About This Project

I would like to travel to Maryland, USA to spend one week with the Sizang community that resides there. I plan to elicit and record stories and lexical items (words), record conversation between native speakers and valuable cultural information. Most importantly, I hope to form lasting relationships with the Sizang people and encourage them to continually use their language and teach it to their children. Upon returning from Maryland, I will digitize all of the data that I obtained, transcribe the recordings into IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), and upload it all to my website/blog Sizangkam, making it accessible to all who wish to view it (especially the Sizang community). From there, there are two ways I would like to utilize the data: As I enter graduate school, I will perform morphological and syntactical analysis on the data to broaden research on Kuki-Chin. I also am planning to make an online dictionary of Sizang, open-source with examples.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

In the North West region of Burma (Myanmar) and in Northeast India lives a group of people known by several different names, such as: Chin, Zo, Zomi, Kuki, or Kuki-Chin. It is a society categorized by clans. Some tribes, such as the Hmar, were known as fierce headhunters.

In Linguistic literature, the language family of this group is referred to as Kuki-Chin, a sub-group of Tibeto-Burman. The language I hope to research at a graduate and post-graduate level is called Sizang Chin (or Siyin Chin, by Burmese and English-speakers). The language is tonal, as are many Tibeto-Burman languages, but it is oddly (as one researcher noted) not monosyllabic, quite inflectional, and has very detailed syntax.

Several dated articles and books about Sizang are listed on my website.

What is the significance of this project?

As one can see here on my website, there is a small amount of linguistic research and analysis that has to do with the Sizang language. However, most primary source material used in this research is quite old (ranging from over two decades to over a century in age). Therefore, this research trip aims to collect high-quality digital recordings from Sizang speakers of various demographics, and make them available online for other researches to use and analyze in the future.

• This provides the linguistic community with raw and recent linguistic data.
• Provides the Sizang language community with archived recordings of their spoken language and stories.
• Provides supporters and backers the assurance that their contribution will help produce results that will be archived for generations.

What are the goals of the project?

1. Travel to Maryland and personally meet many members of the Sizang community there.
2. Record stories, conversations, recitations, and lexical items (words), both elicited and dictated by Sizang speakers.
3. Archive the materials first on my website, looking for a more permanent home for long-term storage.
4. Transcribe all recordings using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
5. Search for new lexical items to add to my Sizang digital lexicon, once it's created.
6. Allow other linguistic researchers and Sizang community members full access to these data for whatever use they choose.