Kuki-Chin languages

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Kuki-Chin
Geographic distribution:	India, Burma
Genetic classification:	Sino-Tibetan  (Tibeto-Burman)   Kuki-Chin
Subdivisions:	? Karbi Northern Central Southern ? Meitei

The Kuki-Chin, Mizo-Kuki-Chin, or Kukish languages are a family of fifty Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in eastern India and Burma. Most of the Kuki-Chin peoples are known as Kukī in Assamese and as Chin in Burmese; some of the peoples are also identified as Naga, and the Mizo (Lushai) are also ethnically distinct.

There is general agreement that the Karbi languages are related to, or part of, Kuki-Chin, but they are aberrant. However, Thurgood (2003) leaves Karbi unclassified within Tibeto-Burman. The Mru language once classified as Kukish is now thought to be closer to Lolo-Burmese.

[edit] Languages

The internal classification of the Kuki-Chin languages has changed little in a century. See Ethnologue[1] for a summary.

• Karbi: Karbi, Amri
• Mizo-Kuki-Chin proper
  • Central: Mizo (Lushai), Bawm, Hmar, etc.
  • Northern: Falam, Anal, Hrangkhawl, Zou (Zome), etc.
  • Southern: Sho, Mara, Zyphe, etc.

Bradley (1997) includes Meithei.

[edit] References

• George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• Thurgood, Graham (2003) "A subgrouping of the Sino-Tibetan languages: The interaction between language contact, change, and inheritance." In G. Thurgood and R. LaPolla, eds., The Sino-Tibetan languages, pp 13-14. London: Routledge.