Mongsen Ao language

Mongsen Ao
Spoken in	India
Region	Nagaland
Ethnicity	Ao Naga
Native speakers	141,000  (date missing)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Ao languages Mongsen Ao
Dialects	Chungli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	njo
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Mongsen Ao is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Ao of Nagaland in northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", the Ao languages are not clearly related to other Naga languages. Gordon (2005) estimates that there are 141,000 speakers of Mongsen and Chungli Ao.

Missionary grammars from the late 19th century exist. A grammatical description is Gowda (1975). Coupe (2003) is one of the few acoustic studies published on a Kuki-Chin-Naga language (only three exist). Coupe also has a reference grammar in progress.

Languages

Location of Nagaland

The Ao Naga tribes of Nagaland speak three languages: Chungli, Mongsen, and Changki. (J.P.Mills 1921). Chungli Ao and Mongsen Ao is spoken in majority of the Ao villages whereas Changki speakers forms the minor speakers.

Chungli as a common Ao language

During the American Baptist Mission to Naga Hills,DR.E.W.Clark first came in contact with the Molungyimsen village that paved the way for a common Ao language-Chungli Ao is spoken in Molungyimchen and Molungyimsen and other villages throughout Ao territory by roughly 60% of the Ao-speaking population. The speech of Molungyimsen is the prestige dialect due to Baptist missionaries' influence. Most Ao can speak Chungli even if they are from Mongsen-speaking regions. Chungli is taught in schools . Various ''trans-Dikhu neighbouring dialects of Ao Chungli are spoken east of the Dikhu River in Yacham, Tengsa, and Longla . These are poorly documented; Yacham and Tengsa may be separate languages (van Driem 2001). Mongsen Ao is spoken primarily in the western part of Ao territory. The Changki dialect is spoken only within these 3 villages-Changki,Japu and Longjemdang which is poorly documented till date though reportedly related to Mongsen Ao.Some Changki speaker can fluently converse in both Mongsen as well as in chungli,a Mongsen Ao cannot speak Changki than understand it,whereas Chungli hardly understand nor speak Changki. The speech of each Ao village has its own distinctive characteristics. Many villages contain both Chungli and Mongsen speakers.

Sounds

This section describes the sound system of Mongsen Ao as spoken in Waromung village and is based on Coupe (2003).

Consonants

Mongsen Ao has 20 (or 21) consonants:

		Bilabial	Dental	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	unaspirated	p	t			k	(ʔ)
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
Affricate	unaspirated		ts	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tʃʰ
Fricative	voiceless		s				h
	voiced		z
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Approximant	central	w		ɹ	j
	lateral		l

• Dental consonants /t, tʰ, ts, tsʰ, s, z, n, l/ are laminal denti-alveolar.
• The post-alveolar approximant /ɹ/ varies from an apical post-alveolar to a subapical retroflex articulation: [ɹ̠~ɻ].
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ occurs only at the end of words. However, in this position it contrasts with words ending in vowels: /āmī/ 'spear' vs. /āmīʔ/ 'person'. When a suffix is added to such words, the /ʔ/ is deleted: /tʃàʔ/ 'to eat' + /-ʉ̄ʔ/ CAUS → /tʃàʉʔ/ 'to cause to eat'. Thus, the glottal stop has a somewhat marginal phonemic status.

Vowels

Mongsen Ao has 6 vowels:

	Front	Central		Back
		modal	creaky
High	i	ʉ		u
Mid		ə
Low		a	a̰

• The high central /ʉ/ is rounded.
• The two low vowels /a, a̰/ differ in terms of phonation type. /a/ has modal voice (i.e. normal phonation); /a̰/ has creaky voice (also known as vocal fry, laryngealization). Coupe (2003) argues that this is a separate vowel phoneme and not a tone, a glottal stop, or resulting from prosodic effects.

Tone

Ao is a tonal language with 3 contrasting lexical tones:

• high
• mid
• low

All are register tones.

Syllable and phonotactics

The generalized syllable structure of Ao is abbreviated as the following:

(C₁)V(G)(C₂)+T

(C₁)

• Any of the 20 consonants may appear as an optional syllable onset (excluding the word-final /ʔ/).

V

• All 6 vowels may occur as the syllable nucleus.

(G)

• The optional glide elements following the head vowel are essentially non-syllabic offglide realizations of the 4 vowels /i, ʉ, u, a/. For example, /jàuŋ/ → [jàu̯ŋ] 'species of centipede'.
• The following are the possible tautsyllabic combinations: [iu̯, ia̯, əʉ̯, əu̯, ai̯, aʉ̯, au̯].

(C₂)

• The following consonants may occur in the optional syllable coda: unaspirated stops, nasals, and the rhotic /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, ɹ/. The glottal stop with its restricted distribution also occurs but only word-finally.

T

All syllables occur with one of the three tones. In a VG sequence, tone only occurs the vowel head.

Syntax

Ao is an SOV language with postpositions. Adjectives, numerals and demonstratives follow the nouns they modify, whilst relative clauses may be either externally or internally headed. Adverbial subordinators are suffixes attached to the verb and the end of the subordinate clause.

Orthography

Ao orthography is based on the Roman alphabet and was developed in the 1880s by the Christian missionary Edward W. Clark for Chungli Ao. The system is not based on phonemic principles and does not represent tone. A Christian bible was published using the orthography in 1964. Coupe (2003) suggests a more consistent orthography for Mongsen Ao.

See also

• Ao (people)
• Tibeto-Burman languages

External links

• Ao Naga Tribe
• Ao
• Entry for Ao Naga at Rosetta Project
• Bible Translation in Ao Naga (Language in India)
• Narrating an Ao Naga Folktale (Language in India)

Bibliography

• Mills,J.P(1921)./ The Ao Naga.

• Clark, E. W. (1981). The Ao-Naga grammar with illustrations, phrases, and vocabulary. Delhi: Gian Publications, Mittal Publishers Distributors. (Original work published 1893).
• Coupe, A. R. (2003). A phonetic and phonological description of Ao: A Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland, north-east India. Pacific linguistics (No. 543). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. ISBN 0-85883-519-3.
• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version).
• Gowda, K. S. Gurubasave. (1972). Ao-Naga phonetic reader. CIIL phonetic reader series (No. 7). Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.
• Gowda, K. S. Gurubasave. (1975). Ao grammar. Grammar series (No. 1). Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.