Mruic or Mru–Hkongso is a small group 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. ...

consisting of two poorly attested languages, Mru and Anu-Hkongso. Their relationship within Sino-Tibetan is unclear. Peterson & Wright (2009)Peterson, David A. and Jonathan Wright. 2009. ''Mru-Hkongso: a new Tibeto-Burman grouping''. Paper presented at The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL 42), Chiang Mai. proposed the name ''Mru–Hkongso''.

Classification

Matisoff (2015)Matisoff, James A. 2015
''The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus''
Berkeley: University of California.
PDF
classifies Mru as part of the

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

n areal group, a

linkage Linkage may refer to: * ''Linkage'' (album), by J-pop singer Mami Kawada, released in 2010 *Linkage (graph theory), the maximum min-degree of any of its subgraphs *Linkage (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse * Linkage (hierarchical cluster ...

that includes Tani,

Deng Deng may refer to: * Deng (company), is a Danish engineering, electrical, solar power and sales company in Accra, Ghana * Deng (state), an ancient Chinese state * Deng (Chinese surname), originated from the state ** Deng Xiaoping, paramount leader ...

(Digaro), " Kuki-Chin–Naga", Meithei, Mikir, and Sal. On the other hand,

Bradley Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English. Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular. It is also an Anglicisation of t ...

(1997) classifies Mru as part of Lolo-Burmese, based on Löffler's (1966) observations that Mru shares many phonological and lexical resemblances with Lolo-Burmese. The ''Mru-Hkongso'' group was first proposed by Peterson & Wright (2009), who do not consider it to be a subgroup of Lolo-Burmese. Peterson (2017:205)Peterson, David. 2017. "On Kuki-Chin subgrouping." In Picus Sizhi Ding and Jamin Pelkey, eds. ''Sociohistorical linguistics in Southeast Asia: New horizons for Tibeto-Burman studies in honor of David Bradley'', 189-209. Leiden: Brill. notes that Mru and Hkongso do not have any features characteristic of

Kuki-Chin languages The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kuki-Chin-Mizo, Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most speakers of the ...

that have been identified by VanBik (2009), including lack of the

sound change A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...

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 ...

*s > ''tʰ'', lack of Kuki-Chin-type verb stem alternation, and lack of the singular first person pronoun (1.) *''kaj'' which is present in most Kuki-Chin languages. Peterson (2009)Peterson, David A. 2009
"Where does Mru fit into Tibeto-Burman?"
Paper presented at ''The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics'' (ICSTLL 42), November 2009,

Payap University Payap University ( th, มหาวิทยาลัยพายัพ; ), established in 1974, is a private and non-profit institution founded by the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand. Payap University is a liberal arts and pre-pr ...

Chiangmai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. considers Mru-Hkongso to be a separate Tibeto-Burman branch, and notes the following similarities between Mru-Hkongso and Bodo–Garo languages. * Bodo–Garo *=''kho'' 'accusative'; Mru =''k(öj)'' 'accusative' ( Hkongso locative =''ko'') * Bodo–Garo *=''ba'' ‘also’; Mru-Hkongso =''pö'' ‘also’ * Bodo–Garo *–''ram'' 'locative nominalizer'; Mru –''ram'' 'locative nominalizer' * Bodo–Garo *=''gVn'' 'future marker'; Mru –''köm'' ~ ''kön'' 'irrealis marker' ( Hkongso ''ham'') * Bodo–Garo *–''(k)ha'' 'past marker'; Mru –''khaj'' ~ -''hö'' 'past marker' ( Hkongso ''kö'' ?) * Bodo–Garo *–''dV'' 'imperative marker'; Mru –''diö'' 'imperative marker' ( Hkongso ''de'') Peterson (2009) considers the similarities with Bodo–Garo to be due to the possible early split of Mruic from a Tibeto-Burman branch that included Bodo–Garo (see also

Central Tibeto-Burman languages Central Tibeto-Burman or Central Trans-Himalayan is a proposed branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family proposed by Scott DeLancey (2015) on the basis of shared morphological evidence. DeLancey (2018)DeLancey, Scott (2018). ''Internal and exte ...

and

Sal languages The Sal languages are a branch of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeast India, parts of Bangladesh, and Burma. Alternative names ''Ethnologue'' calls the group "Jingpho–Konyak–Bodo", while Scott DeLancey (2015) refers to it as "Bodo-Ko ...

Grammar

Both Mru and Hkongso display SVO ( subject-verb-object) order instead of the SOV word order typical of most Tibeto-Burman languages.Ebersole, Harold. 1996. ''The Mru Language: A preliminary grammatical sketch''. Ms.Jonathan Michael Wright. 2009.
Hkongso Grammar Sketch
'. MA thesis, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. Bai,

Sinitic The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...

, and Karenic are the only other Sino-Tibetan language branches with primarily verb-medial (SVO) word order.

References

{{Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan languages