Umran Retreat-2 (II)

Part 2

Hmar Grammar
Language is not a ready-made God-given treasure or a free gift offered on a plate. It “is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication and a language is any specific example of such a system” (Wikepedia). Language is thought to have originated when early hominins started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality. Humans acquired language through social interaction in early childhood. Languages evolve and diversify over time and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages with ancestral languages. Our language is said to have been originated from Sino-Tibetan languages and then evolved through Tibeto-Burman languages. It is one of the 40-odd offshoots of the Kuki-Chin-Burman languages and the youngest amongst the so-called Old Kuki group. It is a complex language in that while retaining the basic structure of the Old Kuki tongues, it is heavily mixed with and influenced by the Duhlien/Lusei which is structurally more developed and disciplined but not enough to simplify its complex character.


One false impression ingrained deeply in the mind of the so-called elites and linguist purists amongst us is the misconception that if one has to speak and write Hmar correctly, one has to adopt the fashion of the generation of the 40s and 50s who developed Hmar into a written language and literature, made beginner’s text books, published collection of Hmar hymns and translated the Bible in Hmar word for word from the Lushai Bible (translated in the pattern of KJV with the help of the white missionaries) which greatly distorted the language structure so much so that it invited, a hundred years later, the ire of a linguist like J.F.Laldailova who wrote many scathing but insightful articles and reviews on the mayhem the missionaries inflicted on the Lushai language through translation. It took more than a hundred years for the church to correct the blunders and now produced a Mizo Bible in a manner and fashion the speakers speak the language.

The points I wanted to emphasize are two: (a) that language is not a God-given gift in a well-structured form on a platter but developed by the ingenuity of the users to suit and serve their various developmental needs and the more the development the better and richer the language has become and (b) that each language has culture-related structure which is shaped and influenced by various compelling factors and the Hmar grammar is to be fashioned by its own intrinsic structure and not by the English grammar or any grammar of any other language for that matter. Hmar is a mono-syllabic and tonal language whereas English is polysyllabic and the two are poles apart. Therefore, any attempt to fashion Hmar grammar or its style and manner of speaking and writing in the pattern of English language will not work.

I have been spending a good deal of time studying Hmar to find out its fundamental and peculiar characteristics and the more I studied particularly its kindred Old Kuki dialects the more I realised how less I know of its basic structures. This is more evident when examined from my travel experiences amongst the kindred tribes while doing preliminary cultural mapping in Manipur, Assam and Tripura in 2011. The clearest window for me to know more of Hmar linguistic character is through a comparative study of Mizo-Lusei and Mizo-Hmar and its similarities and dissimilarities as these two languages or dialects are the closest of all the 40-odd Zo dialects. To be able to do this, one has to accept that what we now called ‘Hmar Trong’ or ‘Khawsak Trong’ is the offshoot of Lusei and Old Kuki dialects through years of interaction in Mizoram under the Sailo rule and is the youngest of all Zo dialects. I know that many so-called Hmar nationalists by name who love to live a life of deception will consider this statement a betrayal, much worse than what Judas Iscariot did to his Master. But truth is truth and no amount of denial or argument will make truth a false.

One fundamental obstacle in learning Hmar is the near absence of published material, not to speak of standard publication. The only known and popular book is the Bible of which there are now in 2013 four versions, three versions based on the original translation dotted with many archaic, obscure and grammatical mistakes which, with due respect to all involved in the publication, I personally considered as the main culprit in doing great injustice to the gradual deterioration in writing correct Hmar despite our much touted MIL subjects at graduate level in colleges in Assam and Manipur. This precarious situation prompted us to prepare and publish the Delhi Version of Bible in Hmar- to bring out clearly not only the word of God to the doorsteps of Hmar speaking population, especially the younger generation but also to salvage the dying Hmar so that those who are keen to learn Hmar can use as a standard reference book while at the same time gain their spiritual needs through reading of the holy book. We anticipated in no uncertain terms that the Pharisees amongst us would reject it in public but consult it in secret whenever they seek the true meaning and import of the Word. The revised, sleek, and leather-bound second edition is expected to be out within six months which, for the first time, will use diacritic signs to mark different intonations.

I have seen copies of basic Hmar Grammar authored by different persons including one in English which are intended for use at primary and high school level. These Hmar versions are a straight-jacket version of Lushai grammar and perhaps sufficed for the level intended but not for higher classes. What is grammar, in any case? It is a set of rules for forming words and combining them into sentences in a proper order to form a meaning intended. It is not a book from which you learn a language but a book which tells you how to use words correctly and effectively. Each word has a specific and defined meaning and if you arrange words to define each other in a proper order, you make a sentence with a clear meaning. In other words, grammar is a collection of technique of writings and expressions adopted by writers, speakers, officials, media and others to communicate effectively by using words as magic tools. The hands that virtually control grammatical rules are writers of all kinds, visible and invisible. If they develop new techniques, grammar follows.

Language and its usages are evolving every day in more ways Hegelian than Marxian dialectics. To try to stop the process and imprison in a closet of old and crippled ideas is downright criminal.

(To be continued. December 21, 2013, Delhi)