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The Paite people are an ethnic group in Northeast India, mainly living in Manipur and Mizoram. The Paites are recognized as a scheduled tribe in these two states. They are part of the Kuki-Zo people, but prefer to use the Zomi identity. "Guite" is a major clan of the Paite people.
Chandel district is one of the 16 districts of Manipur state in northeastern India. Its headquarters is the town of Chandel. In December 2016, a part of the district was split to establish the new Tengnoupal district. The district is mainly populated by Nagas like Anal, Monsang, Maring, Tarao, Moyon, Lamkang, Chothe and others like Kuki tribal people.
The Sizang, Siyin or Taute people are primarily the descendants of Pu Thuantak, also known as Suantak in the Tedim language and by related clans, and their adopted sons and daughters. The Siyin Valley is in present-day Chin State, Myanmar, and was settled by descendants of the Pu Thuantak who moved from their original home of Ciimnuai with other Zo (Chin) people such as the Sukte, Thado, Zou, and other related tribes.
The Zou people are an ethnic group, that is an indigenous community living along the frontier of India and Burma, they are a sub-group of the Kuki people/Zo people. In India, they live with and are similar in language and habits to the Thadou people and Paite and the Simte peoples. In Burma, the Zou are counted among the Chin people. They are a hill people, "Zou" may plainly means "Hills" denoting the Zous are "people of the hills" or "of the hills", and "Zou" has also a different meaning in Zou language that is "complete" or another word for it is "finish". But, the Zou people believed that they incepted the name 'Zou' from their forefather 'Zou' or 'Zo', believed to be the progenitor of the broad Chin-Kuki-Mizo people.
The Vaiphei people are an ethnic group who live in the North-East Indian state of Manipur and in the Chin State of Myanmar. They share cultural similarities with other tribes in the region like Paite, Thadou, Simte, Hmar,Zou people, Gangte and Kom or Zo.
Zo is a Northern Kuki-Chin-Mizo language originating in western Burma and spoken also in Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India.
Thadou, Kuki, or Thado Chin is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Northern Kuki-Chin sub-branch. It is spoken by the Thadou people in Northeast India. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Guite is the progenitor clan of Zomi people, also called Chin in Myanmar, Mizo, or Paite, or even Kuki in India. According to Zam, Nigui Guite is the elder brother of the ancestral fathers of the Thadou people, namely Thangpi, Sattawng, and Neirawng. This genealogy was recently inscribed on the tribal memorial stone at Bungmual, Lamka in the presence of each family-head of the three major clans, Doungel, Kipgen, and Haokip, on August 7, 2011. Some historians, like Shakespeare, assumed Lamlei was the Nigui Guite himself but the Guites themselves recounted Tuahciang, the father of Lamlei, as the son of Nigui Guite instead, in their social-religious rites. Regarding Guite as the born son of Songthu and his sister, Nemnep, it was the practice of ancient royalty to issue royal heir and also to keep their bloodline pure instead. Depending on local pronunciation, the clan was also called by different names such as Nguite or Vuite, Gwite, Nwite, Paihte by the Lushei. In accord with the claim of their solar origin, the Guite clan has been called nampi, meaning noble or major or even dominant people, of the region in local dialect in the past.
The Kuki-Chin-Mizo languages are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most notable Kuki-Chin-speaking ethnic groups are referred to collectively as the Zo people which includes: the Mizo of Mizoram, the Kuki of Manipur, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura and Bangladesh and the Chin of Chin State, Myanmar.
The Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) is an armed Zomi nationalist militant group formed in 1997, following an increase in ethnic tensions between the Kuki people and the Paites tribe in Churachandpur district of Manipur, India. Its parent organisation, the Zomi Re-unification Organisation, was founded in April 1993.
Paite is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Paite people. There are different Paite dialects; some notable Paite dialects are Bukpi, Lousau, Valpau, Dapzal, Tuichiap, Sukte, Dim, Lamzang and Sihzang. The language exhibits mutual intelligibility with the other languages of the region including Thadou, Hmar, Vaiphei, Simte, Kom, Gangte and other languages. The name Paite could translate to 'the people who went', 'a group of people marching'. Paite refers to a group of people who enter today Manipur and Mizoram (india) crossing the run river(a rive separating the two countries of India and Burma) during the pre colonial era, so the word Paite itself means "those who went out".... It is fairly necessary to note that there are amongst those group of people who do not leave today Burma and still settle there. They cannot be called Paite since they do not leave or set out, So to put an umbrella term on all the ethnic groups between two international countries the word "Zomi" is unifiedly used. They are a part of the Chin/Kuki/Mizo/Zomi (CHIKIMZO)
Sakachep also known as Khelma, is a Central Kuki-Chin-Mizo language of Northeast India. Dialects are Khelma, Thangachep, and Sakachep (Ethnologue). VanBik (2009) classifies Sakachep as closely related to Aimol, Anal, Chiru, Kharam, Koireng(Koren), Kom, Lamkang, Purum, Biate, Chorei, Ranglong, Molsom, Hrangkhol, Kaipeng, Bongcher and Thiek-Hmar.
Zomi is a collective identity adopted some of the Kuki-Chin language-speaking people in India and Myanmar. The term means "Zo people". The groups adopting the Zomi identity reject the conventional labels "Kuki" and "Chin", popularised during the British Raj, as colonial impositions. Even though "Zomi" was originally coined as an all-encompassing identity of the Kuki-Chin-speaking people, in practice, it has proved to be divisive, with considerable number of groups continuing to use the traditional labels "Kuki" and "Chin" and only certain sections adopting the Zomi identity. The groups covered in the identity has varied with time. Compound names such as "Kuki-Zo" and "Zomi Chin" are sometimes used to paper over the divisions.
Kharam is a Southern Naga language of India. Peterson (2017) classifies the closely related Purum language as part of the Northwestern branch of Kuki-Chin. According Ethnologue, Kharam shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Purum. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Mruic or Mru–Hkongso is a small group of Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of two languages, Mru and Anu-Hkongso. Their relationship within Sino-Tibetan is unclear.
The Northwestern Kuki-Chin languages, originally called Old Kuki languages, is a branch of Kuki-Chin languages.
Central Kuki-Chin is a branch of the Kuki-Chin languages. Central Kuki-Chin languages are spoken primarily in Mizoram, India and in Hakha Township and Falam Township of Chin State, Myanmar.
The Maraic languages are a branch of Kuki-Chin languages.
Southern Kuki-Chin is a branch of Kuki-Chin languages. They are spoken mostly in southern Chin State, Myanmar and in southeastern Bangladesh.
The Hmaric languages or Hmar languages are a subbranch of the Kukish branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family which comprises Hmar proper Țhiek/Thriek, Saihriem (Faihriem), Leiri, Dulien/Duhlian(a sub-clan of Faihriem) and others. The Hmar languages are often treated as dialects of a single language, since differences between them are reportedly minor. The speakers of the language are also known as Hmar.
References
- ↑ Peterson, David. 2017. "On Kuki-Chin subgrouping." In Picus Sizhi Ding and Jamin Pelkey, eds. Sociohistorical linguistics in Southeast Asia: New horizons for Tibeto-Burman studies in honor of David Bradley, 189-209. Leiden: Brill.
- ↑ S. Dal Sian Pau. 2014. The comparative study of Proto-Zomi (Kuki-Chin) languages. Lamka, Manipur, India: Zomi Language & Literature Society (ZOLLS).
- Button, Christopher. 2011. Proto Northern Chin. STEDT Monograph 10. ISBN 0-944613-49-7.
- Peterson, David. 2017. "On Kuki-Chin subgrouping." In Picus Sizhi Ding and Jamin Pelkey, eds. Sociohistorical linguistics in Southeast Asia: New horizons for Tibeto-Burman studies in honor of David Bradley, 189-209. Leiden: Brill.
- VanBik, Kenneth. 2009. Proto-Kuki-Chin: A Reconstructed Ancestor of the Kuki-Chin Languages. STEDT Monograph 8. ISBN 0-944613-47-0.
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
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| Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
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| East and Southeast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||