Hill Miri dialect

Nyishi (Kamle) or Sarak is a Tani language of India. It is spoken in Arunachal Pradesh by an estimated 9,000 people of the Nyishi tribe.[2] It appears to be a dialect of the Nishi language.[3]

Portrait of a girl of the Nyishi people of kamle
Nyishi (Kamle)
Sarak
RegionArunachal Pradesh
EthnicityNyishi (Kamle) people
Native speakers
(undated figure of 10,100)[1]
Sino-Tibetan
  • Tani
    • West Tani
      • Nyishi
        • Nyishi (Kamle)
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Individual code:
mrg – (included under Plains Miri)
GlottologNone

Description

Nyishi(muri-mugli) is a member of the Tani branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages and is considered a dialect of the Nishi language. It is spoken by 9,000 people in the northern regions of India by the Nyishi people of Kamle.[4] It is threatened because the younger generation is slowly breaking away from their people's traditions and language.[5][6] Many audio books of gospel narratives in the Nyishi language of Kamle have been collected.

History of scholarship

George Abraham Grierson, in his survey of India regarding its linguistics, researched the Nyishi language and published a record over a century ago.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table includes an inventory of Nyishi (Kamle) consonants.[7]

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar		 Velar Glottal
Nasal mnɲ[8]ŋ
Stop voiceless ptc[9]k
voiced bdɟ[10]ɡ
Fricative sʃh
Approximant wlj
Trill? r

Vowels are front /i, e/, central /ɨ, ʉ, ə, a/,[11] and back /u, o/. Vowels occur long and short.

Grammar

The basic Nyishi (Kamle) grammar and basic word order are like those of related Sino-Tibetan languages, similar to that of Nishi.

Numerals
Nyishi (Kamle)
1aken
2eñi
3oum
4epi
5ango/angngo
6ake
7kenne
8pine
9kora
10íri

Pronouns

Personal
SingularPlural
1st personngongu-lu
2nd personnonu-lu
3rd personbu, búbu-lu, bú-lu
gollark: Why would they not:- look at stuff from orbit beforehand, or send unmanned probes- have at least basic weaponry available for defense against possibly hostile native life- have waaaay better medical technology and/or environmental protection stuff, thus making the deinosuchi not very threatening
gollark: Oh, and they need good shielding against high-velocity particles, which might work okay against some weapons fire.
gollark: Any drive capable of bringing you up to ridiculous fractions of lightspeed will have a horribly dangerous exhaust, the power sources necessary could also run tons of weapons, and you can use said drive things to, I don't know, accelerate asteroids to high velocities and crash them into planets.
gollark: Ah, but their ships themselves would have to be weapons to travel interstellarly.
gollark: Technologically speaking.

References
  1. Mising at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
  2. Moseley, Christopher (2007). Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. Routledge. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-7007-1197-0. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
  3. Post, Mark W. (2013). Defoliating the Tani Stammbaum: An exercise in areal linguistics. Paper presented at the 13th Himalayan Languages Symposium. Canberra, Australian National University, Aug 9.
  5. Audio
  6. Nabam Tadar Rikam, "Emerging religious Identities of Arunachal Pradesh", Mittal Publications, 2005
  7. Ju Namkung, "Phonological inventories of Tibeto-burman languages", Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, 1996
  8. Value unclear, perhaps [nʲ]?
  9. Value unclear, perhaps [t͡ʃ]?
  10. Value unclear, perhaps [d͡ʒ]?
  11. Transcribed ⟨ɯ, y, ɤ, a⟩ in Namkung

Further reading
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