Khamti language

Not to be confused with Khanty languages.

The Khamti language is a Southwestern Tai language spoken in Myanmar and India by the Khamti people. It is closely related to, and sometimes considered a dialect of, Shan.

Khamti
(တဲး)ၵမ်းတီႈ / (တဲး)ၵံးတီႈ (Tai) Khamti
Region	Burma, India
Ethnicity	Khamti
Native speakers	(13,000 cited 2000–2007)[1]
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Southwestern Northwestern Khamti
Writing system	Burmese script (Khamti variation, called Lik-Tai)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kht
Glottolog	kham1290
ELP	Khamti

Diorama and wax figures of Khamti people in Jawaharlal Nehru Museum, Itanagar.

Name

Khamti has been variously rendered Hkamti, Khampti, Kam Ti, Kamti, Tai Kam Ti, Tai-Khamti, Khamti Shan, Khampti Shan, Khandi Shan, Hkampti Shan, and Khampti Sam (Burmese: ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး).^[3] The name Khamti means 'place of gold'.^{[citation needed]}

Demographics

In Burma, Khamti is spoken by 3,500 near Myitkyina and by 4,500 in Putao District, Kachin State (both reported in 2000). In India, it is spoken by 5,000 in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, in the Dikrong Valley, Narayanpur, and north bank of the Brahmaputra (reported in 2007).^{[citation needed]}

Three dialects of Khamti are known: North Burma Khamti, Assam Khamti, and Sinkaling Khamti. All speakers of Khamti are bilingual, largely in Assamese and Burmese.^[3]

 Possibly, there are also some Khamti in some parts of China (5,000 people).

History

The language seems to have originated around Mogoung in Upper Burma.^[4] Mung Kang was captured, a large group of Khamtis moved to the north and east of Lakhimpur. In the year 1850, 300–400 Khamtis settled in Assam.^[5]

Phonology

Initial consonants

Khamti has the following initial consonants:^[2][6][7]

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	Tenuis	p	t	c	k	ʔ
	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
Fricative			s			h
Lateral			l
Rhotic			r
Semi-vowel		w		j

/c/ can be heard as [c] or [tʃ] across dialects. /s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].

Note: only the variety found in Myanmar uses the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the rhotic /r/.^[6]

Final consonants

Khamti has the following final consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	Tenuis	p	t		k	ʔ
Semi-vowel		w		j

-[w] occurs after front vowels and [a]-, -[j] occurs after back vowels and [a]-.^[2]

Vowels

The Khamti language uses the following vowels:^[6][7]

	Front		Back
	unr.		unr.		rnd.
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	ɯ	ɯː	u	uː
Mid	e	eː	ɤ		o	oː
Open	ɛ	ɛː	a	aː	ɔ	ɔː
Diphthong	ia		aɯ		ua

/ɤ/ only appears in the dialect in Myanmar.^[6]

Tones

Khamti uses five tones, namely: low falling /21/, mid rising /34/, mid falling /42/, high falling /53/~[33], and high level /55/~[44].^[6]

Grammar

Syntax

Unlike other Tai languages that display SVO word order, Khamti has SOV word order.^[8]

Nouns

Nouns are divided into common nouns and proper nouns.^[9]

Common nouns

Common nouns can pluralized by adding /nai¹ khau/ behind the noun. Common nouns are class categorized by using classifiers such as the generic /an³/, /ko¹/ for people and /to¹/ for animals.^[9]

Proper nouns

People's names and place names are classified as proper nouns. Khamti prefixes people's names, depending on the social class or status of that person. These prefixes are gender specific. The prefix for Miss is /na:ng⁴/ and the prefix for Mr is /tsa:i³/. A prefix for Mr used to respectfully address a male of higher status is /tsau²/ or /tsau² nuai/.^[9]

Pronouns

Khamti uses a triparte pronoun system, consisting of singular, dual and plural forms. The dual form and the first person plural form are further divided between inclusive and exclusive forms. The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Khamti language:^[9]

		singular	dual	plural
1st person	inclusive	/kau3/	/ha:4/	/haw1/
	exclusive		/hang4 khe:u/	/tu:3/
2nd person		/maeu4/	/suang khe:u/	/su3/
3rd person		/man4/	/suang kha:/	/khau/

Demonstratives

Khamti uses the following demonstratives:^[9]

Demonstratives

	singular	plural
near	/an3 nai1/ 'this'	/an3 nai1 nai1 khau/ 'these'
approximate	/amaeu4 nai1/ 'that near you'	/amaeu4 nai1 khau/ 'those by you'
distal	/an3 pu:n nai1/ 'that over there'	/an3 pu:n nai1 nai1 khau/ 'those over there'

Writing system

See also: Mon–Burmese script

The Tai Khamtis have their own writing system called 'Lik-Tai', which they share with the Tai Phake people and Tai Aiton people.^[2] It closely resembles the Northern Shan script of Myanmar, which is a variant of the Mon–Burmese script, with some of the letters taking divergent shapes.^[6] Their script is evidently derived from the Lik Tho Ngok script since hundreds of years ago. There are 35 letters including 17 consonants and 14 vowels. The script is traditionally taught in monasteries on subjects like Tripitaka, Jataka tales, code of conduct, doctrines and philosophy, history, law codes, astrology, and palmistry etc. The first printed book was published in 1960. In 1992 it was edited by the Tai Literature Committee, Chongkham. In 2003 it was again modified with tone marking by scholars of Northern Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh.^{[citation needed]}

Consonants

က ka IPA: k	ၵ kha IPA: kʰ	ꩠ ga IPA: ɡ	ၷ gha IPA: ɡʱ	င nga IPA: ŋ
ꩡ ca IPA: c	ꩢ cha IPA: cʰ	ꩣ ja IPA: ɟ	ꩤ jha IPA: ɟʱ	ꩥ nya IPA: ɲ
ꩦ ṭa IPA: ʈ	ꩧ ṭha IPA: ʈʰ	ꩨ ḍa IPA: ɖ	ꩩ ḍha IPA: ɖʱ	ၼ ṇa IPA: ɳ
တ ta IPA: t	ထ tha IPA: tʰ	ၻ da IPA: d	ꩪ dha IPA: dʱ	ꩫ na IPA: n
ပ pa IPA: p	ၸ pha IPA: pʰ	ၿ ba IPA: b	ၹ bha IPA: bʱ	မ ma IPA: m
ယ ya IPA: j	ꩳရ ra IPA: r~ɹ [10]	လ la IPA: l	ဝ wa IPA: w~v	ꩬ sa IPA: s
ꩭ ha IPA: h	ꩮ ḷa IPA: ɭ	ꩯ fa IPA: f	ꩲ za IPA: z	ꩱ xa IPA: x
	ꩴ oay IPA: oaʲ	ꩵ qn IPA: qⁿ	ꩶ hm IPA: mʰ	ဢ a IPA: ʔ

Vowels

ႊ a IPA: a	ၢ ā IPA: aː	ႃ ā IPA: aː
ိ i IPA: i	ီ ī IPA: iː	ု u IPA: u	ူ ū IPA: uː
ေ e IPA: eː	ူဝ် o IPA: oː	ဲ ai IPA: ai [11]	ၢဲ aai IPA: aːi
ဝ် au IPA: au	်ွ au IPA: au	ၢဝ် aau IPA: aːu	ံ aṁ IPA: (a)ŋ̊ [12]
ႄ ae IPA: ɛ	ေႃ aw IPA: ɔ	ွ aw IPA: ɔ	ိဝ် iu IPA: iu
ႅ ia IPA: ia	ႅဝ် iau IPA: iau	ျႃ iaa IPA: iaː	ိူ oe IPA: ɤ
ွဲ oi IPA: oi	ွ ua IPA: ua	ဴွ uai IPA: uai	ွႃ uaa IPA: uaː
ေူ ui IPA: ui	ို ue IPA: ɯ	ိုဝ် uee IPA: ɯː [13]	ုဝ် uo IPA: wo
ႂ် aue IPA: aɯ	ိုဝ် uea IPA: ɯa

Tones and other diacritics

Displaying with the dummy letter ဢ,

• tone 1 [21]:
  • for checked syllable, including single consonant - ဢႉ
  • for else - ဢႇ
• tone 2 [34] - ဢႛ
• tone 3 [42] - ဢႈ
• tone 4 [53] - ဢး - In speaking, it may become [33].
• tone 5:
  • for short open syllable - ဢႚ [44] (rare usage)
  • for else - ဢ [55] (unmarked)
• ဢ် - asat - final consonant, silences inherent vowel^[12]
• ꩰ - duplication

Further reading

• Thai Khamti Grammar
• Inglis, Douglas. (forthcoming) Khamti Shan anti-ergative construction: a Tibeto-Burman influence? Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 40(2).
• Inglis, Douglas. 2014. This here thing: Specifying Morphemes an3, nai1, and mai2 in Tai Khamti Reference-point Constructions. PhD Dissertation. The University of Alberta.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2013. Oral stop consonants in Tai Khamti: An acoustic study in voice onset time. Paper presented at ISCTLL46. Dartmouth College.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2013. Deictic mai2 'here' as an object marker in Khamti Shan: A Tibeto-Burman influence in Tai?. Paper presented at ISCTLL46. Dartmouth College.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2004. Preliminary report: Khamti Shan wordlist and lexicostatistical results. Payap University. Chiang Mai.