Toto language explained

Toto
Nativename:	, টোটো
Region:	West Bengal
Ethnicity:	Toto
Speakers:	1,411
Date:	2014
Ref:	^[1]
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam2:	Tibeto-Burman
Fam3:	Kiranti (?)
Script:	Bengali script and Toto script
Iso3:	txo
Glotto:	toto1302
Glottorefname:	Toto
Map2:	Lang Status 20-CR.svg

Toto (Bengali: টোটো, Toto: ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken on the border of India and Bhutan, by the tribal Toto people in Totopara, West Bengal along the border with Bhutan. It is also spoken in Subhapara, Dhunchipara, and Panchayatpara hillocks on India-Bhutan border in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal (Ethnologue).

Status

Toto is listed as a critically endangered language by UNESCO, with perhaps 1,000 speakers.^[2] However, most families in the community speak Toto at home. Most children learn Toto at home, although they use Bengali in school.

Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) set out to conduct a study on language of the Toto tribe, whose population has dwindled to 1,536, they did not realize that the language is more endangered than the tribe itself. Researchers as well the members of the Toto community admit that the language is under threat and the influence of other languages, particularly Nepali and Bengali, is increasing day by day.^[3]

The Himalayan Languages Project is working on the first grammatical sketch of Toto.

Phonology

Toto consists of 25 segmental phonemes, of which 19 are consonants and six are vowels. The phonemes of this language are as follows:

Vowels

There are six vowel phonemes in the Toto language: /i/, /e/, /ə/, /a/, /o/, /u/. They can be classified:

horizontally into three groups as front unrounded, central unrounded and back rounded vowels;
vertically into four groups as close, close-mid, open-mid and open.

There are eight diphthongs realized in Toto, these are:

/eu/ — occurring in initial and medial positions,
/au/, /ou/ — occurring only in the medial position,
/ei/, /əi/, /ai/, /oi/ — occurring in medial and final positions, and
/ui/ — occurring in all positions.^[1]

The following minimal pairs establish the phonetics status of the vowel:

/i/~/e/

/iŋ/ 'brother in-law', vs. /eŋ/ 'ginger'

/ciwa/ 'tear', vs. /cewa/ 'cut' (cloth)

/i/~/a/

/guJi/ 'owl', vs. /guJa/ 'pocket'

/nico/ 'fire', vs. /naco/ 'two'

/i/~/u/

/Jiya/ 'rat', vs. /Juya/ 'bird'

/ei/~/əi/

/lepa/ 'brain', vs. /lapa/ 'jungle betel leaf'

/kewa/ 'birth', vs. /kawa/ 'sound'

/e/~/o/

/je/ 'grass', vs. /jo/ 'breast'

Consonants

With regards to consonants, Toto has an inventory of seven sonorants (nasals and liquids) and twelve obstruents (stops and fricative), eight of which are contrastive in voicing. It also distinguishes the voiceless obstruents /t/ and /p/ with their aspirated equivalents /tʰ/ and /pʰ/, respectively.^[1]

		Bilabial		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		plain	aspirated	plain	aspirated	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	pʰ	t	tʰ	c	k
Stop	voiced	b		d		ɟ	g
Fricative				s				h
Nasal		m		n			ŋ
Approximant				l		j	w
Trill				r

Vocabulary

Below are some Toto words from van Driem (1995), who uses these words to suggest that Toto may be a Sal language.^[4]

'to drink'
'shoulder'
'cooking pot' (second syllable), cf. Dzongkha 'jug'
'seed'
'today'
'moon'
'fall' (cf. Benedict's PTB Uncoded languages: *lip 'dive, sink, drown')
'big' (first syllable)
'shit'
'right' (vs. 'left')
'stomach' (first syllable); the second syllable is cognate with Toto 'meat'
'meat'
- 'bamboo species' (first syllable), Nepali 'paddy'
'wing'
'sun'
'stand'
'yesterday'
'navel'
'bring'
'to shit'
'sleep'
'urine'
'dog'
'name'
'horn'
'flower'
'snake'
'stone'
'tongue'
'to dream'
'ear'
'eye'
'fish'
'body hair'
'I'
'sole of the foot'
'pig'
'thou'
'tooth'
'die'
'eat'
'be sweet, taste sweet'
'mango' (suffix:)
'jackfruit' (suffix:)
'kill'
'dig'
'egg'
'sit, stay'
'water'
'tear'
'spit'
'rain'
'blood'
'milk'
'buffalo'
'come down, descend'
'neck'
'weave'
'cry'
'monkey'
'mouse, rat'

Pronouns

The Toto personal pronouns are (van Driem 1995):^[4]

Numerals

The Toto numerals are (van Driem 1995):^[4]

Writing system

Toto script
Type:	Alphabet
Languages:	Toto
Region:	Bengal
Creator:	Dhaniram Toto
Published:	2015
Unicode:	U+1E290 - U+1E2BF
Iso15924:	Toto
Note:	none

An alphabetic script developed for the language by community elder and author, Dhaniram Toto, was published in 2015, and has seen limited but increasing use in literature, education, and computing; most significantly, the Toto alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 2021. Prior to the publication of this script, Dhaniram Toto and other members of the community (whose literacy rate as per sample survey carried out in 2003 was just 33.64 per cent) penned books and poems in the Bengali script.

Unicode

See main article: Toto (Unicode block). The Toto alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 2021 with the release of version 14.0.

The Unicode block for Toto is U+1E290–U+1E2BF:

References

Amitabha, S. (1993). Toto, Society and Change: A Sub-Himalayan Tribe of West Bengal. Firma KLM.
Basumatary, C. (2014). The Phonological Study of Toto Language. Language in India, 14:6, 59–84. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://languageinindia.com/june2014/chibiramtotophonology1.pdf
Chaudhuri, B. (1992). Tribal Transformation in India. New Delhi, India: Inter-India Publications.
Doherty, B. (2012, April 29). India's Tribal People Fast Becoming Lost for Words. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://www.smh.com.au/world/indias-tribal-people-fast-becoming-lost-for-words-20120429-1xted.html
- Mehrotra, R. (1974). Endangered Languages in India. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 105–114. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from https://web.archive.org/web/20111016074549/http://www.degruyter.de/journals/ijsl/detailEn.cfm
Perumalsamy P (2016) "Toto Language" in Linguistic Survey of India West Bengal Volume I by Office of the Registrar General India: New Delhi pp 628–702 https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/34826
Singh, S. (2014, August 1). Toto Language More Endangered Than Tribe. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kolkata/toto-language-more-endangered-than-tribe/article6270931.ece
van Driem, G., & Bronkhorst, J. (2001). Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region Containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language (pp. 559–760). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Pub.
van Driem, G. (2007). South Asia and Middle East. In C. Moseley (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages (pp. 289–348). London and New York: Routledge.
van Driem, George. 1995. The Ṭoṭo language of the Bhutanese duars. Paper presented at ICSTLL 28.

External links

Notes and References

Web site: Languages of India. 2015-02-08.
Web site: India's tribal people fast becoming lost for words. April 29, 2012. The Age. Ben Doherty. 2015-02-08.
Web site: Singh . Shiv Sahay . Toto language more endangered than tribe . The Hindu . 18 December 2019 . 1 August 2014.
van Driem, George. 1995. The Ṭoṭo language of the Bhutanese duars. Paper presented at ICSTLL 28.