| Pangkhua | |
|---|---|
| Pangkhu | |
| Native to | Bangladesh andIndia |
| Region | Chittagong Hill Tracts (Bilaichari, Jorachari, Barkal & Baghaichari districts and parts of Rangamati district) andMizoram (Chamdur valley and Adjacent hills in Lawngtlai district, Tlabung andWest Phaileng subdivision) |
| Ethnicity | Pangkho |
Native speakers | 3,200 in Bangladesh (2012)[1] unknown number in India[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pkh |
| Glottolog | pank1249 |
| ELP | Pankhu |
Pangkhua (Pangkhu), orPaang, is aKuki-Chin language primarily spoken inBangladesh andIndia. Most speakers of Pangkhu are bilingual inBengali orMizo in the respective countries and most education in Pangkhu is conducted in that language.
Since there is essentially no literature in Pangkhua, other than oral folk tales and songs, the Pangkhua community members useLushai literature. There are minimal language differences between Pangkhua, Tlanglau,Falam Chin,Bawm andMizo.[2]
The dialects of the two main communities that use Pangkhu, Bilaichari and Konglak, share 88% of their basic vocabulary. Residents of Pangkhua Para refer to their village as Dinthar (IPA:/d̪int̪ʰar/; from Mizod̪in 'stay' and Mizo and Pangkuat̪ʰar 'new')
Pangkhu has twenty-one consonant phonemes:
| Bilabial | Labio-dental | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | asp. | plain | asp. | plain | asp. | |||||||
| Stop | Voiceless | p | pʰ⟨ph⟩ | t̪⟨t⟩ | t̪ʰ⟨th⟩ | k | kʰ⟨kh⟩ | (ʔ) | ||||
| Voiced | b | d̪⟨d⟩ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s~ʃ | h~ʔ | ||||||||
| Voiced | v | z | ||||||||||
| Affricate | t͡s⟨ch⟩ | |||||||||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | |||||||||
| Glide | w | j⟨y⟩ | ||||||||||
| Lateral | l | |||||||||||
However, only unaspirated voiceless stops, /h/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /l/ may occur at syllable coda. When stops occur in coda position, they are not audibly released. The glottal fricative /h/ may be deleted syllable-initially.
There are also seven vowel phonemes:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ||
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | ʌ | ||
| Low | ɑ | ɒ |
The vowel [æ] serves as an allophone of /e/ and [o] serves as an allophone of /u/. Vowel length contrasts occur only in closed syllables and diphthongs. There are 9 diphthongs, these being /ɑi/, /ɑu/, /ei/, /eu/, /əu/, /ou/, /iɑ/, /uɑ/, and /ui/. Diphthongs and long vowels are monophthongized following another syllable.
The basic syllable structure of Pangkhu is (C)(L)V(X), with L being a lateral consonant and X being a coda consonant.
There are two tones: a high tone and low tone.[3]
Augmentative-pui and diminutive-te can be affixed to kinship terms in order to denote relative age or size.
| Root | Gloss | Diminutive | Augmentative |
|---|---|---|---|
| pɑ | father | pɑte 'father's younger brother' | pɑpui 'father's elder brother' |
| nu | mother | nute 'mother's younger sister' | nupui 'mother's elder sister' |
| thing | tree | thingte 'tree-plant' | thingpui 'big tree' |
| tui | water | tuite 'small river' | tuipui 'river' |
| kut | hand | kutte 'little finger' | kutpui 'thumb' |
The gender suffixes-pɑ and -mɑ may derive a new referent from a root, as inlɑl 'monarch',lɑlpɑ 'king, andlɑlnu 'queen'.
Negation -ləu can be suffixed to a root to denote its opposite, as indam 'healthy' anddamləu 'sick'.
In Pangkhua, only human nouns can be marked for plurality and only animate marked for gender. Relator nouns share a function similar to adpositions in other languages.
| Semantics | Form | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Locational | kiɑng | by |
| kung | 'from, near' | |
| lɑi | 'between' | |
| ler | 'at the top' | |
| mɑng | 'in front' | |
| nuɑi | 'under' | |
| sung | 'inside' | |
| chung | 'on top' | |
| nung | 'behind, later' | |
| Temporal | sung/hun | 'during' |
| Directional | kɑng | 'by' |
| Associative | ruɑl | 'with' |
| Ablative | thɒ(k) | 'from' |
| Benefactive | (mə)rɑng | 'for' |
Akter, Zahid (2024).A Grammar of Pangkhua. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.doi:10.1515/9783111387673.
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||