| Mizo | |
|---|---|
| Mizo ṭawng orDuhlián ṭawng | |
| Pronunciation | [mi.zɔt͡ɾɔŋ] |
| Native to | |
| Ethnicity | Mizo |
Native speakers | 1,000,000+[a] (2011–2022)[1][2] |
Early forms | Proto-Kuki Chin |
| Latin (Mizo alphabet)[3][4] Bengali-Assamese script[3] | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Mizoram (India) |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Mizo Language Development Board |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | lus |
| ISO 639-3 | lus |
| Glottolog | lush1249 |
| Linguasphere | 73-DCA-a |
 Regions where Mizo is educational, and official Regions where Mizo is educational, but not official Regions where Mizo is not official and not educational Regions with significant Mizo speakers, and where Mizo is a working language | |
 Mizo is classified as Vulnerable by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Mizo also known asDuhlián ṭawng is aTibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in the Indian state ofMizoram, where it is theofficial language andlingua franca.[5] It is the mother tongue of theMizo people and some members of theMizo diaspora. Other than Mizoram, it is also spoken inMeghalaya,Manipur,Tripura, andAssam states of India,Sagaing Region andChin State in Myanmar, andChittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is mainly based on the Lusei dialect but it has also derived many words from its surrounding Mizo clans such asHmar, Pawi, etc.[6]
The language is also known asDuhlian andLushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among theMizo people to be encountered by theBritish in the course oftheir colonial expansion.[7]
Mizo is a member of theSino-Tibetan language family.[8] Most linguist scholars classify Mizo as a part of theCentral Kuki-Chin languages.[9][10] In Mizo, theKuki-Chin languages are recognised asZohnahthlâk ṭawngho/Mizo ṭawngho.[11] Within the central Kuki-Chin group, VanBik places it in the North Central group with other neighbouring languages such asLaiholh andMaraic.[12] Other scholars, such as Schafer, classified it in the Kukish section of Burmese.[10]Paul K. Benedict classified it under Central-Kuki under theKuki-Chin-Naga branch.[10][13]
Mizo has eight tones and intonations for each of the vowelsa,aw,e,i andu, four of which are reduced tones and the other four long tones. The vowelo has only three tones, all of them of the reduced type. The vowels can be represented as follows:[14]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i[i],[ɨ],[iː] | u[u],[ʊ],[ʊː] | |
| Mid | e[e],[ɛ],[ɛː] | aw[o],[ɔ],[ɔː] | |
| Open | a[ʌ],[a],[ɑ],[ɑː],[ä] | ||
| Starting witha | Starting withe | Starting withi | Starting withu |
|---|---|---|---|
| ai (/aɪ̯/,/ɑːi/ or/ai/) | ei (/eɪ̯/,/ɛi/ or/ɛɪ̯/) | ia (/ɪə̯//ɪa/,/ja/ or/ɪa̭/) | ua (/u̯a/ or/ua̭/) |
| au (/aʊ̯/,/ɑːʊ̯/) | eu (/ɛu/,/eʊ/ or/eʊ̯/) | iu (/ɪʊ̯/ or/iw/) | ui (/ɥi/ or/ʔwi/) |
Mizo has the followingtriphthongs:
Mizo has the following consonants, with the first symbol being its orthographical form and the second one its representation in theIPA:[14]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | ||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p[p] | t[t] | ch [t͡s] | tl [t͡l] | k[k] | h[ʔ]1 |
| aspirated | ph [pʰ] | th [tʰ] | chh [t͡sʰ], [tʃʰ] | thl [t͡lʰ] | kh [kʰ] | ||
| voiced | b[b] | d[d] | |||||
| flap | ṭ [t͡ɾ] | ||||||
| aspirated flap | ṭh [t͡ɾʰ] | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f[f] | s[s] | h[h] | |||
| voiced | v[v] | z[z] | |||||
| Sonorant | plain | m[m] | n[n] | r[r] | l[l] | ng[ŋ] | |
| aspirated | hm [ʰm] | hn [ʰn] | hr [ʰr] | hl [ʰl] | ngh [ʰŋ] | ||
| glottalised1 | rh [rʔ] | lh [lʔ] | |||||
Because differences in pitch and pitch contour can change the meanings of words, Mizo is atonal language. Tone systems have developed independently in many daughter languages, largely by simplifications in the set of possible syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants. Typically, a distinction between voiceless and voiced initial consonants is replaced by a distinction between high and low tone, and falling and rising tones developed from syllable-finalh and glottal stop, which themselves often reflect earlier consonants.
The eight tones and intonations that the vowela (and the vowelsaw,e,i,u, which constitutes all the tones in Mizo) can have are shown by the letter sequencep-a-n-g, as follows:[15]
| Short tones | Long tones | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mid | rising | falling | low | peaking | high | dipping | low |
| a | (ǎ / ă) / ả | (ȧ / ã) / ą | ạ | â | á | ä | à |
| o | (ǒ / ŏ) / ỏ / (ó) | ọ / (ò) | |||||
| aw | (ǎw / ăw) / ảw | (ȧw / ãw) / ąw | ạw | âw | áw | äw | àw |
| u | (ǔ / ŭ) / ủ | (ů / ũ) / ų | ụ | û | ú | ü | ù |
| e | (ě / ĕ) / ẻ | (ė / ẽ) / ę | ẹ | ê | é | ë | è |
| i | (ǐ / ĭ) / ỉ | (ĩ) / į | ị | î | í | ï | ì |
Note that the exact orthography of tones with diacritics is still not standardised (notably for differentiating the four short tones with confusive or conflicting choices of diacritics) except for the differentiation of long tones by using the circumflex from short tones. As well, the need of at least seven diacritics may cause complications to design easy keyboard layouts, even if they usedead keys and even if not all basic Latin letters are needed for Mizo itself, and so publications may represent the short tones using digrams (e.g. by appending some apostrophe or glottal letter) to reduce the number of diacritics needed to only four (those used now for the long tones) on only two dead keys.
In Mizo[16] verb tense is indicated by theaspect and the addition of particles, such as:[17]
Mizogerunds andpast participles are formed by a change inword ending calledtihdanglamna; the resulting modified forms are calledstem II in English-speaking linguistics literature.
| verb | modified (stem II) form |
|---|---|
| ziak,'to write' | ziah,'writing, written' |
| tât,'to whet' | tah,'whetting, whetted' |
| mà,'to divorce' | mâk,'divorcing, divorced' |
Mizo nouns undergodeclension intocases.
| nominative/accusative | genitive | ergative | instrumental |
|---|---|---|---|
| nụlá,'the girl' | nụla,'the girl's' | nụláịn,'by the girl' | nụláin,'by means of the girl' |
| tǔi | tǔi | tuiịn | tuiin |
| Thangạ (a proper noun) | Thanga | Thangȧ'n | Thangạ-in/Thangạ hmangin |
Nouns arepluralised by suffixing-te,-ho,-teho or-hote.
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| mipa,'man' | mipate, mipaho,'men' |
| naupang,'child' | naupangte, naupangho,'children' |
All Mizopronouns occur in two forms, namely in free form andclitic form and are declined into cases.
| nominative | genitive | accusative | ergative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| clitic forms | ka,'I' | ka,'my, mine' | mi, min,'me' | keima'n,'by me' |
| kan,'we' | kan,'our, ours' | min,'us' | keimahnin,'by us' | |
| i,'you (singular)' | i,'your, yours' | che,'you' | nangma'n,'by you' | |
| in,'you (plural)' | in,'your, yours' | che u,'you' | nangmahnin,'by you' | |
| a,'he, she, it' | a,'his, hers, its' | amah,'him, her, it' | ama'n,'by him, by her, by it' | |
| an,'they' | an,'their, theirs' | anmahni,'them' | anmahni'n,'by them' | |
| free forms | kei,'I' | keima,'my, mine' | keimah,'me' | keima'n,'by me' |
| keimah,'we' | keima,'our, ours' | keimah, keimah min,'us' | keima'n,'by us' | |
| keini,'you (singular)' | keini,'your, yours' | keini min,'you' | keini'n,'by you' | |
| keimahni,'you (plural)' | keimahni,'your, yours' | keimahni min,'you' | keimahni'n,'by you' | |
| anni,'he, she, it' | anni,'his, hers, its' | anni,'him, her, it' | anni'n,'by him, by her, by it' | |
| anmahni,'they' | anmahni,'their, theirs' | anmahni,'them' | anmahni'n,'by them' |
For declarative sentences,negation is achieved by adding the particlelo (not) at the end of a sentence:
| Sentence | Negation |
|---|---|
| Lala a lo kal Lala is coming/Lala came | Lala a lo kallo Lala didnot come |
| Pathumin paruk a sem thei Three divides six | Pathumin paruk a sem theilo Three does not divide six |
TheMizo alphabet is based on theRoman alphabet and has 25 letters. A written script for Lushai was created in 1874 by Thomas Herbert Lwein.[20]
| Letter | a | aw | b | ch | d | e | f | g | ng | h | i | j | k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ |
| Letter | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | ṭ | u | v | z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ | listenⓘ |
In its current form, it was devised by the firstChristian missionaries of Mizoram, J. H. Lorrain and F. W. Savidge,[21] based on theHunterian system oftransliteration.
Acircumflex^ was later added to the vowels to indicate long vowels, viz.,Â,Ê,Î,Ô,Û, which were insufficient to fully express Mizo tone. Recently,[when?] a leading newspaper in Mizoram,Vanglaini, the magazineKristian Ṭhalai, and other publishers began usingÁ,À,Ä,É,È,Ë,Í,Ì,Ï,Ó,Ò,Ö,Ú,Ù,Ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have.[22][23]
The following is a sample text in Mizo of Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights:[24]
Mizo:Mi zawng zawng hi zalèna piang kan ni a, zahawmna leh dikna chanvoah intluk tláng vek kan ni. Chhia leh ṭha hriatna fím neia siam kan nih avangin kan mihring puite chungah inunauna thinlung kan pu tlat tur a ni.
English:All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Mizo has a thriving literature, which has bothwritten andoral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century.[25]
The Mizoram Press Information Bureau lists some twenty Mizo daily newspapers just in Aizawl city, as of March 2013.[26]
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