The Zemeic, Zeme, Zeliangrong or Western Naga
[Mortensen, David R. (2003). �]
Comparative Tangkhul
” Unpublished Qualifying Paper, UC Berkeley. are a languages branch of
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...
spoken mostly in Indian state of
Nagaland
Nagaland () is a States and union territories of India, state in the northeast India, north-eastern 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 Naga Sel ...
,
Assam
Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
and
Manipur
Manipur () is a state in northeastern India with Imphal as its capital. It borders the Indian states of Assam to the west, Mizoram to the south, and Nagaland to the north and shares the international border with Myanmar, specifically t ...
in
northeast India
Northeast India, officially the North Eastern Region (NER), is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political Administrative divisions of India, administrative division of the country. It comprises eight States and ...
. It may have close relationship with other
Naga languages
The Naga languages are a geographic and ethnic grouping of Tibeto-Burman, spoken mostly by Naga peoples.
Konyak languages, Northern Naga languages do not fall within the group, in spite of being spoken by Naga groups; instead, these form part ...
pending further research. The corresponding ethnic group is the
Zeliangrong people. There were 63,529 Zeliang-speaking people in India in 2011.
''Ethnologue'' gives the name ''Western Naga'' for the Zeme languages.
Languages
The Zemeic languages are:
*
Zeme
*
Liangmai
*
Rongmei
*
Mzieme (Northern Zeme)
*
Puiron
*
Khoirao (Thangal)
*
Maram
The Zeme and Rongmei language clusters are close enough to sometimes be considered dialects of a single ''Zeliang'' language.
Van Driem (2011) lists the varieties, from south to north, as:
:Mzieme, Khoirao, Maram, Puiron, Zeme (also known as Empeo Naga, Kacha Naga, Kochu Naga), Nruanghmei (also known as Rongmei, Kabui), Liangmai (also known as Kwoireng)
(
Inpui and
Puimei, which are sometimes listed, are not distinct.)
References
* George van Driem (2001) ''Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region.'' Brill.
*
Languages of India
{{st-lang-stub