 course, in the exclusive custody of the Umswai Catholic Mission. Both Fr. Balawan and Pangti Andreas Hanse Durong are forgotten and ignored as neither their great works nor the men are considered worthy of Karbi gratitude!
About a decade later, Prof. Ronbong Terang’s ‘Karbi Lamtasam’ appeared in 1974. The Mikir-English-Assamese dictionary with a brief sketch of grammar is undoubtedly an important contribution towards the growth of the language. But unfortunately, the book is now out of print and it is hard to guess if the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council would be generous enough to fund the much-needed reprint as it did for the first publication. Prof. Terang has acknowledged Walker’s book as the guiding inspiration for his ‘Lamtasam’. But the highlight of the ‘dictionary’ is certainly the grammatical sketch that he had incorporated where he had attempted to offer the phonological patterns of the language. The tilt to the Assamese grammar in his grammatical sketch seems obvious for the author who had taught Assamese in the Diphu Govt. College for almost all his life. He had observed that there is no difference between the short and long phonemes in Karbi and that there are five tones corresponding to ‘high’, ‘mid high’, ‘high-lower-middle’ and ‘low’. According to Prof. Terang, ‘in Karbi seven separate vowel sounds are to be found’ while Mr. Stack had distinguished twelve vowel sounds adopting the Roman alphabets, ‘always employed to express the sounds of the language’. Likewise, while Prod. Terang had put nineteen consonant sounds, Mr. Stack had put them at fifteen barring the aspirates.
During the same time, Dr. Karl-Heinz Grüssner of Tübingen University (Germany), in his hunt for ‘exotic languages’ chanced upon the Karbi tongue in one of his first Shillong visits and started the process of documenting it through 1970 to 1973 and published his materials in 1973 under the title, ‘Arleng Alam, die Sprache Der Mikir: Grammatik u. Texte’ in German language. Mr. Harrison Langne, Dr. Clement Singnar, both hailing from Deithor, who were then pursuing their studies in Shillong (1970-71), and Mr. Harbamon Ingti Kathar (then in AIR’s Karbi Section) and Langtuk Teron, both from Tika (1973), guided him to the interior of Hamren, Tika and Deithor areas. The book, which deals in great length on the language’s grammatical aspects, is widely quoted by foreign researchers, but as usual, precious little has been done by both the official or unofficial language administrators in Karbi Anglong to work on Karbi grammar.
Another ‘Karbi Grammar’ by V J Jayepaul of ‘The Central Institute of Indian Languages’ (CILL), published in 1987, too has remained largely ignored and unknown to laymen.
Two decades later, Longkam Teron came up with another ‘Karbi Lamtasam’ in 1998. This Karbi-Assamese ‘Lamtasam’, besides having the same name with that of Prof. Terang’s book, is not a dictionary, but a grammar. To avoid the confusion, the author himself had clarified that the term as approved by the apex Karbi literary organization, ‘Karbi Lammet Amei’, meant ‘grammar’ and not ‘dictionary’. The author, despite being a laymen not trained in linguistics or the art of grammar writing, has indeed contributed to the cause of the language immensely. In 2001, he edited ‘A Modern Tri-Lingual Dictionary’, (Karbi-English-Assamese) published by the DPEP (District Primary Education Programme), Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council. This ‘dictionary’ contained 5303 words.
Khoyasing Hanse’s ‘Sankur Karbi Lamkuru lapen Lamseng’ came out in 1998 published by the ‘Karbi Cultural Society’ is a lengthy and voluminous grammar compared to its predecessors in the Karbi language. The author seems to have used all his teaching experiences to come up with the book but remains ignored as well.
There are other equally important contributions such as Biren Keleng’s ‘Bhoiyam Karbi Byakoron’, ‘Karbi Alam Charlinang’ (2nd Edition 2004), and Academy Award winner Bidorsing Kro’s dictionary ‘Akemi Karbi Lamthe Amarjong’ (2002). The latest addition to the steadily growing list of Karbi dictionari