Poula language
Angami-Pochuri language
title: "Poula language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["angami–pochuri-languages", "languages-of-nagaland"] description: "Angami-Pochuri language" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poula_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Angami-Pochuri language ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Poula |
| altname | Poumai |
| states | Manipur, Nagaland |
| ethnicity | Poumai Naga |
| speakers | |
| date | 2011 |
| ref | e25 |
| familycolor | Sino-Tibetan |
| fam2 | Angami-Pochuri |
| fam3 | Angami |
| iso3 | pmx |
| glotto | poum1235 |
| glottorefname | Poumei Naga |
| glottofoot | no |
| :: |
| name = Poula | altname = Poumai | states = Manipur, Nagaland | ethnicity = Poumai Naga | speakers = | date = 2011 | ref = e25 | familycolor = Sino-Tibetan | fam2 = Angami-Pochuri | fam3 = Angami | iso3 = pmx | glotto = poum1235 | glottorefname = Poumei Naga | glottofoot = no
Poula is an Angami-Pochuri language that is predominantly spoken by the Poumai Naga people in Senapati district in Manipur and Phek district in Nagaland, India. The language of Chingjaroi is also closely related to Poula but is distinct. A descriptive grammar of Poula is available.
Grammar
Phonology
The phonology of Poula lacks syllable codas and also disallows consonant clusters in onset position. There are 25 consonant phonemes in Poula.
Consonants
::data[format=table title="Consonants"]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | Plosive | voiceless | voiced | aspirated | Nasal | plain | aspirated | Fricative | voiceless | voiced | Affricate | voiceless | voiced | Approximant | Liquid | rhotic | lateral |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
Vowels
There are six vowel phonemes in Poula.
::data[format=table]
| Front | Central | Back | High | Mid | Low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| () | |||||
| :: |
In Poula, the phoneme /ə/ is written with the grapheme 'ü' (now, many use it as 'ii') in Bible and Hymns which was devised by Bible Society of India. In addition Poula lacks high back round vowel [u] as a monophthong, but [u] is present in nexus of diphthong; for example pou [pəu] `father'.
Tones
Poula is a tonal language, however tone is not currently marked in the orthography. There are four tonemes in Poula.
::data[format=table]
| Word | Tone | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| High-falling | 'baby' | |
| Mid-Rising | 'later' | |
| Mid | 'things' | |
| Low | 'paint' | |
| :: |
Poula is an extremely innovative language–unlike Kuki-Chin languages–for having simple morphology.
Morphology
Nouns and verbs are the two content word classes. There are no ‘adjective’ and ‘adverbs’ words classes, however nominalized verbs may modify nouns and non-finite converbial verbs may modify verbs. There several functional words found.
References
References
- (2019). "A Grammar of Poumai Naga". University of Bern, Switzerland: PhD Dissertation..
- (2018). "Vowels and tones in Poula". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area.
- (2015). "Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview". North East Indian Linguistics.
- (2019). "A Grammar of Poumai Naga". University of Bern, Switzerland: PhD Dissertation..
::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. ::