| Konyak | |
| States: | India, Myanmar |
| Ethnicity: | Konyak |
| Speakers: | 246,000 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam3: | Sal |
| Fam4: | Konyak |
| Fam5: | Konyak–Chang |
| Iso3: | nbe |
| Glotto: | kony1248 |
| Glottorefname: | Konyak Naga |
| Notice: | IPA |
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 speakers in the state (as of the 2011 census); most of these are in Mon district, with smaller populations in the districts of Dimapur, Kohima, Mokokchung, and Longleng .[1] There are also an estimated 2,000 speakers in neighbouring Myanmar, specifically in Hkamti District and in Lahe township.
A list of Konyak dialects from Hoipo Konyak (2021:5) is given below.[2]
Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Konyak.
Tableng is the standard dialect spoken in Wanching and Wakching.
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).
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as /ɨ/ | pronounced as /u/ | |
| Mid | pronounced as /e/ | pronounced as /ə/ | pronounced as /o/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /a/ |
The vowels pronounced as //a//, pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u// are lengthened before approximants. pronounced as //ə// does not occur finally.
| Bilabial | Dental/ Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pronounced as /p/ pronounced as /pʰ/ | pronounced as /t̪/ | pronounced as /c/ | pronounced as /k/ pronounced as /kʰ/ | pronounced as /ʔ/ | |
| Nasal | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n̪/ | pronounced as /ɲ/ | pronounced as /ŋ/ | ||
| Fricative | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /h/ | ||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /l/ | |||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /j/ |
The stops pronounced as //p// and pronounced as //k// contrast with the aspirated pronounced as //pʰ// and pronounced as //kʰ//. pronounced as //p// and pronounced as //c// become voiced intervocalically across morpheme boundaries. The dental pronounced as //t// is realised as an alveolar if preceded by a vowel with a rising tone. The approximants pronounced as //w// and pronounced as //j// are pronounced laxer and shorter after vowels; pronounced as //w// becomes tenser initially before high vowels. If morpheme-initial or intervocalic, pronounced as //j// is pronounced with audible friction. pronounced as //pʰ//, pronounced as / /kʰ//, pronounced as //c//, pronounced as //ɲ//, pronounced as //s//, pronounced as //h// and pronounced as //l// do not occur morpheme-finally, while pronounced as //ʔ// does not appear morpheme-initially. Except for morpheme-initial pronounced as //kp// and pronounced as //kʰl//, consonant clusters occur only medially.