Mizo language
| Mizo | |
|---|---|
| Lushai | |
| Native to | India, Bangladesh, Burma |
| Region | Mizoram, Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tahan, Nagaland |
| Ethnicity | Mizo people |
|
Native speakers
|
690,000 (2001) |
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
|
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
 India (Mizoram) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | lush1249 |
 |
|
The Mizo language, or Mizo ṭawng, is spoken natively by the Mizo people in the Mizoram state of India, Chin State in Burma, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The language is also known as Lushai, a colonial term, as the Lushei people were the first to have external exposure. Though still common, Lushai (or Lusei, or Lushei) is considered incorrect by the Mizo themselves. Much poetic language is derived from Pawi, Paite, and Hmar, and most known ancient poems considered to be in Mizo language are actually in Pawi.
The Mizo language belongs to the Kukish branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The numerous clans of the Mizo had respective dialects, amongst which the Lushei (Lusei, by Mizo themselves) dialect was most common, and which subsequently became the Mizo language and the lingua franca of the Kuki peoples due to its extensive and exclusive use by the Christian missionaries.
The Mizo alphabet is based on the Roman script and has 25 letters, namely:
In its current form, it was devised by Christian missionaries based on 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, 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, ú, ù, ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have.
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Wikipedia