The Konyak languages, or alternatively the Konyakian or Northern Naga languages, is a branch 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
Naga or NAGA may refer to:
Mythology
* Nāga, a serpentine deity or race in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions
* Naga Kingdom, in the epic ''Mahabharata''
* Phaya Naga, mythical creatures believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong Riv ...
peoples in southeastern
Arunachal Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...
and northeastern
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 ...
states of northeastern India. They are not particularly closely 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 ...
spoken further to the south, but rather to other
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 ...
such as Jingpho and the
Bodo-Garo languages. There are many dialects, and villages even a few kilometers apart frequently have to rely on a separate common language.
Proto-Northern Naga, the reconstructed
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
of the Konyak languages, has been reconstructed by Walter French (1983).
Languages
Konyak–Chang:
*
Konyak
*
Chang
*
Wancho
*
Phom
*Khiamniungic
**
Khiamniungan
**
Leinong
**
Makyam
**
Ponyo
is a 2008 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi, and distributed by ...
Tangsa–Nocte
*
Tangsa
The Tangsa or Tangshang in India and Myanmar (Burma) respectively, is a tribe native to Changlang District of Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Tinsukia District of Assam, in north-eastern India, and across the border in Sagaing Region, parts of K ...
(Tase)
**Muklom
**Pangwa Naga
**Ponthai
**Tikhak
*
Nocte
The Nocte are an ethnic Naga people, Naga tribe primarily living in Arunachal. They number about 111,679 (Census 2011), mainly found in the Patkai hills of Tirap District, Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Ethnically related to the Kon ...
*
Tutsa
''Ethnologue'' 17 adds
Makyam (Paungnyuan), while ''Glottolog'' adds a ''Khiamniungic'' branch within the Konyak-Chang branch. Makyam is most closely related to
Leinong (Htangan) (Naw Sawu 2016:6).
References
*French, Walter T. 1983. ''Northern Naga: A Tibeto-Burman mesolanguage''. Ph.D. Dissertation, The City University of New York.
*Stirn, Aglaja, and Peter van Ham. 2003. ''The hidden world of the Naga: living traditions in Northeast India and Burma''. Munich: Prestel.
*Saul, Jamie D. 2005. ''The Naga of Burma: Their festivals, customs and way of life''. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid Press.
*George van Driem (2001) ''Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region.'' Brill.
External links
Classifying Konyak and other Naga languages
{{Sal languages
Sal languages
Languages of India