Descriptive Studies of the Ralte language in Northeast India

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26770136
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: Otsuka Kosei 東京外国語大学, アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所, 研究員 (90612937)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 記述言語学 / インド / チベット・ビルマ語派 / チン語支

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Belonging to the Kuki-Chin subgroup of Tibeto-Burman languages, Ralte is spoken mainly in the state of Mizoram in northeast India. Although the language's estimated number of current speakers is 900, Ralte's speaking population continues to decline sharply.
Until recently, foreigners were restricted from visiting Mizoram, which made it nearly impossible for foreign researchers to access Ralte and its speakers. Even though the state government has relaxed those restrictions and allowed foreigners to enter Mizoram, knowledge of Ralte remained scarce until 2010s, when plans for research on minor languages spoken in Mizoram began to take shape.
As part of that research, I have collected evidence of Ralte's basic lexicon and published preliminary papers on its phonology and grammatical issues based on data collected during my fieldwork. At present, I am preparing to publish both a sketch of Ralte's grammar and a text in the language for the purposes of documentation.

Free Research Field

言語学