Chungli Ao language

Last updated

Chungli Ao
Native to India
Region Nagaland
Ethnicity Ao Naga
Native speakers
130,004 (2011 census) [1] [2]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog chon1286
ELP Chungli

Chungli Ao is the prestige dialect of Ao and it is a Sino-Tibetan language of northeast India. It is the most widely spoken of the Ao languages which also comprise Mongsen Ao and Changki. It is taught up to the tenth grade in schools of the Mokokchung district. It is also spoken by the Ao Nagas of Nagaland, a hill state in northeast India. Being the official language of religion, the dialect has a Bible translation and is used in church services as well as to make public announcements. [3] A local Chungli newspaper is also published online. [4] The number of speakers who reported Chungli Ao as their mother tongue are approximately 130,000 according to the 2011 census report of India. A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Central-Naga has been compiled by Daniel Bruhn [5]

Contents

History

During the American Baptist Mission to Naga Hills, Dr E.W. Clark first came in contact with the Molungkimong village that paved the way for a common Ao language. Chungli Ao is spoken in Molungkimong and Molungyimsen and other villages throughout Ao territory by roughly 50% of the Ao-speaking population. The speech of Molungkimong is the prestige dialect due to Baptist missionaries' influence. Most Ao can speak Chungli even if they are from Mongsen-speaking regions. Chungli is taught in schools. Various trans-Dikhu neighbouring dialects of Chungli Ao are spoken east of the Dikhu River in Yacham, Tengsa, and Longla. These are poorly documented; Yacham and Tengsa may be separate languages (van Driem 2001).

Numbers

Number system [6]
×NumeralCardinal numberOrdinal number
11katamaba
22anatanabuba
33asemasembuba
44pezü
55pungu
66terok
77tenet
88ti
99teku
1010ter
1111terka
1212ter ana
1313ter asem
1414ter pezü
1515ter pongu
1616ter terok
1717ter tenet
1818ter ti
1919ter teku
2020metsü

Phonology

Chungli Ao is a tonal language. There are three distinct tonal levels: low, mid and high. There is evidence to prove that low and mid as well as low and high are contrastive. Chungli also has two contour tones, which are high-low and low-mid, though they are quite rare.

Vowels

Vowels [7]
FrontCentralBack
Highiɨu
Mideə
Lowa

Consonants

Consonants [7]
BilabialDental/
Alveolar		Post-
alveolar		PalatalVelarGlottal
Nasalmnŋ
Plosivevoicelessptkʔ
aspiratedpʰtʰkʰ
Affricatetstʃ
Fricativevoicelesssʃh
voicedz
Approximantlaterall
centralwɹj

Morphology

1) Chungli Ao is an agglutinative language where the verbs lack person and number marking. For example:

PREFIX – STEM -LEXICAL SUFFIX – DERIV. SUFFIX – INFLEC. SUFFIX

me- NEG             -maʔ ‘completely’   -tsɨʔ BEN             -tsɨ IRR te- PROH            -et ‘persistently’  -tep RECIP            -əɹ PRES                       etc.                etc.                  etc.

This applies for both finite and non-finite forms of the verb.

2) The following table shows the case marking present in Chungli Ao. [3]

Case marking
× Agentive case Instrumental case Allative case Ablative case Locative case
iiinuŋinuŋ

Related Research Articles

Tshangla is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the region; it is also spoken in the adjoining Tawang tract in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Pemako region of Tibet. Tshangla is the principal pre-Tibetan language of Bhutan.

The Lotha language is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by approximately 180,000 people in Wokha district of west-central Nagaland, India. It is centered in the small district of Wokha. This district has more than 114 villages such as Pangti, Maraju (Merapani), Englan, Baghty (Pakti) and others, where the language is widely spoken and studied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mongsen Ao language</span> Sino-Tibetan language spoken in India

Mongsen Ao is a member of the Ao languages, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, predominantly spoken in central Mokokchung district of Nagaland, northeast India. Its speakers see the language as one of two varieties of a greater "Ao language," along with the prestige variety Chungli Ao.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Qiang language</span> Qiangic language spoken in Tibet and China

Northern Qiang is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Qiangic branch, more specifically falling under the Tibeto-Burman family. It is spoken by approximately 60,000 people in East Tibet, and in north-central Sichuan Province, China.

Southern Qiang is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Qiangic branch spoken by approximately 81,300 people along the Minjiang river in Sichuan Province, China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hajong language</span> Indo-Aryan language

Hajong is an Indo-Aryan language with a possible Tibeto-Burman language substratum. It is spoken by approximately 80,000 ethnic Hajongs across the northeast of the Indian subcontinent, specifically in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and West Bengal in present-day India, and the divisions of Mymensingh and Sylhet in present-day Bangladesh. It is written in Bengali-Assamese script and Latin script. It has many Sanskrit loanwords. The Hajongs originally spoke a Tibeto-Burman language, but it later mixed with Assamese and Bengali.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kachari language</span> Tibeto-Burman language of Assam, India

Kachari is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Boro-Garo subgroup, spoken in Assam, India. With fewer than 60,000 speakers recorded in 1997, and the Asam 2001 Census reporting a literacy rate of 81% the Kachari language is currently ranked as threatened. Kachari is closely related to surrounding languages, including Tiwa, Rābhā, Hajong, Kochi and Mechi.

The Kuki-Chin–Naga languages are a geographic clustering of languages of the Sino-Tibetan family in James Matisoff's classification used by Ethnologue, which groups it under the non-monophyletic "Tibeto-Burman". Their genealogical relationship both to each other and to the rest of Sino-Tibetan is unresolved, but Matisoff lumps them together as a convenience pending further research.

The Naga languages are a geographic and ethnic grouping of languages under the Kuki-Chin-Naga languages, spoken mostly by Naga peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Keith Sprigg</span>

Richard Keith Sprigg was a British linguist who specialised in the phonology of Asian languages. Sprigg was educated under J. R. Firth and was a member of the first generation of professional British linguists. Also as a consequence Sprigg was an advocate of the prosodic phonological method of Firth. Sprigg worked on several Tibeto-Burman languages including Lepcha, and various Tibetan dialects. He taught for many years at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and retired to Kalimpong, West Bengal, India with his wife Ray, granddaughter of David Macdonald the author of The Land of the Lama and 20 Years in Tibet, until her death.

The Ao or Central Naga languages are a small family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by various Naga peoples of Nagaland in northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are conservatively classified as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan, pending further research. There are around 607,000 speakers of the languages in total.

The Angami–Pochuri languages are a small family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southern Nagaland and Northern Manipur of northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are conservatively classified as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan, pending further research.

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 are conservatively classified as an independent Tangkhul–Maring branch of Tibeto-Burman, pending further research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibeto-Burman languages</span> Group of the Sino-Tibetan language family

The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The name derives from the most widely spoken of these languages, Burmese and the Tibetic languages, which also have extensive literary traditions, dating from the 12th and 7th centuries respectively. Most of the other languages are spoken by much smaller communities, and many of them have not been described in detail.

Proto-Tibeto-Burman is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by James Matisoff. Several other researchers argue that the Tibeto-Burman languages sans Chinese do not constitute a monophyletic group within Sino-Tibetan, and therefore that Proto-Tibeto-Burman was the same language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Poula is an Angami-Pochuri language that is predominantly spoken by the Poumai Naga people in Senapati district in Manipur and Phek district in Nagaland, India. The language of Chingjaroi is also closely related to Poula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ao language</span> Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Ao of Nagaland in northeast India

The Ao language is a Naga language spoken by the Ao Naga in Nagaland of northeast India. It is written from Latin Script

The Puroik language, sometimes known as Sulung, is a possible language isolate spoken by the Puroik people of Arunachal Pradesh in India and of Lhünzê County, Tibet, in China.

Sümi, also Sema, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nagaland, India. It is spoken by the Sümi Naga people. It differs from every other Naga languages due to the presence of guttural sounds.

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 7 July 2018.
  2. ↑ Coupe, A. R. (1 January 2007). A Grammar of Mongsen Ao. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   9783110198522.
  3. 1 2 Coupe, Alexander (1 October 2011). "On core case marking patterns in two Tibeto-Burman languages of Nagaland". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 34: 21–47.
  4. ↑ "English | Tir Yimyim" . Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  5. ↑ A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga
  6. ↑ "Numbers in Chungli Ao". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  7. 1 2 Bruhn, Daniel (2009). "The Tonal Classification of Chungli Ao Verbs". UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report. 5 (5).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.