ABSTRACT
Languages belonging to different language families tend to share features of each other when they exist contiguously for a prolonged period of time. South Asian subcontinent is one of the examples in which different language families, due to geographical proximity, have been in intense contact for millennia resulting into language convergence. The present entry draws upon the linguistically diverse underrepresented area of the region to carve out a language contact situation in a miniature form where varied groups of Tibeto-Burman languages exist in close proximity. Northeast India is an enclave of a huge Tibeto-Burman population along with a larger number of Indo-Aryan language speakers. These Tibeto-Burman languages, due to constant contact with the Indo-Aryan languages, have acquired certain Indo-Aryan patterns in their indigenous grammatical system. This entry observes the natural phenomenon of contact-induced changes in the Tibeto-Burman languages of the Northeast India substantiating with instances of some clausal patterns such as relative clauses, case marking, anaphors, etc. in these languages.
