of the consonant phonemes are similar to the consonant phonemes of Orissa Sora, particularly the consonants that are commonly found in all the consonant inventories proposed by different scholars. Also, similar to the vowel phonemes, Assam Sora con- sonant phonemes have maximum similarity with the typology of Munda consonant system. Hence, there are no significant indications that there is a diachronic change in the consonant inventory of Assam Sora from the consonant inventory of Orissa Sora.
However, considering the fact that Assam Sora speakers are completely separated from their place of origin it is important to examine the synchronic relation between the two Sora varities. Therefore, phonetic features of some common consonants in Assam Sora are instrumentally examined in Chapter 5 and later those features are compared with the synchronic speech data of Orissa Sora in Chapter 6.
large segmental inventories. Whereas, South Asian Austroasiatic languages such as Munda have small segmental inventories. Hence, it is found that Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages usually have 9 or 10 vowels in their vowel system whereas, South Asian Austroasiatic languages such as Munda and Kharia have only 5 or 6 vowels in their vowel systems. Also, studies have proposed that while the Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages are typically similar to the Proto-Austroasiatic lan- guage, the South Asian languages have diverged from the parent language. Thus, the segmental properties of Mon-Khmer languages are considered as native to Proto- Austroasiatic speech segments whereas, the segmental properties of Munda languages are considered to be very diverged from the Proto-Austroasiatic segmental proper- ties (Donegan, 1993). For instance, implosive consonants present in Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages are considered as native Austroasiatic sounds and are argued to be lost in South Asian Austroasiatic languages. On the other hand, the retroflex consonants present only in South Asian Austroasiatic languages are argued to be non-native Austroasiatic sounds. Thus, based on this evidences most of the studies conclude that the present day Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages best represent the Proto-Austroasiatic segmental properties (Sidwell & Rau, 2014).
From reviewing the segmental properties of Munda languages, this chapter has concluded that while the consonant inventory is fairly well understood, there are some complexities in the vowel inventory. Consequently, it is found that the con- sonant system of all Munda languages are typologically similar, except the retroflex consonants, most Munda consonants have clear correspondences with consonant sys- tem of other Austroasiatic languages. On the other hand, vowel system of Munda languages appear significantly diverged from the vowel system of other Austroasiatic languages of Southeast Asia. It is found that most Munda languages lack vowels such as mid front and back vowels [E] and [O] and central high and mid vowels [1] and [@].
These vowels are typical found in Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages. There-
fore, their absence in Munda languages make the Munda vowel system typologically diverged from the vowel system of non-Munda Austroasiatic languages. However, some studies claim that Orissa Sora is a preservative Munda languages and these vowel sounds are well preserved in Orissa Sora. Therefore, it is argued that unlike the typical five vowel system of Munda languages, Orissa Sora has a vowel system of nine vowel phonemes. Also, it is hypothesized that the nine vowel system corresponds to the Proto-Munda vowel systems as well as the vowel system of modern Austroasi- atic languages of Southeast Asia (Donegan, 1993). Thus, past studies have concluded that although Munda segmental properties appear diverged from non-Munda Aus- troasiatic languages, there are evidences that Munda languages are still significant members of the Austroasiatic language family (Anderson & Zide, 2002).
However, from reviewing the segmental properties of Orissa Sora it is concluded that, Orissa Sora segmental properties are inadequately described, therefore there are inconsistencies in the existing descriptions. As a result, the literature review in this chapter revealed that more than one segmental inventory of Orissa Sora is proposed by different scholars. Although the segmental inventory of Orissa Sora is proposed by more than one scholar, a description about their characteristics is very briefly discussed in Ramamurti (1931, 1938) and only roughly presented in A. R. Zide (1982).
Therefore, Orissa Sora segmental features are reviewed mostly from the contributions of these two works. These studies reveal that while the consonant inventory of Orissa Sora is fairly uniform, the vowel inventory is significantly different. Therefore, this chapter concludes that existing studies do not provide a conclusive description of Orissa Sora segmental properties.
Finally, from the overview of Assam Sora segmental properties, this chapter has concluded that Assam Sora has 6 vowels and 18 consonants. Also, it is concluded from this chapter that Assam Sora speakers living in the four villages of Assam have the same segmental inventory. Therefore it is confirmed that there are no regional
variations of Assam Sora on the basis of its segmental inventory. Moreover, this chapter has concluded that while the consonant phonemes of Assam Sora and Orissa Sora are fairly similar, the vowel inventory of Assam Sora appears to be distinct from Orissa Sora. Specifically, considering the claim that Orissa Sora has nine vowels, the Assam Sora vowel system appears to be reduced in size. However, it also indicates that Assam Sora vowel system has become typologically similar to the small vowel system of Munda languages. Thus, this chapter concludes that segmental properties of Orissa Sora and Munda languages are mostly preserved in Assam Sora and some variation is observed mainly due to the inconsistent descriptions of Orissa Sora. As a result, the diachronic relation of Orissa Sora and Assam Sora is slightly confusing and therefore, this chapter motivates the comparison of the synchronic speech data of Assam Sora and Orissa Sora in the subsequent chapter.