Tangkhulic languages

{{Short description|Group of Sino-Tibetan languages}} {{Infobox language family |name=Tangkhulic |altname= |ethnicity=Tangkhul |region=Ukhrul District, Manipur, India; Naga Self-Administered Zone, Myanmar |familycolor=Sino-Tibetan |fam2=Central Tibeto-Burman? |fam3=Kuki-Chin–Naga? |fam4=Naga? |fam5=Tangkhul–Maring |glotto=sino1246 |glottorefname=Tangkhulic }}

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.

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

==Languages== Tangkhulic languages include: *Tangkhul (Indian Tangkhul) *Somra (Burmese Tangkhul) *Akyaung Ari *Kachai *Huishu *Tusom *Suansu *Challow *Kongai

The Tangkhulic languages are not particularly close to each other. Suansu, Challow, and Kongai were only documented starting from 2019.<ref>IVANI, Jessica K & ZAKHARKO, Taras. 2023. ''Linguistic diversity in North-East India: a comparative look at neighboring languages Suansu, Kongai and Challow''. 26th Himalayan Languages Symposium, 4–6 September 2023. Paris: INALCO.</ref>

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.<ref>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</ref> some northern villages (Chingjaroi, Jessami, Soraphung Razai) in Tangkhul area have language more closely related to the Angami-Pochuri language group.

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.<ref>Barkman, Tiffany. 2014. [http://ic.payap.ac.th/wp-content/uploads/linguistics_students/Tiffany_Barkman_Thesis.pdf ''A descriptive grammar of Jejara (Para Naga)''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009022525/http://ic.payap.ac.th/wp-content/uploads/linguistics_students/Tiffany_Barkman_Thesis.pdf |date=2016-10-09 }}. MA thesis, Chiang Mai: Payap University.</ref>

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

{{tree list}} *'''Tangkhulic''' **Northern: Huishu **North-Central: Champhung **East-Central ***Eastern ****Kachai ****Phadāng ***Central ****Standard Tangkhul ****Ukhrul **Southern ***Brown's 'Central Tangkhul' ***South-Central ****Khangoi ****Brown's 'Northern Tangkhul' {{tree list/end}}

==Reconstruction== Proto-Tangkhulic, the reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Tangkhulic languages, has been reconstructed by Mortensen (2012).<ref name="Mortensen2012">Mortensen, David R. 2012. [http://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/source/DRM-Tk ''Database of Tangkhulic Languages'']. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).</ref>

Mortensen (2003:5-7)<ref name="Mortensen2003">Mortensen, David R. (2003). “[http://www.davidmortensen.org/papers/comparative_tangkhul.pdf Comparative Tangkhul] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613085134/http://www.davidmortensen.org/papers/comparative_tangkhul.pdf |date=2018-06-13 }}.” Unpublished Qualifying Paper, UC Berkeley.</ref> 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''-.<ref name="Mortensen2003"/>

Proto-Tangkhulic lexical innovations are:<ref name="Mortensen2003"/> * *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)

==References== {{Reflist}} *George van Driem (2001) ''Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region.'' Brill. *Mortensen, David R. and James A. Miller (2013). “[http://sealang.net/archives/ltba/pdf/LTBA-36.1.1.pdf A reconstruction of Proto-Tangkhulic rhymes].” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 36(1): 1-32. *Mortensen, David R. (2012). [http://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/source/DRM-Tk ''Database of Tangkhulic Languages'']. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT). *Mortensen, David R. (2003). “[http://www.davidmortensen.org/papers/comparative_tangkhul.pdf Comparative Tangkhul] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613085134/http://www.davidmortensen.org/papers/comparative_tangkhul.pdf |date=2018-06-13 }}.” Unpublished Qualifying Paper, UC Berkeley. *Mortensen, David. 2014. [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ref/public/MortensenTL.pdf The Tangkhulic Tongues - How I Started Working on Endangered Languages].

Category:Tangkhulic languages Category:Languages of India