Language documentatioon

Folk song plays a very significant role in the socio-cultural life of Liangmai people. It is a medium to express pleasure and pain, sorrow and joy, spiritual and moral values, and traditional and cultural knowledge. It is a rich form of cultural heritage that contributes towards maintaining the history of the people and plays vital role in connecting generations, establishing cultural identity and helps transmit cultural values, beliefs, knowledge, etc. The notable significant of these folk songs is that people do not learn it through established institution, but by participation. They are narrated from memory and transmitted verbally from one generation to another. Liangmai has very rich repository of folk songs and these songs are referred to as pou-peh lui, meaning ‘grandfather-grandmother song’. Different genre of Liangmai folk songs may be conveniently classified as songs of love and yearning, work songs, recreational and merrymaking songs, village guarding songs, rhymes, children songs and lullabies. The Liangmai community, however, is undergoing a stage of transition due to the influence of modernization thus causing a neglect to the ethos of traditional culture and the oral tradition. Many facets of their culture, like singing of folk songs, are no longer practice by the current generation. Folk songs have been replaced by Christian hymns in most domains in present Liangmai society. As such many Liangmai youths do not realize the importance of their folk songs. However, if the vibrancy of these songs is taught to these young people there are high chances of reviving the once popular folk singing tradition. This paper is an attempt to unearth the beautiful world of folk songs in Liangmai culture and document it. The study explores different genres of Liangmai folk songs and the role it played in building society, acquiring and transmitting knowledge and wisdom. The paper aims to bring back the ‘echo from the mountains’ in the present modern society.

Glossonymics (<Gr. glossa ‘language’ + onyma ‘name’) is a linguistic discipline studying
language names, their origin and development, their formation, meaning, uses, taxonomies and
classifications, etc. Despite its salient theoretical and practical relevance, the aformentioned
realm is still in its earlier stage of development, this being highlighted by the fact that the term
for language names (and for a respective discipline) has not been unified.
The hitherto identified glossonymic taxons are relevant, however, insufficient. Some
occasionally occurring terms and notions can in no way represent a systemic picture of existing
relations. A more intensive inclusion of issues of glossonymics in academic circulation will
allow us to solve problems associated with their taxonomies and classifications.
Glossonymics is also concerned with problems of relationships of language names with
respective ethnonyms, choronyms, toponyms, and/or politonyms. As a rule, the majority of
glossonyms have been derived from them; however, there are some reverse cases, and they
should receive due attention.
As for descriptions of glossonyms for individual languages and language families and/or groups,
they should be dealt with both within a historical framework and based on contemporary
references (for instance, ISO 639; Glottolog). Adequate application skills of these resources are
a necessary part of a would-be linguist's professional competence. Various problems pertaining to glossonymics can be discussed both within a course of an individual language or a language family and within a framework of a specialized course; the former normally occurs in materials of virtually every such course and the latter still awaits its implementation. It is such a specialized course that will provide for the teaching of glossonymics in its completeness and consistency.