Makury, or Makury Naga (sometimes spelled Makuri), is a

Naga language The Naga languages are a geographic and ethnic grouping of languages under the Kuki-Chin-Naga languages, spoken mostly by Naga peoples. Northern Naga languages do not fall within the group, in spite of being spoken by Naga groups; instead, t ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. Shi (2009:3) and Saul (2005:25) suggest that Makury may be an Ao language.

Classification

Makury is not close to other Naga languages that fall under Konyak- angshangand Angami- Zeme. Makury falls under the proposed Ao- Tangkhul linguistic group of southern Naga languages and is close to Naga languages that fall under said language group. Müvlë ( Longphuri) are a sub-tribe of Makury. In Eastern

Nagaland Nagaland () is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in the northeast India, northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the ...

and

, the Makury, Somra Tangkhul and

Para Para, or PARA, may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Paramount Global, traded as PARA on the Nasdaq stock exchange * Para Group, the former name of CT Corp * Para Rubber, now Skellerup, a New Zealand manufacturer * Para USA, formerly ...

are closer than the other tribes in the north in terms of language (''Makury Tribal Council'').

Geographical distribution

Makury is spoken in

Leshi Township Leshi Township or Layshi Township ( my, လေရှီးမြို့နယ်) is a mountainous

Homalin Township Homalin Township ( my, ဟုမ္မလင်း မြို့နယ် ) is a township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of Burma. The principal town is Homalin.

, and Lahe Township in

Hkamti District Hkamti District or Khamti District (sometimes Naga Hills District) is a district in northern Sagaing Division of Burma (Myanmar). Its administrative center is the town of Singkaling Hkamti. Townships The district consists of the two townships ...

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 ...

. There are about 40,000 speakers in Myanmar, and about 25,000 in India.

Dialects

'' Ethnologue'' lists the following dialects of Makury. *Mëkheotlë *Sengphüvlë *Aralë *Jilë Jongphüvlë (listed as ''Kyaungphuri'' in Ethnologue) is a Makury clan name (''Makury Tribal Council''). Shi (2009:5) lists the following dialects of Makury. *Phuvle, Makheotle *Sengphuvle, Muvle, Jeile

References

*Saul, Jamie D. 2005. ''The Naga of Burma: Their festivals, customs and way of life''. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid Press. *Shi, Vong Tsuh. 2009.
Discourse studies of Makuri Naga narratives
'. MA thesis, Chiang Mai: Payap University. *Shintani, Tadahiko. 2018. ''The Makuri language''. Linguistic survey of Tay cultural area (LSTCA) no. 117. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). *Language and Social Development Organization (LSDO). 2006. ''A sociolinguistic survey of Makuri, Para, and Long Phuri Naga in Layshi Township, Myanmar''. Unpublished manuscript. {{Languages of Northeast India Languages of Nagaland Kuki-Chin–Naga languages Languages of Myanmar