Anal or Anāl, also known as Pakan Naga after the two principal villages where it is spoken in, is a Southern

Naga language The Naga languages are a geographic and ethnic grouping of languages under the Kuki-Chin-Naga languages, spoken mostly by Naga peoples. Northern Naga languages do not fall within the group, in spite of being spoken by Naga groups; instead, the ...

, part of the

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

language family, spoken by the Anal people in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and a dwindling number in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. It had 83,000 speakers in India according to the 2001 census, and 55,000 in Myanmar in 2010. It has two principal clans, Murchal and Moshum, and is closest to Lamkang. The language of wider communication is

Meitei language Meitei (), also known as Manipuri (, ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of north-eastern India. It is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in pa ...

. The name "Anal" was given by the

Meitei people The Meitei people, also known as the Manipuri people,P.20: "historically, academically and conventionally Manipuri prominently refers to the Meetei people."P.24: "For the Meeteis, Manipuris comprise Meeteis, Lois, Kukis, Nagas and Pangal." is ...

of Manipur valley. Anal is written in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

, with a literacy rate of about 87%.

Geographical distribution

Anal is spoken in Chandel district, southeastern

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...

, on the banks of the Chakpi River in Chandel, Chakpikarong, and Tangnoupal subdivisions (''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'').

Phonology

Consonants

/dʒ/ can also be heard as a glide in free variation.

Vowels

Vocabulary

The following vocabulary exemplifies words in the language.

References

External links

* ELAR collection
A community-driven documentation of natural discourse in Anal, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language
deposited by Pavel Ozerov

Bibliography

* * Southern Naga languages Languages of Manipur Endangered languages of India Hmar Endangered Sino-Tibetan languages {{st-lang-stub