Lyngngam language

Lyngngam is an Austroasiatic language of Northeast India closely related to Khasi. Once listed as a dialect of Khasi, Lyngam has in recent literature been classified as a distinct language. Lyngam speakers have food and dress similar to the neighboring Garo people.

Lyngngam
Lyngam
Native toIndia
RegionMeghalaya, Assam
Native speakers
11,586 (2011 census)[1]
Austroasiatic
  • Khasian
    • Lyngngam
Language codes
ISO 639-3lyg
Glottologlyng1241[2]

Phonology

Consonant inventory

The following table lists the consonants attested in Lyngam.[3]

  Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/  
Stop voiceless /p/ /t/ /c/ /k/ /ʔ/
aspirated /pʰ/ /tʰ/ /cʰ/ /kʰ/  
voiced /b/ /d/ /ɟ/ /ɡ/  
Voiceless fricative   /s/     /h/
Liquid   /l, r/      
Glide /w/   /j/    

The main difference with the Khasi language is that Lyngngam does not possess the voiced aspirated series. Furthermore, Lyngngam does not have the phoneme /ç/. Words which have /ç/ in Khasi typically have /c/ or /s/ in Lyngngam,[4] as in the following pairs of cognates:

Lyngngam Khasi meaning
cʔeŋ çʔeŋ bone
cɨppʰeu çipʰeu 10
sɲjək çɲiuʔ hair
snaːr çnjaʔ chisel

Vowel inventory

The following table lists the vowel inventory of the language.[3] The only vowels showing a length distinction are /i/ and /a/, in contradistinction to Khasi, where length is distinctive for all vowels.

  Front
unrounded		 Central
unrounded		 Back
rounded
High /i, iː/ /ɨ/ /u/
Mid /e/ /ə/ /o/
Low /a, aː/

Words with diphthongs in Khasi have monophthongs in Lyngam,[4] as in the following pairs of cognates:

Lyngam Khasi meaning
bni bnaːi month
ksu ksəu dog
mot miet night
gollark: ~help
gollark: ~play any given day - arise
gollark: ++delete kynheadph
gollark: Well, I mean, I have way more than two books in general, but two specific books.
gollark: So do I really *have* two books now?

References
  1. "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues - 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "India Lyngam". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Nagaraja 1996, sect. 1
  4. Nagaraja 1996, sect. 2
  • Nagaraja, K.S. (1996). "The status of Lyngngam" (PDF). Mon–Khmer Studies. 26: 37–50. Retrieved 9 March 2014.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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