The Kuki-Chin–Naga languages are a geographic clustering of languages of the Sino-Tibetan family in

James Matisoff James Alan Matisoff ( zh, , t=馬蒂索夫, s=马蒂索夫, p=Mǎdìsuǒfū or zh, , t=馬提索夫, s=马提索夫, p=Mǎtísuǒfū; born July 14, 1937) is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a no ...

's classification used by '' Ethnologue'', which groups it under the non- monophyletic "Tibeto-Burman".SIL ''Ethnologue''
/ref> Their genealogical relationship both to each other and to the rest of Sino-Tibetan is unresolved, but Matisoff lumps them together as a convenience pending further research. The languages are spoken by the ethnically related

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-Administere ...

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 ...

, the Chin people of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, and the

Kuki people The Kuki people are an ethnic group native to the Mizo Hills (formerly Lushai), a mountainous region in the southeastern part of Mizoram and Manipur in India. The Kuki constitute one of several hill tribes within India, Bangladesh, and Myanma ...

. The larger among these languages have communities of several tens of thousands of native speakers, and a few have more than 100,000, such as Mizo (674,756 in

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 ...

as of 2001), Thadou (150,000) or

Lotha language The Lotha language is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by approximately 180,000 people in Wokha district of west-central Nagaland, India. It is centered in the small district of Wokha (capital Wokha). This district has more than 114 villages such ...

(180,000). "Kuki" and "Chin" are essentially synonyms, whereas the Naga speak languages belonging to several Sino-Tibetan branches.

Languages

The established branches are: * Kuki-Chin ** Southern Naga (Northwestern) ** Northern ** Central ** Maraic ** Khomic ** Southern * Naga ** Ao, in north-central

** Angami–Pochuri, in southern

** Tangkhul-Maring, in eastern

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 ...

** Zeme, in northwestern

* Meithei, the official language of

* Karbi The Konyak languages of Nagaland, also spoken by ethnic Naga, are not grouped within Kuki-Chin–Naga, but rather within Brahmaputran ( Sal). ''Ethnologue'' adds Koki, Long Phuri, Makuri, and Para, all unclassified, and all distant from other Naga languages they have been compared to. Koki is perhaps closest to (or one of) the

Tangkhulic languages The Tangkhulic and Tangkhul languages are a group of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken mostly in northeastern Manipur, India. Conventionally classified as "Naga," they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and (with Maringic) are conservat ...

, and the other three may belong together.

Classification within Sino-Tibetan

Scott DeLancey (2015)DeLancey, Scott. 2015. "Morphological Evidence for a Central Branch of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan)." ''Cahiers de linguistique - Asie oriental'' 44(2):122-149. December 2015. considers Kuki-Chin–Naga to be part of a wider Central Tibeto-Burman group.

References

Reconstructions *Bruhn, Daniel W. 2014.
A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga
'. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. *Mortensen, David R. 2012. ''Database of Tangkhulic Languages''. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT). *VanBik, Kenneth. 2009.
Proto-Kuki-Chin: A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages
'. STEDT Monograph Series 8. Berkeley, CA: STEDT. *Khoi Lam Thang. 2001.
A phonological reconstruction of Proto Chin
'. M.A. Dissertation, Payap University. *Button, Christopher. 2011.
Proto Northern Chin
'. STEDT Monograph Series 10. Berkeley, CA: STEDT.

External links

Kuki-Chin-Naga
(Sino-Tibetan Branches Project) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kuki-Chin-Naga languages br:Yezhoù koukiek-tchinek