Lyngngam language

Lyngngam is an Austroasiatic language of Northeast India closely related to Khasi language. Once listed as a dialect of Khasi, Lyngam has in recent literature been classified as a distinct language. Lyngam speakers have food and dress similar to the neighboring Garo people.

Phonology[]

Consonant inventory[]

The following table lists the consonants attested in Lyngam.^[2]

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Stop	voiceless	/p/	/t/	/c/	/k/	/ʔ/
	aspirated	/pʰ/	/tʰ/	/cʰ/	/kʰ/
	voiced	/b/	/d/	/ɟ/	/ɡ/
Voiceless fricative			/s/			/h/
Liquid			/l, r/
Glide		/w/		/j/

The main difference with the Khasi language is that Lyngngam does not possess the voiced aspirated series. Furthermore, Lyngngam does not have the phoneme /ç/. Words which have /ç/ in Khasi typically have /c/ or /s/ in Lyngngam,^[3] as in the following pairs of cognates:

Lyngngam	Khasi	meaning
cʔeŋ	çʔeŋ	bone
cɨppʰeu	çipʰeu	10
sɲjək	çɲiuʔ	hair
snaːr	çnjaʔ	chisel

Vowel inventory[]

The following table lists the vowel inventory of the language.^[2] The only vowels showing a length distinction are /i/ and /a/, in contradistinction to Khasi, where length is distinctive for all vowels.

	Front unrounded	Central unrounded	Back rounded
High	/i, iː/	/ɨ/	/u/
Mid	/e/	/ə/	/o/
Low	/a, aː/

Words with diphthongs in Khasi have monophthongs in Lyngam,^[3] as in the following pairs of cognates:

Lyngam	Khasi	meaning
bni	bnaːi	month
ksu	ksəu	dog
mot	miet	night

References[]

• Nagaraja, K.S. (1996). "The status of Lyngngam" (PDF). Mon–Khmer Studies. 26: 37–50. Retrieved 9 March 2014.