The Central Institute of Indian Languages was set up on the July 17, 1969 with the objectives in playing role as a nucleus of the language related researches in India. For the last 36 years since the Institute has been established scholars have done commendable job in research and development of various tribal languages across the country, with special reference to major tribal languages spoken in Nagaland. However, due to various constraints and manpower, especially with respect to time, the Institute could not march further to work on the lesser known languages in Nagaland. I am happy to say that this work will be another valuable contribution to the Institute in particular and to the linguistics community in general.
The book consists of two parts. The first part describes the ethnology of the Khezhas that deals with the historical information about Khezhas as an ethnic group, and the Khezha ancestors. In this Chapter, Dr. Kapfo discusses in detail about their traditional belief, laws, customs, system of agriculture and manufactures, dressess and ornaments, etc. The second part consists of Khezha Grammar. In this Chapter, the author deals with phonology, morphology and syntax in depth.
The expertise of the linguists among the tribal community in the country is unique. Dr. Kapfo, being the native speaker of Khezha himself has presented not only linguistic description of the language, Khezha, but also discusses elaborately about Khezha culture and tradition which can be used as a model by young scholars in their research works.
I am confident that this work will also be helpful even in preparation of dictionary and school grammar of Khezha.
This book is a revised version of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Mysore. In the years that followed the completion of the thesis, there were many demands for a copy of it from educated native Khazhas as well as linguists. However, I resisted the temptation of its publication with the intention of updating it.
One of the reasons for the delay in publication is that, for languages that have been sufficiently deeply studied we can be reasonably certain of its accuracy when fully substantiated examples are cited in the discussion, and the new propositions, or the newly emerging terminologies applied to support the claim can be reasonably controlled by public debate. Unfortunately, however, a less known language like Khezha, which has never been studied in any form by any linguist in the past, the data I posited was felt insufficient to substantiate my claim. It is prompt to miss accuracy despite the advertent effort I have rendered. This is so, because language, whether developed or undeveloped, is universally the same in its functional traits. It is an adaptive behavior of humans and beyond the reach of an individual researcher to explore the dept of a language to the level of one’s satisfaction. The major impairment is that, there is hardly any other scholar to bring in additional data from other sources to counter the claim and update or refine the earlier studies.
Another problem that I faced is that, there are a variety of propositions and new terminologies emerged from different sources in linguistic studies, particularly from the newly explored languages. This has become another additional burden for a writer like me who had to acquaint himself with different emerging terminologies and propositions to be suitably applied in the present work.
In spite of the advertent effort I have rendered in analysing the data from my own intuition and also in consultation with other native speakers of Khezha, I am sure, there will still be scope to further refine the work. Whatever shortcomings I am alone responsible.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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