A core communicative function of the clause includes identifying the participants in an activity. The amount and type of information that identifies "who did what to whom" can vary from language to language. In many languages a word or affix is used to indicate basic information on the person doing the action, i.e., 1st person (I, we) 2nd person, (you, you all), or 3rd person (he, she, they). In the northeast Indian language Hakhun Tangsa, if 3rd person acts on a 2nd person (he kissed you) or a 2nd acts on 1st (you kissed me), additional information, called inverse marking, must be added to the verb. Inverse marking and other such distinctive features will be used by Krishna Boro to determine the place of Hakhun within the Tangsa family, which consists of over 30 languages, and the place of the Tangsa family within the Northern Naga branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. There are over 250 South Asian Tibeto-Burman languages but many of these are yet to be systematically documented and as a result the history of these languages remains unclear.
Under the direction of Scott DeLancey of the University of Oregon, Boro, who is himself a native speaker of a Tibeto-Burman language, will produce a comprehensive descriptive grammar of Hakhun Tangsa. The Hakhun grammar along with recordings and analysis will form a unique resource for the study of key grammatical features for reconstructing the language lineage of the Northern Naga languages.
The grammar will form the basis for a practical orthography and teaching materials for the Hakhun community. Krishana Boro will also train community members in language documentary methods so that they can continue language documentation in less accessible regions after the primary project is finished.
All materials created through this project will be archived at the Endangered Languages Archive. .
