Poula language
| Poula | |
|---|---|
| Poumai | |
| Native to | Manipur, Nagaland |
| Ethnicity | Poumai Naga |
Native speakers | 140,000 (2011)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pmx |
| Glottolog | poum1235 |
| ELP | Lua error in Module:Endangered_Languages_Project at line 21: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
| Part of a series on |
| Naga people |
|---|
| Ethnic groups |
| Languages |
Poula is an Angami-Pochuri language that is predominantly spoken by the Poumai Naga people in Senapati district in Manipur and Phek district in Nagaland, India. The language of Chingjaroi is also closely related to Poula but is distinct. A descriptive grammar of Poula is available.[2]
Grammar
[edit | edit source]Phonology
[edit | edit source]The phonology of Poula lacks syllable codas and also disallows consonant clusters in onset position. There are 25 consonant phonemes in Poula.
Consonants
[edit | edit source]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | |
| voiced | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | ||
| aspirated | b | d | g | |||
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ŋ | ||
| aspirated | ŋ̊ʰ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ɕ | h | ||
| voiced | ʑ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | tɕ | ||||
| voiced | dʑ | |||||
| Approximant | ʋ | j | ||||
| Liquid | rhotic | ɾ | ||||
| lateral | l | |||||
Vowels
[edit | edit source]There are six vowel phonemes in Poula.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i y | (u) | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
In Poula, the phoneme /ə/ is written with the grapheme 'ü' (now, many use it as 'ii') in Bible and Hymns which was devised by Bible Society of India. In addition Poula lacks high back round vowel [u] as a monophthong,[4] but [u] is present in nexus of diphthong; for example pou [pəu] `father'.
Tones
[edit | edit source]Poula is a tonal language, however tone is not currently marked in the orthography. There are four tonemes in Poula.[3]
| Word | Tone | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| /na˥/ | High-falling | 'baby' |
| /na˦/ | Mid-Rising | 'later' |
| /na˧/ | Mid | 'things' |
| /na˩/ | Low | 'paint' |
Poula is an extremely innovative language–unlike Kuki-Chin languages–for having simple morphology.[5]
Morphology
[edit | edit source]Nouns and verbs are the two content word classes. There are no ‘adjective’ and ‘adverbs’ words classes, however nominalized verbs may modify nouns and non-finite converbial verbs may modify verbs. There several functional words found.[6]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Poula at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Poumai Naga Language Resource collection of Poumai Naga (Poula) language documentation in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive
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 | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||