This volume is a collection of historical linguistic and ethnolinguistic essays presented at the third meeting of the International Consortium for Eastern Himalayan Ethnolinguistic Prehistory at La Trobe University in 2017. The articles involve languages spoken in the Eastern Himalaya, a geographical area that extends from Nepal to northern Myanmar, passing through Bhutan, north-eastern India, northern Bangladesh, and southwestern China, though most of the discussions concentrate on the region controlled by India.
The first chapter forms its own part, introducing the linguistic background of the Eastern Himalaya and the methodology in historical linguistics and ethnolinguistics. Aside from that, the tome is divided into two parts. Chapters 2–6 focus on interaction between social superstructure and linguistic systems, while the remaining six chapters are committed mostly to topics in historical linguistics, although it is, after all, linguistics rather than anthropology that penetrates the whole tome, as stated somewhat bitterly by the editors (p. 3). Given my own academic background, I shall concentrate primarily on the linguistic issues.
Mark W. Post (ch. 2) introduces a notion that is receiving increasing attention in non-linguistic fields: Zomia, a broad region in Southeast Asia whose inhabitants are normally beyond the administration of central governments. This is followed by a description of the mid-Eastern Himalayan culture, which the author believes is a representative of Zomian society. This culture, contrary to a common view on the forming of Zomia, is argued to have existed from the beginning, its pre-state nature undisturbed by conflicts from external regimes.
Stephen Morey (ch. 3) carries out an analysis of traditional literary texts in Pangwa Tangsa and argues that they reflect a prehistory of Tangsa people during which they started to migrate from the plains into the mountains.
Marion Wettstein and Alban von Stockhausen (ch. 4) report and compare two ritual practices in Dumi Rai and Ao Naga. Also discussed are the issues in comparative anthropology and the contribution it can make to the prehistory of the East Himalaya.
Yankee Modi (ch. 5) analyses the traditional naming system in Tani languages. Under the Tani naming practice, an individual is assigned multiple names determined by social relations and gender to be used in various social situations. The author identifies semantic fields relevant to the naming practices and compiles an exhaustive list of glossed names with indications of their occurrence in specific languages. A further comparison of this naming terminology, set with counterparts of other Tibeto-Burman languages, reveals that the Tani system has received relatively litle impact from external cultures.
Ismael Lieberherr (ch. 6) reports Puroik terminology in sago, an important food source in the local culture. The author presents a complete picture of the agricultural production process of sago, ranging from plant naming to food manufacture, alongside a detailed explanation and glossing of the terminology involved. The author then argues that the sago culture dates back to the era of Proto-Tibeto-Burman, when sago was planted in a wider region than today, and proposes possible etyma for several Puroik terms.
David Bradley (ch. 7) examines a series of etyma for plant crops and domestic animals in the Trans-Himalayan family with special reference to the Tibeto-Burman languages. He argues that the ancestor of Proto-Trans-Himalayan, presumably originated from a culture in north-western central China, contributed to the basic lexicon of crops and animals, which were then inherited by Proto-Sinitic and Proto-Tibeto-Burman with follow-up adaptations influenced by migration, climate change and intercultural communication. With firm archaeological evidence, Bradley establishes an explicit chronology capturing temporal divergence in agricultural vocabulary, and this paradigm may be usefully further applied to comparative work in other lexical fields.
Amos Teo's essay (ch. 8) argues for the necessity of taking language contact into consideration when carrying out comparative work on the languages of Nagaland. Following this proposal is a re-examination of two previously proposed classificatory criteria; both propositions, nevertheless, are rejected for their sporadic regional distribution. As a case study, the author then explicates the influence of language contact on Sümi during the tribe's frequent migration.
Uta Reinöhl (ch. 9) discusses the classification of three Mishmi languages. In addition to an etymological investigation of tribe and language names of the Mishmi languages, the author contributes to establishing a phylogenetic tree of Proto-Kera'a-Tawrã, with Kera'a and Tawrã being its bifurcating branches. The Kera'a languages consist of Mithu and Midu, where Midu is undergoing an unusual innovation of consonant aphaeresis in polysyllabic words. Tawrã, on the other hand, is the most conservative for preserving phonetic features lost in Kera'a.
Scott DeLancey's paper (ch. 10) identifies an innovation that differentiates South Central and Naga Belt languages from other Central branch languages through a comparison of first-person pronominals. In these two subbranches, the pronominal reflexes of first person singular have been commonly replaced by the corresponding plural forms, either inclusive (Naga Belt) or exclusive (South Central). After an elucidation of possible socio-pragmatic motivations of this shared innovation, DeLancey tentatively proposes that first person in Proto-Kuki-Naga exhibits a register-determined alternation to denote singular by the two plural forms in certain socio-pragmatic contexts.
Linda Konnerth (ch. 11) reviews pre-existing proposals of classification of South Central languages, with which she integrates new materials from the previously neglected Northwestern subgroup. An updated list of sound correspondences in onsets is then given, along with a brief discussion of carrying out subgrouping through morphosyntactic features.
Gwendolyn Hyslop (ch. 12) traces the development of certain verb suffixes in Kurtöp and argues that not all of them are inherited from Proto-East Bodish but from borrowing or morphological innovation, the latter of which has two diachronic origins: grammaticalization from clause-chaining construction, and reanalysis of nominalization.
The book successfully presents current advances in linguistic studies in East Himalaya with reference to anthropology. It is recommended to linguists and anthropologists who are interested in this currently flourishing field.
