A Corpus-based Reference Account of the Morphology of Puma

Narayan Sharma, SOAS

Project Details:

Individual Graduate Studentship. Duration: 2010-2013. £51,818

Project Summary:

This project aims to carry out in-depth analysis of a corpus-based reference account of the morphology of Puma (ISO 639-3 code:pum), a seriously endangered southern Kiranti language spoken mainly in Khotang district (Latitude, 27.0167 and Longitude, 86.8500) of eastern Nepal for its preservation. It is estimated that there are about 4000 Puma native speakers. Materials on the language have just been collected by the Chintang and Puma Documentation Project (CPDP) funded by the Volkswagen DoBeS project. This research is aimed not only to describe Puma, but also help in the development of a school grammar and preparation of pedagogic and teaching materials for mother tongue education.