Date: 07-Jun-2008
From: Dr Wati Pangrakri <drwatiao yahoo.com>
Subject: Ahom Language Not Dead
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LL Readers, Ahom language being declared dead by many linguists and writers during the last 19th century has its roots still left on a small hill in the Naga territory even today. Assam being a state of India which speaks of the mighty Ahom rulers 12th-19th century where many scholars, writers, linguist and so on, tried to decipher the lost language (Ahom), but the fact is that the present population speaks a mixture of Bengali-Hindi-Other(s) which is now known as the 'Assamese', unlike the original Ahom script written in the barks, skin etc. Fortunately, we've been preserving our history and geneaology through oral tradition passed down from our fore-fathers. We have never been conquered by other advancing tribes nor followed their traditions as well our language altered, unlike Assam state which is infiltrated by many advanced cultures like Hinduism, Buddism, Muslims etc. Assam is now trying its best to revive its lost language for the last 100 years but yielded no satisfactory translations of the script. I happened to read B.J.Terwiel book on Ahom language where he studied the Ahom language from various angles that he had to say that the language was dead which drew my attention wherein a translated 2 line script talking about the primordial state of affairs. In my opinion, that's not so according to our language. The pronunciation of the words exactly matches the meanings and phrases of our fore-fathers time which has a deeper meanings than what was thought by many scholars and teachers in Assam and elsewhere. I beg if anyone ready to help me and this small population fading away to non-existence.
Linguistic Field(s):
Anthropological Linguistics
Language Documentation
Translation
Subject Language(s): Ahom (aho)
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