The North East Indian Linguistic Society (NEILS) was formed in 2005 by Dr. Jyotiprakash Tamuli, Head of Linguistics at Gauhati University, a specialist in Assamese and Mark Post, a PhD scholar at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (RCLT) at La Trobe University, Australia, who is working on the Tani languages of Arunachal Pradesh. They were soon joined by Dr. Stephen Morey, also of the RCLT, who had been working on Tai and Singpho languages in Assam since 1996. It was decided between them that a forum should be provided for the growing number of international and local scholars working on the languages of the North East, with a focus on typological and descriptive linguistics. The first international meeting of the newly constituted NEILS was thus held at the Phanidar Dutta Seminar Hall, Gauhati University, Assam, India on the 6 and 7 February 2006.

This volume presents a selection of the papers that represent work from both established scholars and students who are starting out in their linguistics careers. The contributors hail from North East India, as well as from elsewhere in India and across the world.

Each paper in this volume was anonymously peer reviewed by linguists with expertise in the particular languages or subject areas of the papers. All the papers then underwent revision and improvements as a result of the review process and in consultation with the editors. Our aim has been to produce a volume of quality, containing work on a variety of languages and from a variety of approaches, representing the current state of research in the field.