The Ao or Central Naga languages are a small family of

Sino-Tibetan languages 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. ...

spoken by various

Naga people Nagas are various ethnic groups native to northeastern India and northwestern Myanmar. The groups have similar cultures and traditions, and form the majority of population in the Indian states of Nagaland and Manipur and Naga Self-Administered ...

s of

Nagaland Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...

in northeast

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 ...

. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other

Naga languages 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, th ...

, and are conservatively classified as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan, pending further research. There are around 607,000 speakers of the languages in total. Coupe (2012)Coupe, Alexander R. 2012. Overcounting numeral systems and their relevance to sub-grouping in the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nagaland. Language and Linguistics / Academica Sinica 13. 193-220. considers the

Angami–Pochuri languages The Angami–Pochuri languages are a small family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southern Nagaland and Northern Manipur of northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are co ...

to be most closely related to Ao as part of a wider ''Angami–Ao'' group.

Languages

The following languages are widely accepted as Central Naga languages: *

Ao language The Ao language is a Naga language spoken by the Ao Naga in Nagaland of northeast India. Ao language cluster '' Ethnologue'' lists the following varieties of Ao. * Mongsen Khari *Changki * Chongli (Chungli) *Dordar (Yacham) *Longla Chongli and ...

Chungli Ao Chungli Ao is the prestige dialect of Ao and it is a Sino-Tibetan language of northeast India. It is the most widely spoken of the Ao languages which also comprise Mongsen Ao and Changki. It is taught up to the tenth grade in schools of the Mo ...

** Mongsen Ao * Sangtam ('Thukumi') * Yimkhiungrü ('Yachumi') * Lotha (Lhota) There are also various undescribed Ao varieties including Yacham and Tengsa, which may turn out to be separate languages (see Mongsen Ao). The following "Naga" languages spoken in and around

Leshi Township Leshi Township or Layshi Township ( my, လေရှီးမြို့နယ်) is a mountainous

, Myanmar are classified as Ao languages ("Ao-Yimkhiungrü") by Saul (2005).Saul, J. D. 2005. ''The Naga of Burma: Their festivals, customs and way of life''. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid Press. *

Koki KOKI-TV (channel 23) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network. It is owned by INSP (TV channel), Imagicomm Communications alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYT-TV (channel ...

* Makury * Long Phuri *

Para Para, or PARA, may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Paramount Global, traded as PARA on the Nasdaq stock exchange * Para Group, the former name of CT Corp * Para Rubber, now Skellerup, a New Zealand manufacturer * Para USA, formerly ...

Bruhn (2014:370) also surmises that Makury may be an Ao language. Bruhn (2014) uses the term ''Central Naga'' to refer to all of the languages above, and uses the ''Ao'' to refer to only two languages, namely Chungli Ao and Mongsen Ao. The internal structure of Bruhn's Central Naga group is as follows. ;Central Naga * Lotha * Sangtam * Yimkhiungrü * Ao **

** Mongsen Ao

Reconstruction

Proto-Central Naga (Proto-Ao) has been reconstructed by Bruhn (2014). Bruhn (2014:363) identifies the following four sound changes from

Proto-Tibeto-Burman Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by ...

(PTB) to Proto-Central Naga (PCN) as sound changes that are characteristic of the Central Naga branch. #PTB *-a(ː)w, *-əw, *-ow, *-u > PCN *-u(ʔ) ‘back diphthong merger’ #PTB *-r > PCN *-n ‘*r-coda nasalization’ #PTB *-s > PCN *-t ‘*s-coda occlusivization’ #PTB *-i(ː)l, *‑al, *‑uːl > PCN *‑ə(ʔ) ‘*l-rime erosion’

References

*van Driem, George (2001). ''Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region.'' Leiden: Brill. *Bruhn, Daniel Wayne. 2014.
A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga
'. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. *Saul, J. D. 2005. ''The Naga of Burma: Their festivals, customs and way of life''. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid Press. *Barkman, Tiffany. 2014
''A descriptive grammar of Jejara (Para Naga)''
MA thesis, Chiang Mai: Payap University. *Shi, Vong Tsuh. 2009.
Discourse studies of Makuri Naga narratives
''. MA thesis, Chiang Mai: Payap University. *Language and Social Development Organization (LSDO). 2006. ''A sociolinguistic survey of Makuri, Para, and Long Phuri Naga in Layshi Township, Myanmar''. Unpublished manuscript. *Mills, J. P (1926). The Ao Nagas. London: MacMillan & Co. {{authority control Languages of India

Languages

Reconstruction

See also

References