# Sora language

Sora is a south Munda language of the Austroasiatic language of the Sora people, an ethnic group of eastern India, mainly in the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Sora contains very little formal literature but has an abundance of folk tales and traditions. Most of the knowledge passed down from generation to generation is transmitted orally. Like many languages in eastern India, Sora is listed as 'vulnerable to extinction' by UNESCO. Sora speakers are concentrated in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. The language is endangered according to the International Mother Language Institute (IMLI).

## Distribution

Speakers are concentrated mainly in Ganjam District, Gajapati District (including the central Gumma Hills region (Gumma Block), and Rayagada District, and are also found in adjacent areas such as Koraput and Phulbani districts; other communities exist in northern Andhra Pradesh (Vizianagaram District, Parvatipuram Manyam District and Srikakulam District).

## History

The Sora language has faced a wavelike pattern of usage—that is, the number of people who speak Sora climbed steadily for decades before crashing down. In fact, the number of people who spoke Sora went from 157 thousand in 1901 to 166 thousand in 1911. In 1921, this number marginally rose to 168 thousand and kept climbing. In 1931, speaker numbers jumped to 194 thousand but in 1951, a period of exponential growth occurred, with speaker numbers jumping to 256 thousand. in 1961, numbers topped at 265 thousand speakers before crashing down in 1971 when speaker numbers dropped back down to 221 thousand.

## Culture

Sora is spoken by the Sora people, who are a part of the Adivasi, or tribal people, in India, making Sora an Adivasi language. Sora is found in close proximity to Odia and Telugu speaking peoples so that many Sora people are bilingual. Sora had little literature except for a few songs and folk tales which are usually transmitted orally.

## Phonology

On a similar note, our understanding of Sora phonology is limited at best but there are some generalizations that can be made. Most syllables are of the Consonant, Vowel, Consonant form and morphemes usually contain one to three syllables. There are 18 identifiable consonants and they fall into most of the established origins of sound. Five consonants originate from the palate while only one consonant originates from the glottis. An interesting facet of Sora consonants is that they contain an inherent ɘ vowel. Although vowels may be pronounced differently, there exist only six vowels in Sora. There are no diacritics and aspiration varies depending on the speaker. It is likely that the influence of English, Odia, and Telugu has also affected vowel pronunciation over the course of Sora's use. Pronunciations also change in prevocalic (occurring before a vowel) and non prevocalic environments.

### Consonants

| | | Bilabial | Dental | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| Stop | voiced | b | d | | dʒ | ɡ | |
| Fricative | Fricative | | s | | | | |
| Nasal | Nasal | m | n | | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Flap | Flap | | r | ɽ | | | |
| Approximant | Approximant | | l | | j | | |
| Glides | Glides | | | | y | | |

### Vowels

| | Front | Central | Back |
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Near-close | | | ʊ |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | | a | |

## Morphophonology

Sora consonants and vowels can undergo a process of sound alternation at prosodic level based on stress-shifts and morphosyntactic conditioned during which the consonants and vowels assimilate to match with the sound of preceding or following stem, or the final nasal with the initial obstruent of the following word. By doing this, some suffixes will merge with its verb phonotactically and a word can have several allomorphs depending on morphological properties of morpheme initials and codas produced during a casual or rapid speech.

## Grammar
### Overview

Sora is polysynthetic and noun-incorporating. A single Sora word can convey the meaning of a whole sentence. However, while researchers consider Sora sentence-words to be single individual words, native Sora speakers perceive them as phrases and break them into sequences of iambic words with a rising contour.
For example, ǝdmǝltijdariŋdae:
ǝd
NEG
-mǝl
-DES
-tij
-give
-dar
-rice
-iŋ
-1.UND
-da
-AUX:TAM
-e
-3.ACT
ǝd -mǝl -tij -dar -iŋ -da -e
NEG -DES -give -rice -1.UND -AUX:TAM -3.ACT
'(he) does not want to give me rice'
The grammatically correct form in Sora however requires a subject:
anin
he
ǝd
NEG
-mǝl
-DES
-tij
-give
-dar
-rice
-iŋ
-1.UND
-da
-AUX:TAM
-e
-3.ACT
anin ǝd -mǝl -tij -dar -iŋ -da -e
he NEG -DES -give -rice -1.UND -AUX:TAM -3.ACT
'he does not want to give me rice'
A full sentence in Sora:
    Ňen ǝdmǝljomjɛlyɔajtenay.
Ňen
1SG
ǝd
NEG
-mǝl
-want
-jom
-eat
-jɛl
-meat
-yɔ
-fish
-aj
-all
-t
-NPST
-en
-INTR
-ay
-SS
Ňen ǝd -mǝl -jom -jɛl -yɔ -aj -t -en -ay
1SG NEG -want -eat -meat -fish -all -NPST -INTR -SS
'I don't want to eat all the fish.'
Sora uses grammatical devices, including subject and object agreement, word order, and noun compounding to show case. It is seen as a predominantly nominative-accusative language and once again differs from most other languages with its lack of a passive structure. However, just because Sora lacks a passive case does not mean other established forms of grammatical case are also missing. Rather, Sora has some complex grammatical cases (In Nominal morphology).
In addition, Sora, like many other Munda languages, uses relator nouns to link nouns with the other parts of the sentence in order to provide a more specific meaning, called compounding. These monosyllabic nouns that enhance meaning are called Semantic relator nouns and are used widely in Sora. Sora also has a combining form for every noun in addition to the full form of the noun. The combining form allows the noun to be attached to a verb root to create a more semantically complex word, similar to compounding in other languages. Sora contains prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to form its affixation but only uses its suffixes to change the possession of nouns. The combining form is the form seen when the noun is being used with a verb or another full formed noun. The full form is the form seen when the noun is standing alone or functioning not in tandem with other parts of speech. Some templates of Sora combinations between nouns and verbs are as follows:
Verb + Combined Form
Verb + Combined Form + Combined Form
Full Form + Combined Form
Full Form + Combined Form + Combined Form
An example of a Full Form noun shortened into the Combined Form is as follows: mənra, the Full Form of man, transform into the combined form word --mər . The two—indicate that a Noun (Full or Combined) or Verb has to precede the Combined Form noun; that is the Combined Form Noun can not stand on its own. Although by no means conclusive, a few general guidelines about the Combined Form is that it depends on where the combination with the verb or other noun is to take place. If the combined form is to an infix, then its resulting form will be different from if it were to be combined as a prefix. Some examples of Full Form Nouns and their Combined Forms are as follows:
Full Form Combined Form English Translation
ədɘ'ŋ --dɘ'ŋ honeycomb
ərɘ'ŋ --rɘ'ŋ sour
bɘ'nra'j --bɘn flour
ba'ra' --bal gun barrel
kəṛíŋ—diŋ drum

### Nominal morphology
#### Number

Plural in nouns and verbs is marked by enclitic/suffix -ji positions just right behind noun-suffix -ɘn. Animate nouns generally can attach (not obligatorily) the plural suffix, but inanimate nouns may often not.
ətɛŋ
many
kəndʊd-ən-ji
frog-NMLZ-PL
ətɛŋ kəndʊd-ən-ji
many frog-NMLZ-PL
'many frogs'
si-leŋ
hand-1PL
si-leŋ
hand-1PL
'our hand(s)'
The plural suffix is not attached after countable numerals and finite numbers but it may trigger plural-verb agreement. Numerals can form compounds with nouns; in those cases, they are nominalized and become plural marking by themselves.
bagu-mər-an-ji
two-person-NMLZ-PL
bagu-mər-an-ji
two-person-NMLZ-PL
'two people'

#### Pronouns

| | singular | plural |
| 1st person | nen | anlen |
| 2nd person | amən | ambeŋ |
| 3rd person | anɪn | anɪnji |
Third person pronouns can be used as definite markers in noun phrases. A reflexive pronoun can be formed with the reflexive enclitic =dəm. For example, anɪnji + =dəm → anɪnji=dəm 'themselves'.

#### Demonstratives

Demonstratives in Sora listed by Starosta (1967).
| | Proximal | Distal |
| 'this/that' | kəni/kun | -ənt/kun |
| 'like this/that' | ɛʔne | ɛʔte |
| 'like this way/that way' | ɛʔnegɔj | ɛʔtegɔj |
| ‘this/that little’ | dəkiyne | dəkiyte |
| ‘this/that big’ | dəkəʔne | dəkəʔte |
| ‘here/there’ | teʔne | teʔte |
| ‘around here’ | arɛʔne | - |
| ‘at that time’ | - | səlɛʔte |

#### Case

Case marking in Sora is generally murky. There is no markers to show syntactic alignments between subjects and objects, i.e. nominative-accusative nor ergative-absolutive. A number of grammatical constructions that may or may not be expressed morphologically into an animate primary object argument of the verb, eg. the oblique-dative marker -dɔ[ʔɔ]ŋ- can manifest in standalone morpheme as adɔŋ.
* Absolutive?–Nominal -n
* Dative–Oblique -dɔ[ʔɔ]ŋ-
* Adessive maŋ-
* Possessive a- and -a
* Allative -ban
* Locative–Inessive–Illative -leŋ-ən and -leŋ
anɪnji-a-sîː
3PL-POSS:3-hand
anɪnji-a-sîː
3PL-POSS:3-hand
'their hand(s)'

#### Gender & Class

Grammatical gender or class is not deeply encoded in Sora morphosyntax. To signal something masculine/feminine, Sora speakers utilize indigenous compound endings =mar (male, person) and =boj (female) while also use, albeit rarely, gender suffixes borrowed from Indo-Aryan like -a and -i.

#### Adjectives

Many Sora adjectives are nominal compounds, i.e. phrase-words, and pre-nominal with modificational function.

#### Adverbs

Adverbs are uninflected. Some Sora adverbs are: tiki 'after', tikki 'afterwards', mailen 'together', dɔ 'so', əntɚpsɛlɛ 'therefore', biɲdɔ 'but', bɔibɔi 'very', annɚŋ 'during', nam 'now', aŋaːnʼaŋaːn 'sometimes', moyed 'previous', moyedʼmoyed 'recently', etc.

### Verbal morphology

Sora verbal morphology makes use of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes per grammatical categories. In typical Munda synthetic structure, the verb phrase in Sora is head-final subject-object-verb SOV. However, Sora has developed an elaborate and productive noun incorporation system which appears to have originated from an earlier offshoot of proto-Munda. Its noun incorporation clearly distinguishes free form and incorporated forms of lexical nouns. In polysynthetic morphosyntax, Sora verb phrases display a strict head-first SVO order like those typically seen in non-Munda Austroasiatic languages. The most intriguing aspect of Sora syntactic noun incorporation is transitive subject incorporation, describes that the language allows transitive verb to incorporate (absorb) its transitive subject/agent with the verb stems remaining transitive and object indexing stays active even after being incorporated.
sa:-bud-t-am
mangle-bear-NPST-2.OBJ
sa:-bud-t-am
mangle-bear-NPST-2.OBJ
'Bear will mangle you'
Verb serialization and clause-chaining can be realized by forming compound of verb1-verb2-nonpast. It also works with pairs of incorporated nouns.
mal-jum-pu-da:tam-t-əm
wish-eat-cake-AUX:mouth-NPST-2SG.OBJ
poʔŋ?
Q
mal-jum-pu-da:tam-t-əm poʔŋ?
wish-eat-cake-AUX:mouth-NPST-2SG.OBJ Q
'Do you wish to eat cake?'

## Syntax

In Sora, the basic clausal constituent order is SOV.
anlen
1PL
aman
2SG
daʔa-n
water-NMLZ
aʔ-tiy-t-am
1PL.SUBJ-give-NPST-1>2SG.OBJ
anlen aman daʔa-n aʔ-tiy-t-am
1PL 2SG water-NMLZ 1PL.SUBJ-give-NPST-1>2SG.OBJ
'We give you water'

## Vocabulary

Compared to other Munda languages such as Kharia whose vocabulary is reported as having 40 percent of words borrowed from Indo-Aryan, Sora has very few, if not negligible, number of foreign loan words. Sora also has zero foreign phonemes. (Donegan & Stampe, 2004) Sora borrows words from surrounding languages like Telugu and Oriya. An example of a word borrowed from Oriya is kɘ'ra'ñja' which is a tree name. From Telugu mu'nu', which means black gram, is borrowed. Moreover, within the Munda family itself most words appear to be mutually intelligible owing to minor differences in pronunciations and phonology. Kharia and Korku, two other Munda languages, share mutually intelligible words with Sora. For example, the number 11 in Kharia is ghol moŋ, in Korku it is gel ḑo miya, and in Sora it is gelmuy. Each 11 in each language looks and sounds remarkably similar to the other 11's. This phenomenon is not just contained in numbers but rather a great deal of vocabulary is mutually intelligible among the Munda languages. Within the Austroasiatic language family more knowledge about Sora vocabulary can be found. The Mon-Khmer language family which encompasses the languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia has lexical cognates with the Munda family. That means that some words found in Sora are of direct proto-Austroasiatic origin and share similarities with other derived Austroasiatic language families. Words that relate to the body, family, home, field, as well as pronouns, demonstratives, and numerals are the ones with the most cognates.

### Numerals

The Sora numeral system uses a base 12, which only a few other languages in the world do. Ekari, for example, uses a base 60 system. For example, 39 in Sora arithmetic would be thought of as (1 * 20) + 12 + 7. Here are the first 12 numerals in the Sora language :
English: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve
Sora: aboy bago yagi unji monloy tudru gulji t$^h$amji tinji gelji gelmuy migel
Similar to how English uses the suffix from the numeral ten after twelve (such as thirteen, fourteen, etc.), Sora also uses a suffix assignment to numerals after 12 and before 20. Thirteen in Sora is expressed as migelboy (12+1), fourteen as migelbagu (12+2), etc. Between numerals 20 and 99, Sora adds the suffix kuri to the first constituent of the numeral. For example, 31 is expressed as bokuri gelmuy and 90 as unjikuri gelji.
The Sora number system was featured in a puzzle by Lera Boroditsky, found in the More Resources section associated with her "TED talk".

## Writing systems

The Sora language is written using multiple systems. The Sora Sompeng script was developed in 1936 by Mangei Gomango as a native writing system created for the Sora language.
Sora is also written in the Latin script, in the Odia alphabet in Odisha, and in the Telugu script in Andhra Pradesh.

## Sample text

The following text is from Psalm 23 of the KJV-derived Sora Bible.
Gamangtunga-na
rich.god-EMPH
gupa:mar-nen
shepherd:HUM-1SG
nen-ate
1SG-?
er-asu-ige.
NEG-be.ill-AUX:TAM
Anin
3SG
doʔoŋ-ɲen
OBL-1SG
ledengab-leŋ-ən
tender.green.grass-LOC-NMLZ
ab-tabmu-t-in;
CAUS-lay.down-NPST-1SG.OBJ
Anin
3SG
lagadnana
peaceful
daʔa-n
water-NMLZ
ademadem-ban
along-ALL
doʔoŋ-nen
OBL-1SG
uruŋ-t-iɲ.
convey-NPST-1SG.OBJ
Gamangtunga-na gupa:mar-nen nen-ate er-asu-ige. Anin doʔoŋ-ɲen ledengab-leŋ-ən ab-tabmu-t-in; Anin lagadnana daʔa-n ademadem-ban doʔoŋ-nen uruŋ-t-iɲ.
rich.god-EMPH shepherd:HUM-1SG 1SG-? NEG-be.ill-AUX:TAM 3SG OBL-1SG tender.green.grass-LOC-NMLZ CAUS-lay.down-NPST-1SG.OBJ 3SG peaceful water-NMLZ along-ALL OBL-1SG convey-NPST-1SG.OBJ
'The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want (be ill). He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.'

## Media coverage

Sora was one of the subjects of Ironbound Films' 2008 American documentary film The Linguists, in which two linguists attempted to document several moribund languages.