Lyngngam is an
Austroasiatic
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The te ...
language of
Northeast India
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closely related to
Khasi language
Khasi () is an Austroasiatic language with just over a million speakers in north-east India, primarily the Khasi people in the state of Meghalaya. It has associate official status in some districts of this state. The closest relatives of Khasi ...
. Once listed as a dialect of
Khasi
Khasi may refer to:
* Khasi people, an ethnic group of Meghalaya, India
* Khasi language, a major Austroasiatic language spoken in Meghalaya, India
* Khāṣi language, an Indo-Aryan language of Jammu and Kashmir, India
See also
* Khasi Hills
* Gh ...
, Lyngngam has in recent literature been classified as a distinct language. Lyngngam speakers have food and dress similar to the neighboring
Garo people
The Garo is a Tibeto-Burman ethnic tribal group from the Indian subcontinent, living mostly in the Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, and Nagaland, and in neighbouring areas of Bangladesh, including Madhupur, Mymensingh, Haluaghat, ...
.
Phonology
Consonant inventory
The following table lists the consonants attested in Lyngngam.
:
The main difference with the Khasi language is that Lyngngam does not possess the voiced aspirated series. Furthermore, Lyngngam does not have the phoneme . Words which have in Khasi typically have or in Lyngngam,
as in the following pairs of
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s:
:
Vowel inventory
The following table lists the vowel inventory of the language.
The only vowels showing a length distinction are and , in contradistinction to Khasi, where length is distinctive for all vowels.
:
Words with diphthongs in Khasi have monophthongs in Lyngngam,
as in the following pairs of cognates:
:
References
*
{{Hill tribes of Northeast India
Khasian languages
Languages of India
Languages of Meghalaya