The Kuki-Chin–Naga languages are a geographic clustering of languages of the Sino-Tibetan family in James Matisoff's classification used by Ethnologue, which groups it under the non-monophyletic "Tibeto-Burman".[1] Their genealogical relationship both to each other and to the rest of Sino-Tibetan is unresolved, but Matisoff lumps them together as a convenience pending further research.
Kuki-Chin–Naga | |
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(geographic / cultural) | |
Geographic distribution | Southeast Asia |
Linguistic classification | Sino-Tibetan
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Subdivisions |
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Glottolog | kuki1245 |
The languages are spoken by the ethnically related Naga people of Nagaland, the Chin people of Burma, and the Kuki people. The larger among these languages have communities of several tens of thousands of native speakers, and a few have more than 100,000, such as Mizo (674,756 in India as of 2001[2]), Thadou (150,000) or Lotha language (180,000).
"Kuki" and "Chin" are essentially synonyms, whereas the Naga speak languages belonging to several Sino-Tibetan branches.
The established branches are:
The Konyak languages of Nagaland, also spoken by ethnic Naga, are not grouped within Kuki-Chin–Naga, but rather within Brahmaputran (Sal).
Ethnologue adds Koki, Long Phuri, Makuri, and Para, all unclassified, and all distant from other Naga languages they have been compared to. Koki is perhaps closest to (or one of) the Tangkhulic languages, and the other three may belong together.
Scott DeLancey (2015)[3] considers Kuki-Chin–Naga to be part of a wider Central Tibeto-Burman group.
Reconstructions
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
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Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
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East and Southeast Asia |
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Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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Proposed groupings |
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Proto-languages |
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Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. |
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Kuki-Chin |
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Naga |
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Meitei | |||||||||||||
Karbic |