Misplaced Pages

#734265

38-523: Promod Boruah (President); Daya Krishna Gogoi (Working President); Arun Gogoi (General Secretary); Puspadhar Saikia (Assistant Secretary); Tutumoni Gogoi (Organizing Secretary); Dimbeswar Gogoi (Organizing Secretary); Dholebagan All Tai Ahom Students Union (ATASU) or Chom Hom Lik Hen Tai Ahom Tang Mung in Ahom language is a students' union in Assam , India . All Tai Ahom Students Union or ATASU

76-751: A meeting of Ahom people at Patsaku, Sibsagar District, the Tai Historical and Cultural Society of Assam was founded. Since the late 1960s, Ahom culture and traditions have witnessed a revival. In 1981 the Eastern Tai Literary Organization has been founded in Dhemaji, which produced language text books and publications in the Ahom script. Schools in Dibrugarh and Sibsagar districts started offering Tai language classes, teaching

114-432: A mix of Tai Ahom, Phakey, Khamti and Central Thai. The scholar Terwiel notes that the view of the Ahom language being a dead language is hotly contested by Ahom priests and spokesmen of the revival movement. According to them, the language did not die out because Ahom priests still use the language for religious purposes. Some even claim that the priestly class speaks Ahom as their mother tongue. Upon further investigation, it

152-554: A small minority in their own kingdom, of which they kept control. During the 17th century, the Assamese language entered the Ahom court and co-existed with the Tai-Ahom for some time before finally replacing it. Eventually the Ahom peasants too adopted the Assamese language over the Ahom language for secular purposes, while Ahom was restricted to religious use by Ahom priests. The everyday usage of Ahom language ceased completely by

190-659: A tone system, but because the Ahom script did not spell out any tones, the tones are now unknown. The Ahom language has the following pronouns: Ahom uses the proximal demonstrative nai meaning 'this' and the distal demonstrative nan meaning 'that'. Tai-Ahom mainly used an SVO word order, but an SOV word order has also been attested. Classifiers are used when forming plurals, counting entities and when specifically referring to one single entity. Some classifiers are: 'kun' (used for persons), 'tu' (used for animals) and 'an' (general). For example 'khai song tu' means two buffalo, where 'khai' means buffalo, 'song' means two and 'tu'

228-765: Is a students' organization in Assam, India founded in 14–15 July 1988. It is the leading students organization of the Tai Ahom people in the state. The Ahom people were the previous ruling community of the state of Assam in Northeastern part of India. Amrit Kumar Chetia, Promod Boruah, Daya Krishna Gogoi, Arun Gogoi, Puspadhar Saikia, Tutumoni Gogoi and Dimbeswar Gogoi, and Bhuban Gohain were the Chief Adviser, President, Working President, General Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Organizing Secretaries and Executive Member of

266-537: Is clear, however, that the script and language would have changed during the few hundred years it was in use. The Lik Tai script featured on a 1407 Ming dynasty scroll exhibits many features of the Burmese script, including fourteen of the nineteen consonants, three medial diacritics and the high tone marker. According to the scholar Daniels, this shows that the Tai borrowed from the Burmese script to create their own script;

304-502: Is dependent upon context and the audience interpretation. Multiple parts of the sentence can be left out; verb and adjectives will remain, but other parts of speech, especially pronouns, can be dropped. Verbs do not have tenses, and nouns do not have plurals. Time periods can be identified by adverbs, strings of verbs, or auxiliaries placed before the verb. Ahom, like other Tai languages, uses classifiers to identify categories, and repetitions of words to express idiomatic expressions. However,

342-647: Is descended has been reconstructed as Proto-Tai , a language from 2000 years ago, in the Kra–Dai family (unrelated to Chinese, but possibly related to the Austronesian languages ), within the (proposed but debated) subgroup of Kam–Tai , although some say that Tai languages are a discrete family, and are not part of Kra–Dai. Ahom is distinct from but closely related to Aiton , which is still spoken in Assam to this day. Ahom has characteristics typical of Tai languages, such as: When speaking and writing Ahom, much

380-406: Is the classifier for animals. The following interrogatives are found: Ahom has the following basic numerals: 0 in Ahom script is "𑜰". Below is a comparative table of Ahom and other Tai languages. Ahom script The Ahom script or Tai Ahom Script is an abugida that is used to write the Ahom language , a dormant Tai language undergoing revival spoken by the Ahom people till

418-404: Is therefore usually regarded as a dead language. It retains cultural significance and is used for religious chants and to read literature. This is complicated however by the fact that the phonology with its tone system has been completely lost, because the Ahom script does not mark tone and under-specifies vowel contrasts, which obscures the meaning of words as tones are important to distinguish

SECTION 10

#1732783391735

456-408: Is used for religious chants and to read literature. Ahom's literary tradition provides a window into the past, of Ahom's culture. A printed form of the font was developed in 1920, to be used in the first "Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary". Like most abugidas, each letter has an inherent vowel of /a/. Other vowels are indicated by using diacritics , which can appear above, below, to the left, or to

494-583: The Khamti , Phake , Aiton and Tai Nuea languages , as well as for other Tai languages across Northern Myanmar and Assam , in Northeast India. The Lik scripts have a limited inventory of 16 to 18 consonant symbols compared to the Tai Tham script, which possibly indicates that the scripts were not developed for writing Pali. The earliest coins minted in the Ahom script and language were made during

532-554: The 'Tai Ahom Yuva Chatra Sanmilan, Assam' (TAYCSA), demanded that the Tai-Ahom language be included in the school curriculum of the state of Assam. They also demanded the creation of a two-year diploma course in Mahdavdeva University. An online dictionary containing nearly 5,000 entries (see External links) has been created by analyzing old manuscripts, especially the Bar Amra. A descriptive grammar of Ahom, based on

570-469: The Ahom still reside today. Tai-Ahom was the exclusive court language of the Ahom kingdom , where it was used to write state-histories or ' Buranjis '. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the small Ahom community expanded their rule dramatically toward the west and they successfully saw off challenges from the Mughal Empire and other invaders. The rapid expansion resulted in the Ahom people becoming

608-640: The Founder Committee respectively. Dimbeswar Gogoi, was brutally murdered by ULFA on 3 November 1989. The ATASU is spearheading the demand of the Ahom people for being granted the Scheduled Tribe status to the Tai Ahom people. The ATASU has been using various forums and forms of protest and agitations such as road blockades, bandhs, strikes, etc. to demand the ST status for the Ahom people in

646-633: The Indic and Southeast Asian abugidas. It is probably of South Indic origin. The Brahmi script spread in a peaceful manner, Indianization, or the spread of Indian learning. It spread naturally to Southeast Asia, at ports on trading routes. At these trading posts, ancient inscriptions have been found in Sanskrit, using scripts that originated in India. At first, inscriptions were made in Indian languages, but later

684-595: The Lik Tai script was derived from the Burmese script, as it could only have been created by someone proficient in Burmese. Daniels also argues that, unlike previously thought, the Lik Tho Ngok script is not the origin of the other Lik Tai scripts, as the 1407 Lik Tai script shows greater similarity to the Ahom script, which has been attested earlier than the Lik Tho Ngok script. Other "Lik" scripts are used for

722-418: The court language of the kingdom, until it began to be replaced by the Assamese language in the 17th century. Since the early 18th century, there have been no native speakers of the language, though extensive manuscripts in the language still exist today. The tonal system of the language is entirely lost. The language was only partially known by a small group of traditional priests of the Ahom religion , and it

760-399: The creation of the first adequate modern dictionary by Nomal Chandra Gogoi in 1987, titled The Assamese-English-Tai Dictionary . This dictionary allowed a reader to find the translation of 9,000 Assamese words into English and Tai. This dictionary filled in missing gaps of the Ahom vocabulary with Aiton and Khamti words and if those were not available, Lanna and Thai words were used. The result

798-538: The early 19th century. Although the language is no longer spoken, the exhaustive 1795 Ahom-Assamese lexicon known as the Bar Amra preserves the lexical forms of the language towards the end of the Ahom Kingdom . The language today is used chiefly for liturgical purposes, and is no longer used in daily life. While the written language (and ritualistic chants) survive in a vast number of written manuscripts, Ahom

SECTION 20

#1732783391735

836-593: The expressions, classifiers, pronouns, and other sentence particles vary between the Tai languages descended from Proto-Tai, making Tai languages mutually unintelligible. It has its own script, the Ahom script . The Ahom people and their language originated in Yunnan in south-west China . They migrated from the border between northern Vietnam and the Guangxi province of China, to the Hukawng Valley , along

874-573: The grammar found in old manuscripts, is being worked on. A sketch has been released, titled “A Sketch of Tai Ahom” by Stephen Morey. The Tai Ahom consonants have been reconstructed as the following, by analyzing old texts: The semi-vowel /w/ is missing from the system, however it is an allophone of /b/ that occurs only in the word final position. Consonants found in the word final position are: /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, j, b [w]/. Vowels can occur in syllable medial and final positions only. The following vowel inventory has been reconstructed: The language had

912-560: The language by following the phonology of existing sister languages, especially Tai-Aiton and Tai-Phake . The Institute of Tai Studies and Research (ITSAR), is a Tai-Ahom language teaching institute in Moran , Sivasagar , Assam , India, established in 2001 and affiliated to Dibrugarh University . It offers a one-year Tai-Ahom language diploma course and a three-month certificate course in spoken Tai-Ahom. Other initiatives have been taken, such as workshops and language classes. In 2019,

950-463: The late 18th-century, who established the Ahom kingdom and ruled the eastern part of the Brahmaputra valley between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The old Ahom language today survives in the numerous manuscripts written in this script currently in institutional and private possession. The Ahom script was probably ultimately derived from the Indic, or Brahmi script , the root of almost all

988-404: The meaning of words in tonal languages. Fabricated samples of the Ahom script delayed translation of legitimate Ahom texts. Several publications were created based on the fabricated samples, leading to incorrect grammatical analysis and dictionary resources that acted as a barrier to future researchers. A later translation of Ahom Buranji , a major Ahom script was provided by Golap Chandra Barua,

1026-471: The official website of All Tai Ahom Students' Union as the Education Secretary of the organization. He was the first Education Secretary of this ethnic group's organization. Ahom language The Ahom people established the Ahom kingdom and ruled parts of the Brahmaputra river valley in the present day Indian state of Assam between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The language was

1064-557: The reign of Subinphaa (1281-1293 AD). Samples of writing in the Ahom Script ( Buranji's ) remain stored in Assamese collections. The manuscripts were reportedly traditionally produced on paper prepared from agarwood (locally known as sachi ) bark. Assamese replaced Ahom during the 17th century. The Ahom script is no longer used by the Ahom people to read and write in everyday life. However, it retains cultural significance and

1102-538: The right of the consonant. The script does not, however, indicate tones used in the language. The Ahom script is further complicated as it contains inconsistencies; a consonant may be written once in a word, but pronounced twice, common words may be shortened, and consecutive words with the same initial consonant may be contracted. The following medial consonant diacritics are used to form consonant clusters with /l/ and /r/, such as /kl/ and /kr/. The following vowel diacritics are added to an initial consonant: To write

1140-417: The rules of Tai grammar. It has also changed greatly regarding semantics, literally translating Assamese into Tai words, which leads to sentences which do not make sense to any Tai speaker. Terwiel therefore calls this revived language 'pseudo-Ahom'. Nevertheless, this revived language has been used passionately by revitalists and many neologisms have been created. The demand for translation into Tai-Ahom led to

1178-424: The same man responsible for fabricating samples of translated Ahom script. It was discovered years later, by Professor Prasert na Nagara , that the translation was unreliable. Despite these difficulties, along with the lack of native speakers and specific text, studies in Ahom have prevailed, and certain available scripts have been translated and transliterated, using known words, characters and context. In 1954, at

All Tai Ahom Students Union - Misplaced Pages Continue

1216-559: The scholar Morey reported that Ahom priests have resorted to compounding words to differentiate between words that are homophones in the revived language, since Ahom lost its tone system. For example in old Ahom, the word su for tiger and su for shirt would have sounded differently by pronouncing them with a different tone. In revived Ahom, they are now differentiated by compounding them with another word: tu for animal and pha for cloth respectively. Subsequently, tu su and pha su can be differentiated. An effort has been made to revive

1254-629: The scripts were used to write the local Southeast Asian languages. Hereafter, local varieties of the scripts were developed. By the 8th century, the scripts had diverged and separated into regional scripts. It is believed that the Ahom people adopted their script from either Old Mon or Old Burmese , in Upper Myanmar before migrating to the Brahmaputra Valley in the 13th century. This is supported based on similar shapes of characters between Ahom and Old Mon and Old Burmese scripts. It

1292-544: The state. ATASU recently has the following district committees : Karbi Anglong Tai Ahom Students' Union hosted Brihattar Bokajan Rongali Bihu Adoroni (Greater Bokajan Rongali Bihu Celebration) in the middle of April from the year 2010 as a grand festival of Bokajan sub-division of the district. They also host Assam Divas (Sukapha Divas) every year at 2 December. Among the notable members of Karbi Anglong District Tai Ahom Students' Union, Pradyut Pawan Gogoi founded Greater Guwahati Tai Ahom Freshmen Social at Cotton College and

1330-660: The upper reaches of the Chindwin river , northern Burma . In the 13th century, they crossed the Patkai Range . and settled in the Brahmaputra River valley, in Northeast India. After increasing their power in Upper Assam, the Ahom people extended their power to the south of the river Brahmaputra and east of the river Dikho, which corresponds to the modern day districts of Dibrugarh and Sibsagar, Assam, where

1368-473: Was a hodgepodge of multiple Tai languages, that was only linked to the Ahom language by the Ahom script in which the dictionary entries were written. The scholar Terwiel recommended in 1992 to base neo-Ahom on the grammar and tones of the very closely related Aiton language, which is still spoken in Assam. Summarizing, the revivalists use a language consisting of a mixture of Tai words from multiple Tai languages, overlaid on an Assamese grammatical base. In 1999,

1406-447: Was being used only for ceremonial or ritualistic purposes. There has been efforts to revive the language in recent times. A reconstructed version is taught in various educational institutions in Assam by AHSEC and Dibrugarh University . Tai-Ahom is classified in a Northwestern subgrouping of Southwestern Tai owing to close affinities with Shan , Khamti and, more distantly, Thai . The immediate parent language from which Ahom

1444-436: Was determined that the priests could decipher the Ahom script and read the words aloud. However, because they did not know any tones, they did not have any idea of the meaning of the words except for the simplest expressions. According to Terwiel, there are great differences between the old Ahom language of the manuscripts, which is easily recognizable as a Tai language, and what the revivalists call Ahom, which does not follow

#734265