Sumi language
Sema, also Sumi, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nagaland, India. It is spoken by the Sumi Naga people.[3][4]
Sema | |
---|---|
Sümi (Naga) | |
Pronunciation | [sɨ˧ mi˩] |
Native to | India |
Region | Nagaland |
Ethnicity | Sumi Naga |
Native speakers | 350,000 (2011 census)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | nsm |
Glottolog | sumi1235 [2] |
Geographical distribution
Sumi is spoken in central and southern Nagaland, in Zunheboto district, Dimapur district, Kohima district, Mokokchung district, and Tuensang district, as well as in 7 villages of Tinsukia district, Assam (Ethnologue).
Dialects
Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Sema.
- Dayang (Western Sumi)
- Lazami
- Jimomi
- Zumomi
Phonology
The transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Vowels
![](../I/m/Sema_monophthongs_chart.svg.png)
The vowels of Sema are as follows:[5][6]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | ɨ | u |
Mid | e | o | |
Open | a |
Notes:
- /i/ has been variously described as:
- /ɨ/ has been variously described as:
- In word-medial position, /ɨ/ can be realized as mid central unrounded [ə].[5][9]
- /u/ is close back rounded [u].[7][9]
- The mid vowels /e, o/ can be realized as either close-mid [e, o] or open-mid [ɛ, ɔ].[5][8]
- Teo (2012) describes the close-mid allophone of /o/ as slightly advanced [o̟].[7]
- /a/ has been variously described as:
- After uvular stops, /a/ can be realized as open back unrounded [ɑ].[9]
Consonants
The consonants of Sema are as follows[6][10] (allophones that are represented in the orthographic system are given in parentheses):
Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | plain | m | n | ŋ | ||||||
aspirated | mʱ | nʱ | ||||||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | q | |||||
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | qʰ | ||||||
voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||||||
Affricate | voiceless | (ts) | (tʃ) | |||||||
aspirated | (tsʰ) | tʃʰ | ||||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | (s) | ʃ | x | h | ||||
voiced | v | (z) | ʒ | ɣ | ||||||
Approximant | central | plain | (w) | ɹ | j | |||||
lateral | l | |||||||||
aspirated | lʱ |
gollark: I don't think the languages are specified anywhere.
gollark: I mostly want an excuse to do stupid insane things.
gollark: What if CODE GUESSING 17259815?
gollark: What I can easily do is construct a backdoor which nobody else can use, but I don't think that qualifies.
gollark: And practical hidden flaws are more like "if you encrypt 2^16 bytes with the same key it is possible to determine some of the plaintext with slightly higher probability" or known plaintext attacks and such, rather than "hahaha any message whatsoever can be decrypted".
References
- "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 7 July 2018.
- Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sumi Naga". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- Sreedhar (1976).
- Sreedhar (1980).
- Teo (2012), p. 369.
- Teo (2014), p. 20.
- Teo (2012), p. 368.
- Teo (2014), p. 27.
- Teo (2014), p. 28.
- Teo (2012), p. 366.
Bibliography
- Sreedhar, Mangadan Veetil (1976), Sema phonetic reader, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages
- Sreedhar, Mangadan Veetil (1980), A Sema Grammar, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages
- Teo, Amos B. (2012), "Sumi (Sema)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 42 (3): 365–373, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000254
- Teo, Amos B. (2014), A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland, Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics, ISBN 978-1-922185-10-5
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.