Tangkhulic languages

The Tangkhulic and Tangkhul languages are a group of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken mostly in northeastern Manipur, India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and (with Maringic) are conservatively classified as an independent Tangkhul–Maring branch of Tibeto-Burman, pending further research.

Tangkhulic
EthnicityTangkhul Naga
Geographic
distribution		Ukhrul District, Manipur, India; Naga Self-Administered Zone, Myanmar
Linguistic classificationSino-Tibetan
Glottologsino1246[1]

The Maringic languages appear to be closely related to the Tangkhulic family, but not part of it.

Languages

Tangkhulic languages include:

The Tangkhulic languages are not particularly close to each other.

Brown's "Southern Tangkhul" (=Southern Luhupa??) is a Kuki-Chin rather than Tangkhulic language. It has strong links with the recently discovered Sorbung language, which is also not Tangkhulic despite being spoken by ethnic Tangkhul.[2]

Koki, Long Phuri, Makuri, and Para are "Naga" languages spoken in and around Leshi Township, Myanmar. These four languages could possibly classify as Tangkhulic languages or Ao languages.[3]

Classification

Mortensen (2003:5) classifies the Tangkhulic languages as follows.

Tangkhulic
  • Northern: Huishu
  • North-Central: Champhung
  • East-Central
    • Eastern
      • Kachai
      • Phadāng
    • Central
  • Southern
    • Brown's 'Central Tangkhul'
    • South-Central
      • Khangoi
      • Brown's 'Northern Tangkhul'

Reconstruction

Proto-Tangkhulic, the reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Tangkhulic languages, has been reconstructed by Mortensen (2012).[4]

Mortensen (2003:5-7)[5] lists the following phonological innovations (sound changes) from Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) to Proto-Tangkhulic.

  • PTB *s- > *th-; PTB *ts-, *sy- > *s-
  • PTB *dz-, *dzy-, *tsy- > *ts-
  • PTB *ky-, *gy- > *ʃ-
  • PTB *kr-, *tsy- > *c-
  • Neutralization of vowel length distinctions in non-low vowels
  • Dissimilation of aspiration in prefixes

Proto-Tangkhulic also has the nominalizing prefix *kV-.[5]

Proto-Tangkhulic lexical innovations are:[5]

  • *war ‘mushroom’ (found exclusively in Tangkhulic)
  • *kɔ.phuŋ ‘mountain’ (found exclusively in Tangkhulic)
  • *kɔ.mi ‘to give’ (found exclusively in Tangkhulic)
  • *khaj ‘fish’ (also found in some Zeme and Angami languages)
  • *pan ‘hand’ (also found in some Zeme languages)
  • *pej ‘foot’ (also found in some Zeme and Angami languages)
gollark: As you can clearly tell, it is wrong.
gollark: This is an analysis of your disagreement.
gollark: Yes.
gollark: You should make me owner and resolve the entire problem.
gollark: As you have seen, helloboi is a great artist.

References
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Tangkhulic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. David Mortenson and Jennifer Keogh. 2011. Sorbung, an Undocumented Language of Manipur: its Phonology and Place in Tibeto-Burman. In JEALS 4, vol 1. http://jseals.org/JSEALS-4-1.pdf
  3. Barkman, Tiffany. 2014. A descriptive grammar of Jejara (Para Naga). MA thesis, Chiang Mai: Payap University.
  4. Mortensen, David R. 2012. Database of Tangkhulic Languages. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).
  5. Mortensen, David R. (2003). “Comparative Tangkhul.” Unpublished Qualifying Paper, UC Berkeley.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.