Mising language
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Mising or Mishing, also known as Plains Miri, is a Tani language spoken by the Mising people. There are 517,170 speakers (as per Census of India, 2001), who inhabit mostly the Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Majuli, Golaghat, Tinsukia districts of Assam and also some parts of Arunachal Pradesh. The primary literary body of Mising is known as 'Mising Agom Kébang (Mising Language Society)'.
| Mishing | |
|---|---|
| Mising–Padam–Minyong | |
| Plains Miri | |
| Region | Assam |
| Ethnicity | Mising, Padam, Minyong |
Native speakers | 629,954 (2011)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mrg |
| Glottolog | misi1242 |
The Mising, Padam and Minyong speak dialects of the same language.
PhonologyEdit
ConsonantsEdit
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | tʃ[lower-alpha 1] | k | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ[lower-alpha 1] | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h[lower-alpha 2] | |||
| voiced | z | |||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | w[lower-alpha 3] | l | j | |||
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 [tʃ] and [dʒ] are typically rare, and mainly occur as allophones of /t d/ when after fricatives /s z/.[2]
- ↑ [h] is heard in place of /s/ within variations of a local dialect.
- ↑ [w] is heard phonetically in different environments if a front or central vowel precedes a back vowel (i.e. /aɔ/ ~ [awɔ]).
VowelsEdit
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | ɨ ɨː | u uː |
| Mid | ɛ ɛː | ɜ ɜː | ɔ ɔː |
| Open | a aː |
Geographical distributionEdit
Ethnologue gives the following locations for Mising speakers. The Hill Miri live in Arunachal Pradesh, while the Plains Miri live in Assam.
- Assam: North Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Majuli,Charaideu,Bishwanath,Golaghat, and Tinsukia districts
- Arunachal Pradesh
- Districts of East Siang, Lower Dibang valley and Lohit. Also on both sides of Kamla river in Ziro subdivision, Lower Subansiri district
- Daporizo subdivision, Upper Subansiri district
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ↑ Mishing at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Doley, Basanta K. A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Mising Language.
External linksEdit
- misingagomkebang.org Mising Agom Kebang (Mising Sahitya Sabha) website
- macgov.in Mising Autonomous Council
- wethemising.wordpress.com Article on Mising language
- Mark Post, A documentation of the Upper Belt variety of Minyong (Adi), Arunachal Pradesh, North East India. Endangered Languages Archive.