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Mizo | |
---|---|
Mizo ṭawng or Duhlián ṭawng | |
Native to | |
Region |
|
Ethnicity | Mizo |
Native speakers | 1,000,000+ [lower-alpha 1] (2011–2022) [1] [2] |
Latin (Mizo alphabet) [3] [4] Bengali-Assamese script [3] | |
Official status | |
Official language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | lus |
ISO 639-3 | lus |
Glottolog | lush1249 |
Regions where Mizo is educational, and official Regions where Mizo is educational, but not official Regions where Mizo is not official and not educational Regions with significant Mizo speakers, and where Mizo is a working language | |
Mizo is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |
The Mizo language is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Mizoram, where it is the official language and lingua franca. [5] It is the mother tongue of the Mizo people and some members of the Mizo diaspora. Other than Mizoram, it is also spoken in Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, and Assam states of India, Sagaing Region and Chin State in Myanmar, and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is mainly based on the Lusei dialect but it has also derived many words from its surrounding Mizo clans. [6]
The language is also known as Duhlian and Lushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among the Mizos to be encountered by the British in the course of their colonial expansion. [7]
The Mizo language is related to the other languages of the Sino-Tibetan family. [8] The Kuki-Chin-Mizo languages (which native Mizo speakers call Zohnahthlâk ṭawngho/Mizo ṭawngho) have a substantial number of words in common. [9]
There are around 850,000 speakers of the Mizo language: 830,846 speakers in India (2011 census); 1,041 speakers in Bangladesh (1981 census); 12,500 speakers in Myanmar (1983 census).
The Mizo language has eight tones and intonations for each of the vowels a, aw, e, i and u, four of which are reduced tones and the other four long tones. The vowel o has only three tones, all of them of the reduced type. The vowels can be represented as follows: [10]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i [ i ], [ ɨ ], [ iː ] | u [ u ], [ ʊ ], [ ʊː ] | |
Mid | e [ e ], [ ɛ ], [ ɛː ] | aw [ o ], [ ɔ ], [ ɔː ] | |
Open | a [ ʌ ], [ a ], [ ɑ ], [ ɑː ], [ ä ] |
Starting with a | Starting with e | Starting with i | Starting with u |
---|---|---|---|
ai (/aɪ̯/, /ɑːi/ or /ai/) | ei (/eɪ̯/, /ɛi/ or /ɛɪ̯/) | ia (/ɪə̯//ɪa/, /ja/ or /ɪa̭/) | ua (/u̯a/ or /ua̭/) |
au (/aʊ̯/, /ɑːʊ̯/) | eu (/ɛu/, /eʊ/ or /eʊ̯/) | iu (/ɪʊ̯/ or /iw/) | ui (/ɥi/ or /ʔwi/) |
Mizo has the following triphthongs:
Mizo has the following consonants, with the first symbol being its orthographical form and the second one its representation in the IPA: [10]
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | lateral | ||||||
Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p [ p ] | t [ t ] | ch [t͡s] | tl [t͡l] | k [ k ] | h [ ʔ ]1 |
aspirated | ph [ p ʰ ] | th [ t ʰ ] | chh [t͡s ʰ ], [ tʃ ʰ ] | thl [t͡lʰ] | kh [ k ʰ ] | ||
voiced | b [ b ] | d [ d ] | |||||
flap | ṭ [t͡ɾ] | ||||||
aspirated flap | ṭh [t͡ɾʰ] | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f [ f ] | s [ s ] | h [ h ] | |||
voiced | v [ v ] | z [ z ] | |||||
Sonorant | plain | m [ m ] | n [ n ] | r [ r ] | l [ l ] | ng [ ŋ ] | |
aspirated | hm [ ʰ m ] | hn [ ʰ n ] | hr [ ʰ r ] | hl [ ʰ l ] | ngh [ ʰ ŋ ] | ||
glottalised 1 | rh [ r ʔ ] | lh [ l ʔ ] |
As Mizo is a tonal language, differences in pitch and pitch contour can change the meanings of words. Tone systems have developed independently in many daughter languages, largely by simplifications in the set of possible syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants. Typically, a distinction between voiceless and voiced initial consonants is replaced by a distinction between high and low tone, and falling and rising tones developed from syllable-final h and glottal stop, which themselves often reflect earlier consonants.
The eight tones and intonations that the vowel a (and the vowels aw, e, i, u, and this constitutes all the tones in the Mizo language) can have are shown by the letter sequence p-a-n-g, as follows: [11]
Short tones | Long tones | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
mid | rising | falling | low | peaking | high | dipping | low |
a | (ǎ / ă) / ả | (ȧ / ã) / ą | ạ | â | á | ä | à |
o | (ǒ / ŏ) / ỏ / (ó) | ọ / (ò) | |||||
aw | (ǎw / ăw) / ảw | (ȧw / ãw) / ąw | ạw | âw | áw | äw | àw |
u | (ǔ / ŭ) / ủ | (ů / ũ) / ų | ụ | û | ú | ü | ù |
e | (ě / ĕ) / ẻ | (ė / ẽ) / ę | ẹ | ê | é | ë | è |
i | (ǐ / ĭ) / ỉ | (ĩ) / į | ị | î | í | ï | ì |
Note that the exact orthography of tones with diacritics is still not standardised (notably for differentiating the four short tones with confusive or conflicting choices of diacritics) except for the differentiation of long versus short tones using the circumflex. As well, the need of at least 7 diacritics may cause complications to design easy keyboard layouts, even if they use dead keys, and even if not all basic Latin letters are needed for Mizo itself, so publications may represent the short tones using digrams (e.g. by appending some apostrophe or glottal letter) to reduce the number of diacritics needed to only 4 (those used now for the long tones) on only two dead keys.
In Mizo [12] verb tense is indicated by the aspect and the addition of particles, such as: [13]
Mizo gerunds, and past participles are formed by a change in word ending called tihdanglamna.
verb | modified form |
---|---|
ziak, 'to write' | ziah, 'writing, written' |
tât, 'to whet' | tah, 'whetting, whetted' |
mà, 'to divorce' | mâk, 'divorcing, divorced' |
Mizo nouns undergo declension into cases.
nominative/accusative | genitive | ergative | instrumental |
---|---|---|---|
nụlá, 'the girl' | nụla, 'the girl's' | nụláịn, 'by the girl' | nụláin, 'by means of the girl' |
tǔi | tǔi | tuiịn | tuiin |
Thangạ (a proper noun) | Thanga | Thangȧ'n | Thangạ-in/Thangạ hmangin |
Nouns are pluralised by suffixing -te, -ho, -teho or -hote.
singular | plural |
---|---|
mipa, 'man' | mipate, mipaho, 'men' |
naupang, 'child' | naupangte, naupangho, 'children' |
All Mizo pronouns occur in two forms, namely in free form and clitic form and are declined into cases.
nominative | genitive | accusative | ergative | |
---|---|---|---|---|
clitic forms | ka, 'I' | ka, 'my, mine' | mi, min, 'me' | keima'n, 'by me' |
kan, 'we' | kan, 'our, ours' | min, 'us' | keimahnin, 'by us' | |
i, 'you (singular)' | i, 'your, yours' | che, 'you' | nangma'n, 'by you' | |
in, 'you (plural)' | in, 'your, yours' | che u, 'you' | nangmahnin, 'by you' | |
a, 'he, she, it' | a, 'his, hers, its' | amah, 'him, her, it' | ama'n, 'by him, by her, by it' | |
an, 'they' | an, 'their, theirs' | anmahni, 'them' | anmahni'n, 'by them' | |
free forms | kei, 'I' | keima, 'my, mine' | keimah, 'me' | keima'n, 'by me' |
keimah, 'we' | keima, 'our, ours' | keimah, keimah min, 'us' | keima'n, 'by us' | |
keini, 'you (singular)' | keini, 'your, yours' | keini min, 'you' | keini'n, 'by you' | |
keimahni, 'you (plural)' | keimahni, 'your, yours' | keimahni min, 'you' | keimahni'n, 'by you' | |
anni, 'he, she, it' | anni, 'his, hers, its' | anni, 'him, her, it' | anni'n, 'by him, by her, by it' | |
anmahni, 'they' | anmahni, 'their, theirs' | anmahni, 'them' | anmahni'n, 'by them' |
For declarative sentences, negation is achieved by adding the particle lo (not) at the end of a sentence. For example,
Sentence | Negation |
---|---|
Lala a lo kal Lala is coming/Lala came | Lala a lo kal lo Lala did not come |
Pathumin paruk a sem thei Three divides six | Pathumin paruk a sem thei lo Three does not divide six |
The Mizo alphabet is based on the Roman script and has 25 letters.
Letter | a | aw | b | ch | d | e | f | g | ng | h | i | j | k |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ |
Letter | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | ṭ | u | v | z |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ | ⓘ |
In its current form, it was devised by the first Christian missionaries of Mizoram, J. H. Lorrain and F. W. Savidge, [16] based on the Hunterian system of transliteration.
A circumflex ^ was later added to the vowels to indicate long vowels, viz., Â , Ê, Î, Ô, Û , which were insufficient to fully express Mizo tone. Recently,[ when? ] a leading newspaper in Mizoram, Vanglaini , the magazine Kristian Ṭhalai , and other publishers began using Á , À, Ä, É, È, Ë, Í, Ì, Ï, Ó, Ò, Ö, Ú, Ù, Ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have. [17] [18]
The following is a sample text in Mizo of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: [19]
Mizo: Mi zawng zawng hi zalèna piang kan ni a, zahawmna leh dikna chanvoah intluk tlâng vek kan ni. Chhia leh ṭha hriatna fîm neia siam kan nih avangin kan mihring puite chungah inunauna thinlung kan pu tlat tur a ni.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Mizo has a thriving literature, which has both written and oral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century. [20]
The Mizoram Press Information Bureau lists some twenty Mizo daily newspapers just in Aizawl city, as of March 2013. [21]
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of speech sounds in written form. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.
The Hmar language belongs to the Mizo language branch of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The speakers of this language use Mizo language as their second language (L2).
Lisu is a tonal Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Yunnan, Northern Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and a small part of India. Along with Lipo, it is one of two languages of the Lisu people. Lisu has many dialects that originate from the country in which they live. Hua Lisu, Pai Lisu and Lu Shi Lisu dialects are spoken in China. Although they are mutually intelligible, some have many more loan words from other languages than others.
The Mizo people, historically recorded as the Lushais, are an ethnic group native to the state of Mizoram in India and neighbouring states of Northeast India. They speak the Tibeto-Burman language of Mizo, the official language and lingua franca of Mizoram. The state is the second most literate state in India, at more than a rate of 90%.
The history of Mizoram encompasses the history of Mizoram which lies in the southernmost part of northeast India. It is a conglomerate history of several ethnic groups of Chin people who migrated from Chin State of Burma. But information of their patterns of westward migration are based on oral history and archaeological inferences, hence nothing definite can be said. The recorded history started relatively recently around the mid-19th century when the adjoining regions were occupied by the British monarchy. Following religious, political and cultural revolutions in the mid-20th century majority of the people agglomerated into a super tribe, Mizo. Hence the officially recognised settlement of the Mizos became Mizoram.
Zo is a Northern Kuki-Chin-Mizo language originating in western Burma and spoken also in Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India.
The Halam community are various tribes native to the state of Tripura in India. The name Halam was coined by the Tipra Maharaja. As per their oral tradition they called themselves "Riam", which literally means "Human being". And lyrically they also call themselves "Riamrai, Reivon, Longvon, Chepvon etc.". The Halam are further divided into 12 sub-tribes, namely Chorei, Molsom, Hrangkhol, Kaipeng, Kalai, Ranglong, Sakachep, Thangachep, Bongcher, Korbwng, Dab and Rupini.
The Lai people mainly inhabit the southern parts of Chin Hills in Myanmar's Chin State, in the townships of Falam, Thantlang and Hakha. They are also found in the Lawngtlai district of Mizoram, India, where they have been granted the Lai Autonomous District Council. Outside this area they are scattered in Mizoram and in Manipur. Their languages "Laizo Lai" and "Hakha Lai" are classified as Central Kuki-Chin languages.
Hakha Chin, or Laiholh, is a Kuki-Chin language spoken by 446,264 people, mostly in Myanmar. In Mizoram, the language is recognized as Pawi. The total figure includes 2,000 Zokhua and 60,100 Hakha speakers. The speakers are largely concentrated in Chin State in western Myanmar and Mizoram in eastern India, with a small number of speakers in south-eastern Bangladesh.
The Kuki-Chin 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, and the Chin of Chin State, Myanmar.
The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method developed by William Jones (1746–1794). Upon its establishment, the Sahitya Akademi also adopted the Hunterian method, with additional adaptations, as its standard method of maintaining its bibliography of Indian-language works.
The Aiton language or Tai Aiton language is spoken in Assam, India, in the Dhonsiri Valley and the south bank of the Brahmaputra. It is currently classified as a threatened language, with fewer than 2,000 speakers worldwide. Its other names include Aitonia and Sham Doaniya.
Ranglong is an ethnic people belonging to the Kuki people. The majority of the Ranglong people live in a small and densely-packed area in the northeastern part of India, mainly in the border areas of Tripura, Assam and Mizoram.
Mizo literature is the literature written in Mizo ṭawng, the principal language of the Mizo peoples, which has both written and oral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century. The language developed mainly from the Lushai language, with significant influence from Pawi language, Paite language and Hmar language, especially at the literary level.
Mizo grammar is the grammar of the Mizo language, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about a million people in Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Burma and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is a highly inflected language, with fairly complex noun phrase structure and word modifications. Nouns and pronouns are declined, and phrasal nouns also undergo an analogous declension.
William Williams was a Welsh Presbyterian missionary to Khasi Hills, northeast India, in the late 19th century. He was a son of a ship captain in Nanternis, a small village in Wales. Following his father's footstep he became a sailor for five years. Then he took a profession in carpentry for two years. After graduating in theology from East London Missionary Training Institute he became a pastor. Pursuing his ambition he became a missionary of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Mission to Khasi people in India from 1887 until his death. He died of typhoid in 1892.
Zairema was a Presbyterian minister, and a pioneer in theology and literature among the Mizo people of northeast India. He was the first Mizo to obtain the degrees of BSc and BD. He died of cardiac problem on the morning of 17 December 2008 at his residence in Aizawl at the age of 91. He is best remembered as the "father of Mizoram Synod".
Edwin Rowlands was a Welsh Christian missionary in northeast India and Burma. He was a professional teacher, singer, composer, poet, translator and literary figure among the Mizo people. He was regarded as the most beloved of all British missionaries in Mizoram. He was more popularly known as Zosapthara. He made the major hymns in Mizo and Khumi which are still in use. He modified the original Mizo alphabet and his system became the standard in Mizo language. He created written language for Khumi people in Burma, and for Bhil people in Maharashtra. His literary works are the foundation of Mizo literature. He was the first administrator of education in Mizoram as Honorary Inspector of Schools. Despite objection from various corners he married Thangkungi, a Mizo girl.
The history of Christianity in Mizoram covers the origin and development of all forms of Christianity in Mizoram since the British occupation at the end of the 19th century. Christianity arrived as a consequence of tribal warfare, raids of British plantations, and the ensuing punitive British military expedition called the Lushai Expedition of 1871. The subsequent annexation of the erstwhile Lushai Hills to the British Empire opened the gateway for British Christian missions to evangelise the Mizo people.
The culture of the Mizo people has been heavily influenced by Christianity. Mizo culture is rooted in the arts and ways of life of Mizos in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar