Kera’a (Arunachal Pradesh, India) - Language Snapshot
- Naomi Peck
Abstract
Kera’a is a Trans-Himalayan language1 traditionally spoken by the Kera’a (Idu Mishmi) in the Lower Dibang and Dibang Valley districts of Arunachal Pradesh, located in disputed territory between India and China. The language is still widely-spoken in the valley by up to 16,000 speakers total, but ongoing cultural, economic and demographic change in the region due to outside forces has led to partial disruption of generational transmission. There are some previously published resources on the language such as phrasebooks, but little audiovisual material is available and no comprehensive grammatical description exists. This report is based on initial field trips to the area in the second half of 2019 and early 2020.
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1 The Trans-Himalayan family is more commonly termed Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman; however, these terms presuppose a certain genealogical organisation and are biased towards literate communities. I have chosen to use the more neutral ‘Trans-Himalayan’ following van Driem (2014) and Post (2019), among others.
Keywords: Arunachal Pradesh, India, Trans-Himalayan language, Idu Mishmi, Kera’a, China
How to Cite:
Peck, N., (2020) “Kera’a (Arunachal Pradesh, India) - Language Snapshot”, Language Documentation and Description 19, 26-34. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd62
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