Hill Miri dialect

Hill Miri
Sarak
Region Assam
Ethnicity Hill Miri people
Native speakers
 unknown (undated figure of 10,100)[1]
Sino-Tibetan

  • Tani

    • West Tani
      • Nyishi
        • Hill Miri
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Individual code:
mrg – (included under Plains Miri)
Glottolog None
Portrait of a girl of the Hill Miri people

Hill Miri or Sarak is a Tani language of India. It is spoken in Arunachal Pradesh by an estimated 9000 people of the Hill Miri tribe.[2] It appears to be a dialect of the Nyishi language.[3]

Description

Hill Miri is a member of the Tani branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages and is considered a dialect of the Nishi language. It is spoken by 10,000 people in the northern regions of India by the Hill Miri people. It is threatened because the younger generation is slowly breaking away from their people's tradition and language.[4]. The Hill Miri people assert themselves as being Nishi, and the term "Hill Miri" was coined by outsiders.[5]

Phonology

Consonants

Velar k g ng
Fixed Articulator c j ñ
Dental t d n
Co-articulated p b m
Miscellaneous y r l w h s sh

The top four rows are broken up into the following groups; the sounds that require the tongue to touch the soft palate, sounds that require the hard palate, dentals; where the tongue touches the teeth, and sounds that require the lips. The final row is the remaining and miscellaneous sounds.

Grammar

The basic Hill Miri grammar and basic word order are like those of related Sino-Tibetan languages.[6][7] [8]

Numerals

Hill Miri
1 aken
2 eñi
3 oum
4 epi
5 ango/angngo
6 ake
7 kenne
8 pine
9 kora
10 íri

Pronouns

Personal

Singular Plural
1st person ngo ngu-lu
2nd person no nu-lu
3rd person bu, bú bu-lu, bú-lu

References

  1. ↑ Mising at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
  2. ↑ Moseley, Christopher (2007). Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. Routledge. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-7007-1197-0. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
  3. ↑ Post, Mark W. (2013). Defoliating the Tani Stammbaum: An exercise in areal linguistics. Paper presented at the 13th Himalayan Languages Symposium. Canberra, Australian National University, Aug 9.
  4. ↑ Hill Miri Audio
  5. ↑ Nabam Tadar Rikam, "Emerging religious Identities of Arunachal Pradesh", Mittal Publications, 2005
  6. ↑ Ivan Martin Simon, "Hill Miri language guide", Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh, 1976
  7. ↑ Matthew S. Dryer, [http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/DryerTibetoBurmanWordOrder.pdf "Word order in Tibeto-burman languages" Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 2008
  8. ↑ Ju Namkung, "Phonological inventories of Tibeto-burman languages", Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, 1996