|
|
|
Simong Documentation
|
|
Simong is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Upper Siang district of
Arunachal Pradesh. It is classified as a sub-dialect of the Adi language.
|
|
|
|
The People and the Language
|
As per the Census 2011, there are about only 179 families existing today in the
Simong village, located in Yinkiong subdivision in the Upper Siang
district of Arunachal Pradesh. The total number of population is only about 672
people in the village. However, most of the young generation has had migrated to
the cities of Arunachal Pradesh and elsewhere in the country in search of education
and job opportunities. The total population of this community is less than 7000
(approximately) and is mostly scattered throughout the country. Most of the people
are land cultivators and depend on agricultural produce for their livelihood. The
Simong language is classified as a sub-dialect of the Adi language
of the Tibeto-Burman language family. It is considered as one of the endangered
languages of Arunachal Pradesh as most youngsters of this community are adopting
Hindi as their means of communication. The old generation (60 years and above) amongst
the Simong people comprises of monolingual speakers while the people with
an average age of 40 years and above are bilinguals speaking Simong and
Hindi. The younger generation, however, shows a gradual shift towards Hindi.
Adding to this, Simong does not yet have a script of its own and hence
has no literature either. Most of the native speakers are familiar with Adi
and other related languages of Arunachal Pradesh and therefore rely heavily on the
Adi literature. Literacy is relatively low (approximately about 32.76%
for males and 20.81% for females, according to the Census 2011). However, efforts
are being made to implement the Roman script for Simong.
No linguistic research or documentation has yet been made on this language
|
|
|
|
Religion and Occupation
|
|
The traditional belief practice of the community is Animism. They believe in worshipping
different elements of nature and animal sacrifice is a common ritual held for the
atoning of the community. The Simong community mainly practices land cultivation
and depends upon agricultural produce for their livelihood. However, many of its
younger population are employed in the cities as labourers and if they are educated,
then into some offices.
|
|
|
|
Present Work
|
|
The SPPEL project mainly aims to document the ethnolinguistic profile of the Simong
community and to further produce a basic grammar and a trilingual dictionary about
the same.
|
|