Khamti language is a Southwestern Tai language spoken in Myanmar and India by the

Khamti people The Tai Khamti, ( Khamti: တဲး ၵံးတီႈ, ( th, ชาวไทคำตี่, my, ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး, Hkamti Shan) or simply Khamti as they are also known, are a Tai ethnic group native ...

Demographics

In Burma, Khamti is spoken by 3,500 in

Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...

, near

Myitkyina Myitkyina (, ; (Eng; ''mitchinar'') Jinghpaw: ''Myitkyina'', ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located from Yangon, and from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of t ...

and by 4,500 in

Kachin State Kachin State ( my, ကချင်ပြည်နယ်; Jingpho language, Kachin: ), also known by the endonym Kachinland, is the northernmost administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east ...

, Putao District (both reported in 2000). In India, it is spoken by 5,000 in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

and

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares ...

, in the Dikrong Valley, Narayanpur, and north bank of the

Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...

(reported in 2007). Three dialects of Khamti are known: North Burma Khamti, Assam Khamti, and Sinkaling Khamti. All speakers of Khamti are bilingual, largely in Assamese and Burmese.

Name

"Khamti" has been variously rendered ''Hkamti, Khampti, Khamti Shan, Khampti Shan, Khandi Shan, Kam Ti, Tai Kam Ti, Tai-Khamti, Kamti, Hkampti Shan,'' and ''Khampti Sam''. The name "Khamti" means "place of gold".

History

The language seems to have originated around

Mogoung Mogaung ( my, မိုးကောင်း ; ( Shan: မိူင်းၵွင်း) is a town in Kachin State, Myanmar. It is situated on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway line. History Mogaung or Möngkawng was the name and capital (r ...

in Upper Burma. Mung Kang was captured, a large group of Khamtis moved to the north and east of Lakhimpur. In the year 1850, 300–400 Khamtis settled in Assam.

Phonology

Initial consonants

Khamti has the following initial consonants: Note: only the variety found in Myanmar uses the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the rhotic /r/.

Final consonants

Khamti has the following final consonants: - occurs after front vowels and , - occurs after back vowels and .

Vowels

The Khamti language as found in Myanmar uses the following vowels:

Tones

Khamti uses five tones, namely: low falling /21/, mid rising /34/, mid falling /42/, high falling /53/~ 3 and high level /55/~ 4

Grammar

Syntax

Unlike other Tai languages that display SVO word order, Khamti has SOV word order.

Nouns

Nouns are divided into common nouns and proper nouns.

Common nouns

Common nouns can pluralized by adding /nai1 khau/ behind the noun. Common nouns are class categorized by using classifiers such as the generic /an3/, /ko1/ for people and /to1/ for animals.

Proper nouns

People's names and place names are classified as proper nouns. Khamti prefixes people's names, depending on the social class or status of that person. These prefixes are gender specific. The prefix for Miss is /na:ng4/ and the prefix for Mr is /tsa:i3/. A prefix for Mr used to respectfully address a male of higher status is /tsau2/ or /tsau2 nuai/.

Pronouns

Khamti uses a triparte pronoun system, consisting of singular, dual and plural forms. The dual form and the first person plural form are further divided between inclusive and exclusive forms. The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Khamti language:

Demonstratives

Khamti uses the following demonstratives:

Writing system

The Tai Khamtis have their own writing system called 'Lik-Tai', which they share with the

Tai Phake people Tai Phake ( th, ชาวไทพ่าเก; also ''Chao Tai Faagae'', ), also known as Phakial or simply Phake, belong to the Tai-speaking indigenous ethnic group living in Dibrugarh district and Tinsukia district of Assam, principally alo ...

and Tai Aiton people. It closely resembles the Northern Shan script of Myanmar, which is a variant of the

Mon–Burmese script The Mon-Burmese script (မွန်မြန်မာအက္ခရာ)( mnw, အက္ခရ်မန်ဗၟာ, links=no) (also called the Mon script, Old Mon script and Burmese script) is an abugida that derives from the Pallava Grantha ...

, with some of the letters taking divergent shapes. Their script is evidently derived from the Lik Tho Ngok script since hundreds of years ago. There are 35 letters including 17 consonants and 14 vowels. The script is traditionally taught in monasteries on subjects like Tripitaka,

Jataka tales The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...

, code of conduct, doctrines and philosophy, history, law codes, astrology, and palmistry etc. The first printed book was published in 1960. In 1992 it was edited by the Tai Literature Committee, Chongkham. In 2003 it was again modified with tone marking by scholars of Northern Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh.

Consonants

* က - ka - k - * ၵ - kha - kh - ʰ* ꩠ - ga - g - * ၷ - gha - gh - ʱ* င - nga - ng - �* ꩡ - ca - c - ͡ʃ ͡s* ꩢ - cha - ch - ͡ʃʰ* ꩣ - ja - j - �* ꩤ - jha - jh - �ʱ* ꩥ - nya - ny - �* ꩦ - ṭa - ṭ - �* ꩧ - ṭha - ṭh - �ʰ* ꩨ - ḍa - ḍ - �* ꩩ - ḍha - ḍh - �ʱ* ၼ - ṇa - ṇ - �* တ - ta - t - * ထ - tha - th - ʰ* ၻ - da - d - * ꩪ - dha - dh - ʱ* ꩫ - na - n - * ပ - pa - p - * ၸ - pha - ph - ʰ* ၿ - ba - b - * ၹ - bha - bh - ʱ* မ - ma - m - * ယ - ya - y - * ꩳ or ရ - ra - r - ~ɹ** ြ ( � medially, such as ၸြႃ (phraa, "Buddha") * လ - la - l - * ဝ - wa - w - ~v* ꩬ - sa - s - * ꩭ - ha - h - * ꩮ - ḷa - ḷ - �* ꩯ - fa - f - * ꩲ - za - z - * ꩱ - xa - x - * ꩴ - oay - oay - aʲ* ꩵ - qn - qn - ⁿ* ꩶ - hm - hm - ʰ* ဢ - a - a - �ref name="Khamti alphabet and language">

Vowels

* ႊ - a - * ၢ - ā, aa - ː* ႃ - ā - ː* ိ - i - * ီ - ī - ː* ု - u - * ူ - ū - ː* ေ - e - ː* ူဝ် - o - ː* ဲ - ai - i* ၢဲ - aai - ːi* ဝ် - au - u* ်ွ - au - u* ၢဝ် - aau - ːu* ံ - aṁ - a)ŋ̊ref name="Khamti alphabet and language"/> * ႄ - ae - �* ေႃ - aw - �* ွ - aw - �* ိဝ် - iu - u* ႅ - ia - a* ႅဝ် - iau - au* ျႃ - iaa - aː* ိူ - oe - �* ွဲ - oi - i* ွ - ua - a* ဴွ - uai - ai* ွႃ - uaa - aː* ေူ - ui - i* ို - ue - �* ိုဝ် - uee - �ːref> * ုဝ် - uo - o* ႂ် - aue - ɯ* ိုဝ် - uea - �a/div>

Tones and other diacritics

Displaying with the dummy letter ဢ, * tone 1 1 ** for checked syllable, including single consonant - ဢႉ ** for else - ဢႇ * tone 2 4- ဢႛ * tone 3 2- ဢႈ * tone 4 3- ဢး - In speaking, it may become 3 * tone 5: ** for short open syllable - ဢႚ 4(rare usage) ** for else - ဢ 5(unmarked) * ဢ် - asat - final consonant, silences inherent vowel * ꩰ - duplication

References

External links

at Omniglot
Mung huw Tai Khamti Song

Tai-Khamti Song - Tai-Khamti Girls

Tai-Khamti Talk

Words of Life Khamti People/Language Movie Trailer

Tai Khamti Song - Mung hau

Tai Khamti Song - panlong sau
{{Tai-Kadai languages Languages of Myanmar Languages of Assam Tai languages Languages of Arunachal Pradesh Kra–Dai languages

Demographics

Name

History

Phonology

Initial consonants

Final consonants

Vowels

Tones

Grammar

Syntax

Nouns

Common nouns

Proper nouns

Pronouns

Demonstratives

Writing system

Consonants

Vowels

Tones and other diacritics

Further reading

References

External links