Konyak is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Konyak people in the state of Nagaland, north-eastern India. It is written using the Latin script.
The language has 237,568 speakers in Nagaland (2011 census); most of these (230,522) are in Mon district, with smaller populations in Dimapur (2,869), Kohima (1,873), Mokokchung (943), and Longleng (898). There are also an estimated 2,000 speakers in neighbouring Myanmar, specifically in Hkamti District and in Lahe township.
Dialects Konyak (2021) A list of Konyak dialects from Hoipo Konyak (2021:5) is given below.Konyak, Hoipo. 2021. A preliminary grammar of Chen, a Konyak language of India and Myanmar. M.A. dissertation. Chiang Mai: Payap University.
Ethnologue Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Konyak.
Tableng is the standard dialect spoken in Wanching and Wakching.
Phonology There are three lexically contrastive contour tones in Konyak – rising (marked in writing by an acute accent – á), falling (marked by a grave accent – à) and level (unmarked).
Vowels
FrontCentralBackClose Mid Open
The vowels , and are lengthened before approximants. does not occur finally.
Consonants
Bilabial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive Nasal Fricative Lateral Approximant
The stops and contrast with the aspirated and . and become voiced intervocalically across morpheme boundaries. The dental is realised as an alveolar if preceded by a vowel with a rising tone. The approximants and are pronounced laxer and shorter after vowels; becomes tenser initially before high vowels. If morpheme-initial or intervocalic, is pronounced with audible friction. , , , , , and do not occur morpheme-finally, while does not appear morpheme-initially. Except for morpheme-initial and , consonant clusters occur only medially.
References
Bibliography
Further reading