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Ho
Language
Another of the Kherwarian Munda languages, Ho [hoc] is
spoken in two rather distinct varieties
in southern Jharkhand and Northern
Orissa (Mayurbhanj district). Despite
having close to a million and a half
speakers, Ho is doubly marginalized in
the local mindset, firstly as a
low-status tribal language, and secondly
dismissed as a debased form of the
already devalued Mundari language, to
which it is a relatively close sister
language.
Ho has been under investigation by
Living Tongues since 2005, with KC Naik
as the primary consultant. The initial
recordings for the Ho Talking Dictionary
and Online Grammar Project were made in
2007 with Chandra Mohan Haibru serving
as the primary consultant. Both of these
speakers represent the Mayurbhanj
(Orissa) Ho dialect.
In 2008, Living Tongues Institute Fellow
Anna Pucilowski traveled to Ranchi
and Chaibasa to begin a full-scale
documentation of Ho and made thousands
of recordings in audio and video for the
Ho Talking Dictionary and Online Grammar
in the Jharkhandi dialect. Living
Tongues Institute Fellow and Ho language
activist Dr. Bhubaneswar Sawaiyan has
been assisting Anna.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/langhotspots/Ho/index.html
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