With his new monograph Proto-Western Kho-Bwa: Reconstructing a Community's Past through Language, Timotheus Bodt takes the reader on a journey to Arunachal Pradesh, where some of the least understood languages in the Trans-Himalayan family are found. In particular, he draws our attention to the Western branch of the Kho-Bwa family. Building on his previous research, he presents the most comprehensive treatment of Proto-Western Kho-Bwa reconstruction thus far, and seeks to reconstruct elements of the livelihood of the Proto-Western Kho-Bwa speakers alongside it.
What works in Bodt's favour is that this endeavour is relatively modest; he seeks only to reconstruct the proto-language of a closely related group of languages, leaving out the more divergent Puroik and Bugun for the moment (p. 8). Despite this, there are inherent challenges in reconstructing the Western Kho-Bwa proto-language, of which Bodt is well aware. For example, he describes (pp. 41–55) historical language contact in Western Arunachal, noting that languages like Tshangla and Tibetan have long exerted influence over Western Kho-Bwa. In many cases, Bodt attributes irregular reflexes found in some of the Western Kho-Bwa daughter languages to this influence of other languages (cf. p. 24). Additionally, the languages have been in close proximity over a long period of time, and, thus, the likelihood of intra-family loans is high.
To address these challenges, Bodt develops a comprehensive system for comparing rhymes, prefixes, and onsets. Each onset and rhyme are given a number, with additional letters to disambiguate occasions where Bodt hypothesizes that the reflex in modern languages is affected by processes of assimilation to the secondary articulation or voicing of a prefix. He also numbers each cognate set. All of these methodological features should be present in a larger number of works of this type, as they facilitate ease of analysis.
Beyond Bodt's methodology, the monograph should be praised for its thoroughness in attempting to answer questions regarding the place of Kho-Bwa within the Trans-Himalayan language family. For example, Bodt corroborates the notion that Proto-Western Kho-Bwa may have a non-Trans-Himalayan substrate, as suggested in Blench and Post's (De)classifying Arunachal languages: reconsidering the evidence (Cambridge: unpublished manuscript, 2017). However, he provides very convincing evidence suggesting the Trans-Himalayan character of the majority of Proto-Western Kho-Bwa lexemes, noting close correspondences with languages like Old Chinese (pp. 412–4).
While correspondences with other Trans-Himalayan languages are not Bodt's sole focus, this is perhaps the facet of the work with the most broad appeal to Trans-Himalayan linguists. Bodt should be applauded, then, for his examination of possible linguistic substrates or higher-level relations towards the end of the book, wherein his proposed correspondences provide a great deal of opportunity for other researchers to investigate Kho-Bwa's linguistic prehistory. In doing so, Bodt shows his uniquely extensive knowledge of the languages of the area and his commitment to tracking down the ultimate origins of each root he reconstructs.
Given his commitment to the establishment of regular sound correspondences, there are, however, cases where Bodt's language could be more precise to better convince the reader. For example, regarding a cognate set showing the reflexes of his reconstructed *bʷ, he says: “the Chaw form a.bɔ ‘id.’ is inherited, although we would expect the reflex †a.baw.” (p. 197). No explanation is given for the irregular form, nor is there any argument as to why it must be inherited rather than borrowed from a Sartang variety with a.bɔ.
Similarly, another unexplained exception is Khispi ɕa.dʑat and Duhumbi ɕa.zεt, both “langur”, from *sʲa.zaq. This correspondence set (#158) contradicts his set of rhyme correspondences wherein he says that Khispi and Duhumbi should have final -a and -aˀ respectively for final *aq if the syllable onset is non-nasal (p. 276). The forms for “langur” (p. 245) are clearly indicated as part of rhyme correspondence #34, and no explanation is given for this irregular final /t/ in the forms for “langur” in Duhumbi or Khispi. Furthermore, the affricate /dʑ/ exhibited by some Khispi speakers in this word is not easily explained by Bodt's “phonological conditioning of the onset of the root to the palatalised onset of the prefix” (p. 245), as palatalization of *z should yield a post-alveolar or alveolo-palatal fricative. This seems especially strange given that the Khispi reflex of Proto-Western Kho-Bwa *sʲa.dzar is ɕa.zɛl “goral” (p. 345), without palatal assimilation of the alveolar onset in the second syllable to the onset in the first, and without an affricate reflex of *dz. It seems implausible that intervocalic *-z- in the reflex of *sʲa.zaq would become an affricate -dʑ- while what is reconstructed as *dz would be reflected as -z- in two words formed with the same palatalized *sʲa- prefix.
Several examples of irregular developments in specific forms in different Western Kho-Bwa languages can be found throughout the monograph. For example, he includes the word for “porcupine” as one of the cognate sets (p. 469) despite the fact that Khoina, Jerigaon, Rahung, Rupa, and Shergaon all have an irregular initial consonant, as we would expect the voicing of the onset of the root to cause voicing in the prefix (pp. 168, 175). This leads one to wonder, should such forms really be viewed as cognate, or should other explanations such as borrowing or descent from a differently-prefixed form of the same root be pursued? Resolving these questions will no doubt be a great avenue for future research, which would not be possible without Bodt's crucial contribution.
Timotheus Bodt has completed a very important work on the study of Arunachal Pradesh's indigenous languages, which should be widely read by those trying to understand the linguistic history of the region. This book is highly recommended for anyone wanting to research the Western Kho-Bwa languages, as one finds a trove of valuable information on their prehistory within it. He has provided a very good foundation for the reconstruction of the Western Kho-Bwa proto-language, but future scholarship will need to address some of the unexplained reflexes and irregular correspondences in his data sets, thereby ameliorating the overall case.
