Pangkhu language

Pangkhua (Pangkhu), or Paang, is a Kuki-Chin language primarily spoken in Bangladesh and India. Most speakers of Pangkhu are bilingual in Bengali or Mizo in the respective countries and most education in Pangkhu is conducted in that language.

Pangkhua
Pangkhu
Native to	Bangladesh and India
Region	Chittagong Hill Tracts (Bilaichari, Jorachari, Barkal & Baghaichari districts and parts of Rangamati district) and Mizoram (Chamdur valley and Adjacent hills in Lawngtlai district, Tlabung and West Phaileng subdivision)
Ethnicity	Pangkho
Native speakers	3,200 in Bangladesh (2012)[1] unknown number in India[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Central Tibeto-Burman (?) Kuki-Chin-Naga Kuki-Chin Central Pangkhua
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pkh
Glottolog	pank1249
ELP	Pankhu

Since there is essentially no literature in Pangkhua, other than oral folk tales and songs, the Pangkhua community members use Lushai literature. There are minimal language differences between Pangkhua, Tlanglau, Falam Chin, Bawm and Mizo.^[2]

Dialects

The dialects of the two main communities that use Pangkhu, Bilaichari and Konglak, share 88% of their basic vocabulary. Residents of Pangkhua Para refer to their village as Dinthar (IPA: /d̪int̪ʰar/; from Mizo d̪in 'stay' and Mizo and Pangkua t̪ʰar 'new')

Phonology

Pangkhu has twenty-one consonant phonemes:

Pangkhu Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Voiceless	p, ph <ph>		t̪ <t>, t̪h <th>				k, kh <kh>	(ʔ)
	Voiced	b		d̪ <d>
Fricative	Voiceless		f		s~ʃ				h~ʔ
	Voiced		v		z
Affricate						t͡s <ch>
Rhotic					r
Nasal		m			n			ŋ <ng>
Glide		w					j <y>
Lateral					l

However, only unaspirated voiceless stops, /h/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /l/ may occur at syllable coda. When stops occur in coda position, they are not audibly released. The glottal fricative /h/ may be deleted syllable-initially.

There are also seven vowel phonemes:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Close-mid	e
Mid		ə
Open-mid			ʌ
Low	ɑ		ɒ

The vowel [æ] serves as an allophone of /e/ and [o] serves as an allophone of /u/. Vowel length contrasts occur only in closed syllables and diphthongs. There are 9 diphthongs, these being /ɑi/, /ɑu/, /ei/, /eu/, /əu/, /ou/, /iɑ/, /uɑ/, and /ui/. Diphthongs and long vowels are monophthongized following another syllable.

The basic syllable structure of Pangkhu is (C)(L)V(X), with L being a lateral consonant and X being a coda consonant.

There are two tones: a high tone and low tone.^[3]

Morphology

Derivational affixes

Diminutive and augmentative

Augmentative -pui and diminutive -te can be affixed to kinship terms in order to denote relative age or size.

Pangkhua diminutives and augmentatives

Root	Gloss	Diminutive	Augmentative
pɑ	father	pɑte 'father's younger brother'	pɑpui 'father's elder brother'
nu	mother	nute 'mother's younger sister'	nupui 'mother's elder sister'
thing	tree	thingte 'tree-plant'	thingpui 'big tree'
tui	water	tuite 'small river'	tuipui 'river'
kut	hand	kutte 'little finger'	kutpui 'thumb'

Gender

The gender suffixes -pɑ and -mɑ may derive a new referent from a root, as in lɑl 'monarch', lɑlpɑ 'king, and lɑlnu 'queen'.

Negation

Negation -ləu can be suffixed to a root to denote its opposite, as in dam 'healthy' and damləu 'sick'.

Noun forms

In Pangkhua, only human nouns can be marked for plurality and only animate marked for gender. Relator nouns share a function similar to adpositions in other languages.

Relator nouns

Semantics	Form	Gloss
Locational	kiɑng	by
	kung	'from, near'
	lɑi	'between'
	ler	'at the top'
	mɑng	'in front'
	nuɑi	'under'
	sung	'inside'
	chung	'on top'
	nung	'behind, later'
Temporal	sung/hun	'during'
Directional	kɑng	'by'
Associative	ruɑl	'with'
Ablative	thɒ(k)	'from'
Benefactive	(mə)rɑng	'for'