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.[2]
| Poula | |
|---|---|
| Poumai | |
| Native to | Manipur, Nagaland |
| Ethnicity | Poumai Naga |
Native speakers | 140,000 (2011)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pmx |
| Glottolog | poum1235 |
Grammar edit
Phonology edit
The phonology of Poula lacks syllable codas and also disallows consonant clusters in onset position. There are 25 consonant phonemes in Poula.
Consonants edit
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | |
| voiced | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | ||
| aspirated | b | d | g | |||
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ŋ | ||
| aspirated | ŋ̊ʰ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ɕ | h | ||
| voiced | ʑ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | tɕ | ||||
| voiced | dʑ | |||||
| Approximant | ʋ | j | ||||
| Liquid | rhotic | ɾ | ||||
| lateral | l | |||||
Vowels edit
There are six vowel phonemes in Poula.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i y | (u) | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
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,[4] but [u] is present in nexus of diphthong; for example pou [pəu] `father'.
Tones edit
Poula is a tonal language, however tone is not currently marked in the orthography. There are four tonemes in Poula.[3]
| Word | Tone | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| /na˥/ | High-falling | 'baby' |
| /na˦/ | Mid-Rising | 'later' |
| /na˧/ | Mid | 'things' |
| /na˩/ | Low | 'paint' |
Poula is an extremely innovative language–unlike Kuki-Chin languages–for having simple morphology.[5]
Morphology edit
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.[6]
References edit
- ^ Poula at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2019). "A Grammar of Poumai Naga". University of Bern, Switzerland: PhD Dissertation.
- ^ a b Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Khyriem, Barika (2015). "Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview". North East Indian Linguistics. 7: 47–62.
- ^ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Sarmah, Priyankoo (2018). "Vowels and tones in Poula". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 41 (1): 22–45. doi:10.1075/ltba.16022.lem. S2CID 69460833.
- ^ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2019). "A Grammar of Poumai Naga". University of Bern, Switzerland: PhD Dissertation.
- ^ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2019). "A Grammar of Poumai Naga". University of Bern, Switzerland: PhD Dissertation.
External links edit
- Poumai Naga Language Resource collection of Poumai Naga (Poula) language documentation in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive