Angami language

Last updated

Angami
Native to India
Region Nagaland
Ethnicity Angami Naga
Native speakers
150,000 (2011 census) [1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 njm
Glottolog anga1288
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Angami (also: Gnamei, Ngami, Tsoghami, Tsugumi, Monr, Tsanglo, Tenyidie) is a Naga language spoken in the Naga Hills in the northeastern part of India, in Kohima district, Nagaland. In 2011, there is an estimate of 153,000 first language (L1) Angami speakers. [1] Under the UNESCO's Language Vitality and Endangerment framework, Angami is at the level of "vulnerable", meaning that it is still spoken by most children, but "may be restricted to certain domains". [2]

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

This table represents the consonantal structure of the Khonoma dialect. [3]

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
plain labialized
Nasal voiceless m̥ʰ n̥ʰ ɲ̊ʰ
voiced m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t k
voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ
aspirated kʷʰ
Affricate t͡s t͡ʃ
Fricative voiceless s ʃ h
voiced v z ʒ
Approximant voiceless l̥ʰ ɻ̊ ʍ
voiced l ɻ j w

Other dialects also contrast /tʃʰdʒ/. [f] only occurs as an allophone of /p/. The velar fricative is in free variation with [h]. The post-alveolar approximants are truly retroflex (sub-apical) [ɻ̊ɻ] before mid and low vowels, but laminal [ɹ̠̊ɹ̠] before high vowels (/iu/).[ citation needed ]

Angami voiceless nasals are unusual in that, unlike the voiceless nasals of Burmese, they have a positive rather than negative voice onset time—that is, they are aspirated rather than partially voiced. The same is true of the laterals. In both cases, the aspiration has the formants characteristic of Angami h, which is somewhat velar in pronunciation. The other voiceless approximants may not be aspirated, as the h-like formants occur during the entire hold of the consonant.[ citation needed ]

Vowels

The following are the vowels of the Khonoma dialect. [3]

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ə o
Open a

The labial and labialized consonants have labiodental affricate allophones before /ə/ (but not in /Cɻə/ consonant clusters). In addition, about half the time, the rhotic becomes syllabic (a rhotic vowel) in this environment:

Phon.allophone
before /ə/
ppfə ~ fə ? [lower-alpha 1]
(b)(bvə) [lower-alpha 2]
m̥ʰɱ̊ʰə
mɱə
kʷʰkʰfə
kvə
ɡʷɡvə
ɻɻ̩ ~ ɚ

Angami syllables may be of the form V, CV, or CɻV. Attested clusters are /pʰɻ/,/pɻ/,/kʰɻ/,/kɻ/.[ citation needed ]

Phonological reconstruction

Meyase (2023) recognizes southern, northern, and western dialects of Angami, including the following. [4]

Preliminary Proto-Tenyi lexical reconstructions by Meyase (2023), with supporting data from four Tenyidie dialects, are as follows. [4]

GlossProto-TenyiJokha (Southern 1)Kiwe (Southern 2)Kewhi (Northern)Khwüno (Western)
do*tsʰitʰə́cʰə́tsʰə́ʃə́
hurt*tsʰitʰə̄cʰə̄tsʰə̄ʃə̄
flesh*tsʰitʰə̀cʰə̀tsʰə̀ʃə̀
old*gwegwé
bison*gwigwí
wash hand*m-tometòmetòmetìmetì
transform*m-vimevímevímevímeví
make good*p-vimevímevípevípeví
all*p-temetēmetēpetēpetē
green*p-ɟomeɟòmeɟòpeɟòpeʒiè
wait*kʰweqʰwékʰwéfé-pfʰékʰwé
shawl*kʰweqʰwèkʰwèfè-pfʰèkʰwè
bee*m-kʰwioqʰwíakʰwímefīmekʰwí
monkey*t-kwioqwīakwītepfītekwī
tidy up*k-kweqeqwèkekwèkepfèkekwè
to fly*proprōprōpruō
strong*kokuō
to walk*totiò

Northern sound change innovations include: [4]

Southern sound change innovations include: [4]

Grammar and lexicon

A wealth of Angami grammars, lexicons are available in Tenyidie and in English. However, these collections often conflict in their analysis of the phonemic or syntactic nature of the language. This is due to the difference at the time of the documentation, and the choice of informants from varying dialect. Especially in the earlier language documentations (1870s–1960s), mostly by Christian missionary; their informants' meta-data were not specified and any dialect of Angami were assumed to be the "standard" of Angami within the Nagaland region. The Angami-English Phrasebook [5] and Angami-English-Hindi dictionary [6] available online.

Text collection

The bulk of available Anagami texts are from printed materials (novels, poems and textbooks), the largest text assortment of electronic texts are mostly Christian religious or devotional materials written in Tenyidie. This is because the majority of Angami speakers in the Nagaland are Christians [ citation needed ]. The complete Tenyidie bible was published in 1970. However, only the translated chapter of Genesis [7] from the bible was posted on the internet under The Rosetta Project. Also, Christian devotional materials such as The Bible...Basically® in Tenyidie [8] are also available online.

Another source of text is largely from the ethnic folktales (e.g. Angami Naga folklore by Sekhose, 1970) and especially from song lyrics written in Tenyidie. Other than Christian songs written by the Angami church community (e.g. Shieshülie songbook by Baptist Revival Church [9] ), the rising rock music culture started to stir in the Nagaland as the music events and societies like the Hornbill National Rock Contest [10] and Rattle and Hum Music Society [11] and Angami pop/rock bands such as the Cultural Vibrants [12] take the Angami music by storm; they popularized traditional Angami folk music that used to be passed down orally, it is foreseeable that these lyrics will be written in the near future.

The next largest source of Tenyidie is the educational materials used in the Kohima schools and university. Although much of these texts are in printed forms, a query on the web does retrieve some Indian exams papers [13] [14] that contain test questions on Tenyidie. Also the Tenyidie syllabus for the university courses in Kohima College would have been the primary source of language data for Angami[ citation needed ].

See also

Related Research Articles

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In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩ in the Latin script and ⟨Р⟩, ⟨p⟩ in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩: r, ɾ, ɹ, ɻ, ʀ, ʁ, ɽ, and ɺ. Transcriptions for vocalic or semivocalic realisations of underlying rhotics include the ə̯ and ɐ̯.

In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.

Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular affricates can certainly be made but are rare: they occur in some southern High-German dialects, as well as in a few African and Native American languages. Uvular consonants are typically incompatible with advanced tongue root, and they often cause retraction of neighboring vowels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced velar approximant</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɰ⟩ in IPA

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In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are semivowels like and, nasal consonants like and, and liquid consonants like and. This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guttural R</span> Type of rhotic consonant ("r sound")

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The Angamis are a major Naga ethnic group predominantly inhabiting the Kohima District, Chümoukedima District and Dimapur District in the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The Angamis are divided into four regions namely Chakhro Angami, Northern Angami, Southern Angami and Western Angami. The now separated Chakhesangs were previously known as the Eastern Angamis.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kohima district</span> District of Nagaland in India

Kohima District is a district of the Indian state of Nagaland. It is the home of the Angami Nagas. As of 2011, it is the most populous district of Nagaland, with a population of 267,988, 45% of which is urban. The district is home to 13.55% of Nagaland's entire population. The administrative headquarters of the district is located at Kohima, the capital city of Nagaland. Kohima District is also the seventh-largest district in Nagaland with an area of 1,207 square kilometres (466 sq mi).

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The Angami Baptist Church Council (ABCC) is one of the 20 associations in the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC). Through the NBCC, the ABCC is part of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). Its headquarters, Kohima, is the second station of the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society in Nagaland, India.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Angami</span>

Southern Angami or Japfüphiki is a geo-cultural region located in the southern part of Kohima District in the state of Nagaland in India with a portion of its territory also lying across the inter-state border in the Senapati District of Manipur.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Razhukhrielie Kevichüsa</span> Naga musician and bureaucrat (1941–2022)

Razhukhrielie Kevichüsa Meru was an Indian bureaucrat and musician from Nagaland. He served the Government of Nagaland as the administrative head of many significant departments in the state until his retirement in 2001. He was also a music composer and has composed a number of Angami gospel and secular songs, notably "Lie Me Re Vi Zhüte" and "Khrüthemvü", his most popular composed songs.

References

  1. 1 2 Angami at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 3rd edn. Paris, UNESCO Publishing. Online version: http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas
  3. 1 2 Blankenship, B. "Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami" (PDF).
  4. 1 2 3 4 Meyase, Savio (2023). Historical Sound Changes within the Tenyidie (Angami) Language. 56th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, 10-12 October 2023. Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.
  5. Rivenburg, S.W. (1905). Angami-English Phrasebook.
  6. Giridha, P.P and Handoo, L. (1987). Angami-English-Hindi dictionary. "A n u k r i t i . N e T". Archived from the original on 12 November 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
  7. The Bible Society of India. (1970). The Holy Bible: Angami Naga – Genesis Translation. The Long Now Foundation. https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_njm_gen-1
  8. Griffin, R. (n.d.). The Bible…Basically® in Tenyidie. "Tenyidie". Archived from the original on 5 March 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
  9. Baptist Revival Church (2011). Shieshülie - Tenyidie songbook. Retrieved from http://www.nagalandpost.com/ShowStory.aspx?npoststoryiden=UzEwNDA3Nzk%3D-ZxNlAmDAZ8A%3D Archived 29 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  10. www.site5.com. "Hornbill Festival - Hornbill festival of Nagaland". Hornbill Festival. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  11. "Rattle & Hum Music Society Nagaland". Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
  12. "Culturalvibrants | Listen and Stream Free Music, Albums, New Releases, Photos, Videos".
  13. "Secondary School Syllabus" (PDF). Nagaland Board of School Education. pp. 48–52. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
  14. "Higher Secondary School Syllabus for Classes 11 & 12" (PDF). Nagaland Board of School Education. p. 36. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 September 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2012.

Bibliography

Notes

  1. Blankenship states that [f] is an allophone of /p/. However, in the text only [pf] is found. It is not clear if these are in free variation, or if one is perhaps an allophone of /pʰ/.
  2. In Kohima, but not Khonoma dialect.