LINGUISTIC AND
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESOURCES FOR THE BUGUN
The Bugun language, also known as Khowa, spoken in
some ten villages in West Kameng District, Arunachal Pradesh, has been barely
documented. The Bugun numbered 800 in 1981, but current estimates put them at
around 1700 speakers[1]. The only
published source is Dondrup (1990) which is orthographic and should be used
with care.. Some phonetically transcribed data appears in the Appendix to
Abraham et al. (2005) and Madhumita
Borborah of Tezpur University has recorded a wordlist and sample sentences as
part of an unpublished study of the phonology as well as publishing a reader
for children. Barbora & Wangno (2015) is a
sociolinguistic study of language maintenance. Lander-Portnoy (2012) is what
looks like a dissertation, a write-up on Bugun phonology, based on a wordlist
taped by the Living Tongues Institute in 2011. Other material has been
presented on Bugun in scattered form in conference presentations and detailed
in Lieberherr & Bodt (2017). Pandey
(1996) is part descriptive ethnography, part hagiography, and again should be
used with care.
The present material was recorded in Tenga in January
2011 from Mr. Iglo, who is a native of Chittu village, and secretary of the
Bugun Welfare Society[2]. Despite
being a small ethnolinguistic group, the Bugun are quite active in promoting
their culture. They have an active Bugun Youth Association and in December
2011, the first music video in the Bugun language was on the point of being
issued[3].
Inasmuch as Bugun is mentioned at all, it is assumed
to be Sino-Tibetan (e.g. Ethnologue 2018). Van Driem (2001:473) refers to
unpublished and unavailable work by Roland Ruttger relating Bugun to the Mey
[=Sherdukpen] cluster. The resultant grouping named ‘Kho-Bwa’. Typically, this
material does not usually evaluate the alternative hypothesis of borrowing. More
detailed material has recently been published in Lieberherr
& Bodt (2017) and this will be evaluated in a revised version of this
paper.
Map
1 shows the location of all Bugun
villages shown on administrative maps. However, some villages mentioned in
Dondrup (1990) could not be located.
Map 1. Location of Bugun villages
Bugun society is structurally similar to many others
in the region, patrilineal, patrilocal.
An overview, wordlist and comparison with Mey of Rupa
is at;
References
Abraham, Binny, Kara Sako,
Elina Kinny & Isapdaile Zeliang 2005. A Sociolinguistic Research Among Selected Groups in Western Arunachal
Pradesh Highlighting MONPA.
Unpublished report.
Barbora, M. and
Wangno, T. 2015. The Bugun language: Maintenance issues. Linguistics of the
Tibeto-Burman Area, 38(2): 187-206.
Dondrup, Rinchin 1990. A
handbook on Bugun language. Itanagar: Director of Research, Arunachal
Pradesh Government.
Lander-Portnoy, Maury 2012. Let
Buguns be Buguns: A Preliminary Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology of the
Bugun Language. ms.
Lieberherr, I. and Bodt, T.A.
2017. Sub-grouping Kho-Bwa based on shared core vocabulary. Himalayan
Linguistics, 16(2): 26-63.