Word Formation in Bhotia Language of Sikkim

  • Kakali Mukherjee
Keywords: Binary, Variable, Invariable, Ordinary, Honorific, Inflection, Derivation, Affixation, Compounding, Reduplication

Abstract

Bhotia, one Tibeto-Burman Language of India, is spoken in Sikkim state as the second populous language. Amidst the Nepali, the first populous language of Sikkim, Bhotia is marked by its unique word formation in following binary ways

Variable and Invariable words

Ordinary and Honorific Words

Inflectional and Derivational words

The present paper is a humble attempt to highlight the words and their formation processes in Bhotia with the help of the data collected from Gangtok, Sikkim in connection with post-Independence Linguistic Survey of India- Sikkim Scheme of the Government of India..The presentation reveals the following:

Words may be of single phonemic representation or combination of phonemes;

Words are inflected following the morphological principles;

Inflection of words comprises the words of different word-class of Bhotia;

Inflectional words are found using the techniques of word formation such as Affixation, Compounding, Reduplication etc.;

Derivational words are derived by combining words of different classes of words.

With the above uniqueness the Bhotia is maintained with stability in Sikkim.

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Published
2020-08-27
How to Cite
Mukherjee , K. (2020). Word Formation in Bhotia Language of Sikkim. International Bilingual Journal of Culture, Anthropology and Linguistics, 1(2-3), 85-95. Retrieved from https://indianadibasi.com/journal/index.php/ibjcal/article/view/10