnic group living in Dibrugarh district and Tinsukia district of Assam, principally alo ...
.[ It closely resembles the Northern Shan script of Myanmar, which is a variant of the ]Burmese script
Burmese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia
* Burmese people
* Burmese language
* Burmese alphabet
* Burmese cuisine
* Burmese culture
Animals
* Burmese cat
* Burmese chicken
* Burmese ( ...
, with some of the letters taking divergent shapes.
Consonants
* က - ka - k -
* ၵ - kha - kh -
ʰ* င - nga - ng -
* ꩡ - ca - c -
͡ʃ* ꩬ - sa - s -
* ၺ - nya - ny -
ref>http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn11/UTN11_4.pdf
* တ - ta - t -
* ထ - tha - th -
ʰ* ꩫ - na - n -
* ပ - pa - p -
* ၸ - pha/fa - ph/f -
ʰ/ɸ* မ - ma - m -
* ယ - ya/ja - y/j -
/ɟ** ျ - in medial form
* ꩺ - ra - r -
** ြ - in medial form
* လ - la - l -
* ဝ - wa - w -
* ꩭ - ha - h -
* ဢ - a - a -
* ဒ - da - d -
* ဗ - ba/wa - b/w -
/wref name="omniglot.com">
Vowels
* ႜ - a -
* ႃ - aa -
ː* ိ - i -
* ီ - ī -
ː* ု - u -
* ူ - ū -
ː* ေ - e/ae -
ː/ɛ* ႝ - ai -
i* ေႃ - o/aw -
ː/ɔː* ံ - ṁ -
̊* ိ်ုွ - ue -
* ်ၞ - aeu -
u* ်ွ - aau -
ːu* ွဝ် - au -
u* ွ - aw -
* ွႝ - oi -
i* ွံ - om -
m* ိ်ွ - iu -
u/iu* ုံ - um -
m* ်ံ - em -
m* ် - final consonant, silences inherent vowel
Other symbols
* ꩷ - exclamation mark
* ꩸ - 1
* ꩹ - 2
References
*Buragohain, Yehom. 1998. "Some notes on the Tai Phakes of Assam, in Shalardchai Ramitanondh Virada Somswasdi and Ranoo Wichasin." In ''Tai'', pp. 126–143. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Chiang Mai University
Chiang Mai University ( CMU; th, มหาวิทยาลัยเชียงใหม่) is a public research university in northern Thailand founded in 1964. It has a strong emphasis on engineering, science, agriculture, and medicine. It ...
.
*Morey, Stephen. 2005. ''The Tai languages of Assam: a grammar and texts''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
External links
* PARADISEC
The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel- ...
open access archive o
Aiton language recordings
{{Languages of Northeast India
Languages of Assam
Tai languages