Purum (Purum Naga) is a
Southern Naga language of India. Speakers consider themselves to be ethnic
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 ...
, rather than part of the Kuki and Chin ethnic groups. Peterson (2017)
[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.] classifies Purum as part of the ''Northwestern'' branch of Kuki-Chin. According ''Ethnologue'', Purum shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with
Kharam.
Geographical distribution
Purum is spoken in Phaijol, Laikot, Thuisenpai, and Kharam Pallen villages of
Senapati district,
Manipur
Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...
(''
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 ...
'').
References
Languages of Manipur
Endangered languages of India
Southern Naga languages
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