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Sora
Language
Sora [srb] is South Munda language spoken mainly in
Ganjam and Gajapati districts of Orissa,
as well as a few other districts of this
Indian State, and in adjacent hilly
tracts of neighboring Andhra Pradesh
State. Though having as many as 300,000
speakers, this is probably only one
tenth of the people who (once)
identified as Sora ethnically. Together
with the nearly extinct Gorum (Parengi)
language, Sora (along with the
closely-related Juray (so close
linguistically in fact that possibly
Juray should be considered an ethnically
distinct dialect of Sora)) forms a
unique sub-group within the Munda
language family. Living Tongues
initiated the Sora Talking Dictionary
and Online Grammar project in 2005 and
this continues today. The project has
been led by Opino Gomango since 2008,
who is a Sora language activist and also
works as the Living Tongues Field
Associate and Local Coordinator for
Orissa.
Munda languages remain little known, and
mis-information about them abounds. For
example, the Ethnologue, which due to
its many inaccuracies and
inconsistencies is unfortunately
considered to be the standard reference
on the world’s languages, has some
typical kinds of inaccurate information
about Munda languages, specifically with
respect to Sora. For example, in the
current (2009) print and on-line
versions, the Indo-Aryan language Lodhi
is said to be related to Sora when Sora
is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic
phylum and thus in no sense related to
this language.
Sora is a complex language and offers
much challenging data to theoretical
linguistics in such domains as the
nature of ‘noun incorporation’ (fusing
of nouns and verbs into verb stems,
yielding complex word-sentences) and in
the notion of what a ‘finite’ verb is
(an inflected grammatical verbal element
occurring in main clauses), to name just
two salient areas where this is clear.
Living Tongues has been working on the
development of a multi-media talking
online resource for Sora for the past
few years.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/langhotspots/Sora/index.xhtml
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