Angami language
Sino-Tibetan language native to the Naga Hills
title: "Angami language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["angami–pochuri-languages", "languages-of-nagaland", "endangered-languages-of-india", "angami-naga"] description: "Sino-Tibetan language native to the Naga Hills" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angami_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Sino-Tibetan language native to the Naga Hills ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Angami |
| states | India |
| region | Nagaland |
| ethnicity | Angami Naga |
| speakers | |
| date | 2011 census |
| ref | e25 |
| familycolor | Sino-Tibetan |
| fam2 | Tibeto-Burman |
| fam3 | Central Tibeto-Burman (?) |
| fam4 | Kuki-Chin–Naga |
| fam5 | Angami–Pochuri |
| script | Latin |
| map2 | Lang Status 80-VU.svg |
| mapcaption2 | |
| iso3 | njm |
| glotto | anga1288 |
| glottorefname | Angami Naga |
| notice | IPA |
| :: |
|name = Angami |nativename = |pronunciation = |states = India |region = Nagaland |ethnicity = Angami Naga |speakers = |date = 2011 census |ref = e25 |familycolor = Sino-Tibetan |fam2=Tibeto-Burman |fam3=Central Tibeto-Burman (?) |fam4=Kuki-Chin–Naga |fam5 = Angami–Pochuri |script = Latin | map2 = Lang Status 80-VU.svg | mapcaption2 = |iso3 = njm |glotto=anga1288 |glottorefname=Angami Naga |notice = IPA
Angami, more commonly referred to as Tenyidie, is a Naga language spoken in the Naga Hills in the northeastern part of India, in Kohima district, Nagaland. In 2011, there is an estimate of 153,000 first language (L1) Angami speakers.
Phonology
Consonants
This table represents the consonantal structure of the Khonoma dialect.
::data[format=table] | Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | plain | labialized | Nasal | voiceless | voiced | Plosive | voiceless | voiced | aspirated | Affricate | Fricative | voiceless | voiced | Approximant | voiceless | voiced | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::
Other dialects also contrast . only occurs as an allophone of . The velar fricative is in free variation with . The post-alveolar approximants are truly retroflex (sub-apical) before mid and low vowels, but laminal before high vowels ().
Angami voiceless nasals are unusual in that, unlike the voiceless nasals of Burmese, they have a positive rather than negative voice onset time—that is, they are aspirated rather than partially voiced. The same is true of the laterals. In both cases, the aspiration has the formants characteristic of Angami h, which is somewhat velar in pronunciation. The other voiceless approximants may not be aspirated, as the h-like formants occur during the entire hold of the consonant.
Vowels
The following are the vowels of the Khonoma dialect.
::data[format=table]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | Mid | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
The labial and labialized consonants have labiodental affricate allophones before (but not in consonant clusters). In addition, about half the time, the rhotic becomes syllabic (a rhotic vowel) in this environment:
::data[format=table] | Phon. | allophone before | |---|---| | p | pfə ~ fə ? | | (b) | (bvə) | | m̥ʰ | ɱ̊ʰə | | m | ɱə | | kʷʰ | kʰfə | | kʷ | kvə | | ɡʷ | ɡvə | | ɻ | ɻ̩ ~ ɚ | ::
Angami syllables may be of the form V, CV, or . Attested clusters are .
Phonological reconstruction
Meyase (2023) recognizes southern, northern, and western dialects of Angami, including the following.
- Southern: Jokha, Kiwe
- Northern: Kewhi
- Western: Khwüno
Preliminary Proto-Tenyi lexical reconstructions by Meyase (2023), with supporting data from four Tenyidie dialects, are as follows.
::data[format=table]
| Gloss | Proto-Tenyi | Jokha (Southern 1) | Kiwe (Southern 2) | Kewhi (Northern) | Khwüno (Western) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| do | *tsʰi | tʰə́ | cʰə́ | tsʰə́ | ʃə́ |
| hurt | *tsʰi | tʰə̄ | cʰə̄ | tsʰə̄ | ʃə̄ |
| flesh | *tsʰi | tʰə̀ | cʰə̀ | tsʰə̀ | ʃə̀ |
| old | *gwe | wé | wé | wé | gwé |
| bison | *gwi | wí | wí | wí | gwí |
| wash hand | *m-to | metò | metò | metì | metì |
| transform | *m-vi | meví | meví | meví | meví |
| make good | *p-vi | meví | meví | peví | peví |
| all | *p-te | metē | metē | petē | petē |
| green | *p-ɟo | meɟò | meɟò | peɟò | peʒiè |
| wait | *kʰwe | qʰwé | kʰwé | fé-pfʰé | kʰwé |
| shawl | *kʰwe | qʰwè | kʰwè | fè-pfʰè | kʰwè |
| bee | *m-kʰwi | oqʰwí | akʰwí | mefī | mekʰwí |
| monkey | *t-kwi | oqwī | akwī | tepfī | tekwī |
| tidy up | *k-kwe | qeqwè | kekwè | kepfè | kekwè |
| to fly | *pro | prō | prō | pruō | pō |
| strong | *ko | qō | kō | kuō | kō |
| to walk | *to | tò | tò | tiò | tò |
| :: |
Northern sound change innovations include:
- *kw pf, f
- *o uo, io
Southern sound change innovations include:
- *pe- me-
Grammar and lexicon
A wealth of Angami grammars, lexicons are available in Tenyidie and in English. However, these collections often conflict in their analysis of the phonemic or syntactic nature of the language. This is due to the difference at the time of the documentation, and the choice of informants from varying dialect. Especially in the earlier language documentations (1870s–1960s), mostly by Christian missionary; their informants' meta-data were not specified and any dialect of Angami were assumed to be the "standard" of Angami within the Nagaland region. The Angami-English Phrasebook and Angami-English-Hindi dictionary available online.
Text collection
The complete Tenyidie bible was published in 1970. However, only the translated chapter of Genesis from the bible was posted on the internet under The Rosetta Project. Also, Christian devotional materials such as The Bible...Basically® in Tenyidie are also available online.
Another source of text is largely from the ethnic folktales (e.g. Angami Naga folklore by Sekhose, 1970) and especially from song lyrics written in Tenyidie. Other than Christian songs written by the Angami church community (e.g. Shieshülie songbook by Baptist Revival ChurchBaptist Revival Church (2011). Shieshülie - Tenyidie songbook. Retrieved from http://www.nagalandpost.com/ShowStory.aspx?npoststoryiden=UzEwNDA3Nzk%3D-ZxNlAmDAZ8A%3D ), the rising rock music culture started to stir in the Nagaland as the music events and societies like the Hornbill National Rock Contest
The next largest source of Tenyidie is the educational materials used in the Kohima schools and university. Although much of these texts are in printed forms, a query on the web does retrieve some Indian exams papers that contain test questions on Tenyidie.
References
Bibliography
Notes
References
- "Angami: The "Vulnerable" Language of Nagaland". [[The Morung Express]].
- Under the UNESCO's Language Vitality and Endangerment framework, Angami is at the level of "vulnerable", meaning that it is still spoken by most children, but "may be restricted to certain domains".Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 3rd edn. Paris, UNESCO Publishing. Online version: http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas
- Blankenship, B. "Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami".
- Meyase, Savio. (2023). "Historical Sound Changes within the Tenyidie (Angami) Language".
- Rivenburg, S.W. (1905). Angami-English Phrasebook.
- "A n u k r i t i . N e T".
- The Bible Society of India. (1970). The Holy Bible: Angami Naga – Genesis Translation. The Long Now Foundation. https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_njm_gen-1
- "Tenyidie".
- www.site5.com. "Hornbill Festival - Hornbill festival of Nagaland".
- "Secondary School Syllabus". Nagaland Board of School Education.
- "Higher Secondary School Syllabus for Classes 11 & 12". Nagaland Board of School Education.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::