Abstract
The extinction of Tai Ahom, a language from the Tai-Kadai family that was once spoken in Assam, India, can be contributed to a number of socio-historical, linguistic and cultural factors including the development and strong influence of Assamese, a language from the Indo-Aryan family spoken in that region. In an effort to examine the dynamics that contributed to the loss of Tai Ahom, the current article focuses on a descriptive overview of issues including language shift, variation, and extinction in the case of Tai Ahom. It will also highlight the factors which contributed to its shift and gradual extinction and discuss current efforts to revive the language.
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Surveying languages: the art of governing speakers with numbers
- It’s all about English: the interplay of monolingual ideologies, language policies and the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistics on multilingualism
- How to ask questions on language? Ideological struggles in the making of a state survey
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- Luis Fernando Angosto Ferrández Sabine Kradolfer: Everlasting countdowns: race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states
- Cacophonies d’empire: Le gouvernement des langues dans l’Empire russe et l’Union soviétique
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities
- Tracing the “extinctness” of Tai Ahom: issues of language loss and death
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Surveying languages: the art of governing speakers with numbers
- It’s all about English: the interplay of monolingual ideologies, language policies and the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistics on multilingualism
- How to ask questions on language? Ideological struggles in the making of a state survey
- Counting matters: quantifying the vitality and value of Basque
- “In the mouth of an aborigine”: language ideologies and logics of racialization in the Linguistic Survey of India
- Language and ethnic statistics in twentieth century Sudanese censuses and surveys
- Book Reviews
- Luis Fernando Angosto Ferrández Sabine Kradolfer: Everlasting countdowns: race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states
- Cacophonies d’empire: Le gouvernement des langues dans l’Empire russe et l’Union soviétique
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities
- Tracing the “extinctness” of Tai Ahom: issues of language loss and death