Kuki-Chin-Naga

Updated March 2021

The Southern Kuki-Chin-Naga languages clearly form a coherent branch. My classification is as follows.

Southern Kuki-Chin-Naga branch

• • Greater Zeme ("Western Naga")

    • Zeme, Mzieme, Liangmei

    • Nruanghmei

    • Maram

    • Khoirao

    • Puiron

  • Greater Tangkhulic

    • Akyaung Ari

    • Tangkhulic

  • Maring, Khoibu

  • Kokak

  • Suansu (?)

  • "Southern Naga" ( = Northwestern Kuki-Chin)

  • Kuki-Chin

    • Northern

    • Central

    • Maraic

    • Southern

    • Khomic

Central Naga and Angami-Pochuri may or may not group with each other. They may have had separate origins and then converged to form an Ao-Angami (Northern Kuki-Chin-Naga) linguistic area. Coupe's (2012) argument for an Ao-Angami branch based on numeral overcounting looks to me like an areal rather than genetic feature. My classification is as follows.

March 2021 update: Based on my preliminary inspection of Suansu data from Ivani (2019), Suansu may be another independent branch of Southern Kuki-Chin-Naga, although lexical influence from Core Tangkhulic is evident. A detailed analysis of its classification has yet to be done. Suansu is spoken in the northeastern corner of Manipur state.

Northern Kuki-Chin-Naga linguistic area

• • Greater Central Naga

    • Makury

    • Long Phuri

    • Para (Jejara)

    • Central Naga

      • Lotha

      • Sangtam

      • Yimchungrü

      • Ao

  • Angami-Pochuri

    • Angamic-Sumic

      • Angamic

        • Angami, Chokri

        • Khezha

        • Mao

        • Poumai

      • Sumic

        • Sumi

        • Rengma

    • Pochuric

      • Meluri

      • Ntenyi

The Northern Kuki-Chin-Naga languages also belong to the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch, but display influences from other unknown branches of Sino-Tibetan (i.e., non-Kuki-Chin-Naga substrata) due to their more northerly location. I suspect that Central Naga and Angami-Pochuri may each contain substrata from "missing" Eastern Sino-Tibetan branches, but this has yet to be formally demonstrated.

Karbi and Meithei each constitute independent primary branches of Kuki-Chin-Naga.

Several recently documented divergent "Naga" languages of Myanmar, such as Koki, Long Phuri, Makury, and Para have also been included.

Angami-Pochuri and Zeme still suffer from a lack of up-to-date detailed phonetic data. Thus, these branches have not yet been reconstructed to due such difficulties.

Lexical isoglosses

Numerous Kuki-Chin-Naga lexical isoglosses and innovations can be identified for Kuki-Chin-Naga. Thus, Kuki-Chin-Naga is likely a coherent, reconstructable branch, although Central Naga and Angami-Pochuri may have non-Kuki-Chin-Naga substrata.

Sources

Bruhn, Daniel; Lowe, John; Mortensen, David; Yu, Dominic (2015). Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Database Software. Software, UC Berkeley Dash. doi:10.6078/D1159Q

DeLancey, Scott. 2015. "Morphological Evidence for a Central Branch of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan)." Cahiers de linguistique - Asie oriental 44(2):122-149. December 2015. doi:10.1163/19606028-00442p02

Bruhn, Daniel W. 2014. A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Mortensen, David R. 2012. Database of Tangkhulic Languages. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).

VanBik, Kenneth. 2009. Proto-Kuki-Chin: A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages. STEDT Monograph Series 8. Berkeley, CA: STEDT.

Khoi Lam Thang. 2001. A phonological reconstruction of Proto Chin. M.A. Dissertation, Payap University.

Button, Christopher. 2011. Proto Northern Chin. STEDT Monograph Series 10. Berkeley, CA: STEDT.

Ivani, Jessica Katiuscia. 2019. A first overview of Suansu, a Tibeto-Burman language from Northeastern India. Paper presented at the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society [SEALS] 29, 27-29 May 2019, Tokyo, Japan.

Reconstruction of Proto-Kuki-Chin-Naga (Hsiu 2019)