Tangkhulic languages
| Tangkhulic | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Tangkhul Naga |
| Geographic distribution |
Ukhrul District, Manipur, India; Naga Self-Administered Zone, Myanmar |
| Linguistic classification |
Sino-Tibetan
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | tang1335 |
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 branch of Tibeto-Burman, pending further research.
Tangkhulic languages include:
The Tangkhulic languages are not particularly close to each other. No linguistic data is available for Maring. Ethnologue lists Khoibu as a second Maring language.
The recently discovered Sorbung language could be either a Kuki-Chin or Tangkhulic language. Mortenson and Keogh (2011) consider a Kuki-Chin affiliation to be more likely, although they recognize that are strong links with Southern Tangkhul.
Koki, Long Phuri, Makuri, and Para are "Naga" languages spoken in and around Leshi Township, Myanmar. These four languages are listed as unclassified Kuki-Chin-Naga languages in Ethnologue, but could possibly classify as Tangkhulic languages or Ao languages.
Mortensen (2003:5) classifies the Tangkhulic languages as follows.
Proto-Tangkhulic, the reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Tangkhulic languages, has been reconstructed by Mortensen (2012).
Mortensen (2003:5-7) lists the following phonological innovations (sound changes) from Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) to Proto-Tangkhulic.
Proto-Tangkhulic also has the nominalizing prefix *kV-.
Proto-Tangkhulic lexical innovations are:
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