This monograph is the result of my research work in last two years in the Bengali Unit of the International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Thiruvananthapuram. It is also a product of my last four year experience of teaching Bengali language to Malayalam speakers in Thiruvananthapuram as well as a product of learning Malayalam as a non-native. I have taught Bengali to native Malayalam and other Dravidian speakers in the Bengali Intensive courses run by ISDL in Thiruvanathapuram. I have been still learning Malayalam language everyday from the neighborhood though I completed the certificate course in Malayalam long back as a non-native speaker. I also teach Malayalam to my family members who are native Bengali speakers. All these experiences of language teaching and learning have pointed out the problems of non-native learners and have encouraged me to do the work of connecting and contrasting the phonological system of Bengali with that of other languages which is a very important job to make it easy to a non-native learner. That work has been attempted in this monograph.
However, it is not targeted directly at language learners. The interested language learners can get help from this book. The main target is to present some analysis and discussions to those who are interested in phonology of any one of these language analysed here; and who can prepare substantial language teaching material especially for non-native learners.
As a non-native learner of Malayalam language and as a teacher who teaches non-native Bengali speakers, I felt that the method of teaching a language to non-native speakers has to be different from the traditional method of teaching languages which is used for native learners. The material should be made considering the phonology and morphosyntax of the language of the targeted non-native learning group. This monoghraph will help to prepare Bengali learning material for native Malayalam speakers as well as Malayalam learning material for native Bengali speakers. It will be helpful for Malayalam language teachers who teach Malayalam to native Bengali speakers and for Bengali language teachers who teach Bengali to native Malayalam speakers.
This research work has found some new allophones of some phonemes which are placed here for consideration of Linguists and Grammarians of both the Languages.
I hope that the purpose of this book will be found successful in all respect.
I am extremely happy to present this monograph to the readers especially students of linguistics who are doing research in comparative study of Malayalam and Bengali. This monograph, "A Contrastive Analysis of the Phonological Systems of Bengali and Malayalam" is the result of the research work done by Mr.Dhrubajyoti Das, in the Bengali unit of ISDL.
The Bengali unit, founded by Prof. V. 1. Subramoniam, is involved in research and teaching of Bengali language, literature and culture. This work of Dhrubajyoti Das is mainly for language teachers or people who would prepare language teaching materials for non-native learners. Language teachers with some knowledge of linguistics would find this work helpful. However, it may also help those serious non-native language learners who have some knowledge of linguistics.
The phonological systems of Bengali and that of Malayalam are analyzed side by side in this analysis. After analysis, some predictions are made about the difficulties of the non-native language learners and in the third step it has been suggested where a teacher needs to warn his or her students. The different areas which would not make communication impossible are also identified and it has been suggested that, those areas may be ignored by the language learners.
As this monograph is meant for the readers who have basic knowledge of Linguistics, the terms like "phoneme", "allophone", "bilabial", "aspiration" etc. are not explained here. The knowledge of these terms is taken for granted. It is expected that based on this work, teaching materials will be prepared for teaching Bengali to native speakers of Malayalam and Malayalam to native speakers of Bengali.
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