Another language taken up by the CEL, SU is Rai-Rokdung which was approved in the Third Advisory Board Meeting held on 8th March, 2018. After analysing the preliminary data collected during the pilot fieldwork conducted in December 2017, it was decided that a detailed grammatical fieldwork be undertaken. The grammatical fieldwork was conducted from 18 to 31 July, 2018 in the Rolep village where the only available speakers of Rai-Rokdung reside.
The team that conducted the Rai-Rokdung grammatical fieldwork comprised of the following members of the Centre:
1.Dr. Meiraba Takhellambam (Assistant Professor)
2.Dr. Hima S (Research Associate)
3.Ms. Pratima Chhetri (Research Associate)
4.Mr. Bishnu Bhujel (Resource Person)
5.Ms. Gangi Maya Manger (Resource Person)
6.Mr. Padam Bahadur Rai (Resource Person)
Nearly 20 GB of data in the form of audio recordings and photographs were collected and nineteen of the twenty surviving speakers of the language were intensively interviewed. The data collected during the grammatical fieldwork included extensive coverage of word lists under various semantic domains like names of flora and fauna, as well as a wide variety of nouns and verbs. Similarly, the team were able to elicit sentences ranging from simple to complex constructions as administered by the questionnaire developed by the Centre.
The Centre is of the opinion that in addition to filling the gaps in the data already collected, a comparative study of Rai-Rokdung with Bantawa is also imperative; and therefore, another field trip for data collection for the same purposes is planned.
