Konyak is a

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 spoken by the

Konyak people The Konyaks are one of the major Naga ethnic groups. In Nagaland, they inhabit the Mon District, which is also known as ''The Land of the Anghs''. The ''Anghs''/''Wangs'' are their traditional chiefs whom they hold in high esteem. Facial tattoo ...

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 ...

, northeastern

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 ...

Dialects

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 ...

'' lists the following dialects of Konyak. Tableng is the standard dialect spoken in Wanching and Wakching.

Phonology

There are three lexically contrastive

contour tone A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Khois ...

s in Konyak – rising (marked in writing by an acute accent – á), falling (marked by a grave accent – à) and level (unmarked).

Vowels

The vowels , and are lengthened before

approximants Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...

. doesn't occur finally.

Consonants

The

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and contrast with the aspirated and . and become voiced intervocalically across

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...

boundaries. The dental is realised as an

alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * ...

if preceded by a vowel with a rising tone. The

and are pronounced laxer and shorter after vowels; becomes tenser initially before high vowels. If morpheme-initial or intervocalic, is pronounced with audible friction. , , , , , and do not occur morpheme-finally, while does not appear morpheme-initially. Except for morpheme-initial and , consonant clusters occur only medially.

Dialects

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

References

Bibliography

Further reading