Tedim language
| Tedim | |
|---|---|
| Zomi Zopau | |
| Native to | Burma, India |
| Ethnicity | Zomi |
Native speakers | (340,000 cited 1990)[1] |
| Pau Cin Hau script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ctd |
| Glottolog | tedi1235 |
| ELP | Tiddim Chin |
The Tedim or Zomi language is spoken mostly in Burma and India. In Chin State (Khamtunggam), it is spoken in Tedim and Tonzang townships, while in Sagaing Division, it is spoken in Kalay and Mawlaik townships (Ethnologue). Dialects are Sokte and Kamhau (also called Kamhao, Kamhow).
Clans[edit]
Sukte is a small Zomi clan. They generally live in the Tedim and Tonzang townships. "But there is no specific native language of Sukte. It is just a clan of Zomi." Zam Ngaih Cing (2011:170) lists some Zomi varieties as Losau, Sihzang, Teizang, Saizang, Dim, Khuano, Hualngo, Dim, Zou, Thado, Paite and Vangteh.[2]
History[edit]
Zomi language was the primary language spoken by Pau Cin Hau, a religious leader who lived from 1859 to 1948. He also devised a logographic and later simplified alphabetic script for writing materials in Zomi language.
Phonology[edit]
The phonology of Zomi language can be described as (C)V(V)(C)T order, where C represents a consonant, V represents a vowel, T represents a tone, and parentheses enclose optional constituents of a syllable.[3] It is a subject-object verb language, and negation follows the verb.
Consonants[edit]
| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | (kʰ) | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | tɕ | ||||
| aspirated | tɕʰ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | x | h | |
| voiced | v | z | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Approximant | l | lˀ | ||||
- Approximants [j, w] can be heard as allophones of vowels /i̯, u̯/ within diphthongs.
- /x/ can also be heard as an aspirated velar stop [kʰ] in free variation.
Vowels[edit]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | |
| Open | a aː |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iu̯ i̯a | ui̯ uːi̯ u̯a | |
| Mid | ei̯ ɛːi̯ eu̯ ɛːu̯ | ou̯ oi̯ ɔːi̯ | |
| Open | ai̯ aːi̯ au̯ aːu̯ |
- Sounds /ɛ, ɔ/ may have short allophones of more close [e, o].[4]
References[edit]
 |
Tedim language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
- ^ Tedim at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "But there is no language of Sukte, meaning it is only a clan of Zomi." Source: Cing, Zam Ngaih. "Linguistic Ecology of Tedim Chin." In Singh, Shailendra Kumar (ed). Linguistic Ecology of Manipur. Guwahati: EBH Publishers.
- ^ https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11104r-paucinhau-alphabet.pdf[bare URL PDF]
- ^ Otsuka, Kosei (2014). Tiddim Chin. Toshihide Nakayama and Noboru Yoshioka and Kosei Otsuka (eds.), Grammatical Sketches from the Field: Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. pp. 109–141.
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