Tura, Mar 28: The Mothers’ Union, Tura and the A’chik Literature Society (ALS) have objected to the Garo textbook titled ‘Poraina Skiani A’ by Bluwin Chisik Sangma, published by D. J. Publications, Tura, which is being taken as a textbook to teach Garo language in certain schools in Garo Hills, pointing out that it will do more harm than good to the A’chik language and culture as a tribe.
“The combination of phonemes in the words given in page no. 16 does not agree with the phoneme combinations in Garo language. For example, the words KAB, KACH, KAD, KAJ, LACH, MAB, MACH,NAJ, RAJ, TACH, etc do not occur in the Garo language. There are no words that end with j, ch, as final syllables. We do have all those phonemes in the language, but not the above mentioned combinations. They are totally alien to our language,” the joint statement issued by the two local bodies said adding, such words as BADA, BAJA, CHAGA, CHALA, CHACHA, SAR, SAS, NAR, LAG, PAJ, DAB, GIB,KOB also do not exist in Garo language.
Referring to page 15 in the book, the statement said, “On that page with the heading “Oikor Minggitamchi Gamˑatani’ (meaning pronouncing with three letters), and titled (Menggo) with the picture of a cat, is filled with contradictions because the word menggo involves the sound of 6 (six) letters: m, e,n, g, g, o. The text below has none of those letters, no sound or phoneme connected with menggo. The words or letter combinations such as HAN, HAP, CHAJ, BAD, CHACH, etc. have nothing to do with menggo”.
The joint statement also objected to the incorrect placement of raka (glottal stop) symbol in some words like “e.ching” (p.5 & p. 7), “te.gatchu” (p. 11), “wa.a” (p 12) while informing that (a raised dot (·) is the accepted symbol to represent raka/ glottal stop in the Garo language).
“It is totally unjust to impose the phoneme combinations of other languages on Garo language. On account of the reasons given above, we strongly object to the use of that book “Poraina Skiani A” as a language teaching textbook for Garo language,” the two groups reiterated.