The Mizo language is natively spoken by Mizo people in Mizoram

Mizoram

Mizoram is one of the Seven Sister States in North Eastern India, sharing borders with the states of Tripura, Assam, Manipur and with the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Burma. Mizoram became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987. Its capital is Aizawl. Mizoram is located in the...

, a state in the Indian Union

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

; Chin State

Chin State

Chin State is a state located in western Burma . The Chin State is bordered by Rakhine State in the south, Bangladesh in south-west, Sagaing Division and Magway Division in the east, Indian state of Manipur in the north and Indian state of Mizoram in the west. The Chin ethnic group make up the...

 of Burma and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Chittagong Hill Tracts

The Chittagong Hill Tracts comprise an area of 13,295 km2 in south-eastern Bangladesh, and borders India and Myanmar . It was a single district of Bangladesh until 1984. In that year it was divided into three separate districts: Khagrachari, Rangamati and Bandarban. Topographically, this is the...

 of Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

. The language is also known as Lushai

Lushai

The Lusei people are one of the eleven tribes of the Mizo people, native to Mizoram in Northeast India, Chin Hills in western Myanmar and Chittagong Hill Tracts of eastern Bangladesh.-The name:...

 (by the Colonial British), as Lusei people are the first clan who have an external exposure. For this reason, even in most of modern writings Lushai (or Lusei) is being used instead of Mizo.

History

The Mizo language belongs to the Kukish branch of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages. The numerous clans of the Mizo had respective dialects, amongst which the Lushai (Lusei, by Mizo themselves) dialect was most common, and which subsequently became the Mizo language and the lingua franca of the Kuki peoples due to its extensive and exclusive used by the Christian missionaries.

Writing System

Christian missionaries started developing a script for the language by adopting the Italian pronunciation

Italian phonology

This article is about the phonology of the Italian language. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Italian as well as with geographical variants.-Vowels:Notes:*In Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels...

 of the Roman alphabet with a phonetic form of spelling based on the Hunterian system

Hunterian transliteration

The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method...

 of transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

. The 25 letters used for writing in Mizo language are:

a, aw, b, ch, d, e, f, g, ng, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, ṭ, u, v, z.

Sounds

Later there were some developments in the letters where the symbol ^ was added to the vowel in the word to indicate long tone, viz., â, ê, î, ô, û which, of course are not sufficient to express the various tones. Recently, a leading newspaper in Mizoram, Vanglaini

Vanglaini

Vanglaini is a leading newspaper in Mizoram State of India, published by Pu K Sapdanga, in Mizo language....

,a magazine Kristian Ṭhalai and many other publishers started using á, à, é, è, í, ì, ó, ò, ú, ù to indicate the long tone ending in high tone and low tone respectively.

Relation with other language

Mizo language is similar or related with other group of languages like Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages.

Mizo and Burmese

The following few words suggest that Mizo and the Burmese are of the same family: kun ("to bend"), kam ("bank of a river"), kha ("bitter"), sam ("hair"), mei ("fire"), that ("to kill"), ni ("sun") hnih ("two") li ("four") nga ("five")

Phonetics

In Mizo, large groups of words are obviously related to one another both in sound and in meaning, with proper regular systematic pattern. For example: puar ("slightly bulging"), na ("to feel pain"), lang ("to float"), huan ("garden"), thiam ("to know", such as languages or knowledge), thau ("fat"), lian ("big"), buai ("to be troubled of"), pem ("to move from one town or city to another"), puan ("a piece of cloth"), puar ("to bulge", as in a goitre), hmelchhia ("ugly"), piang ("born"), ropui ("great", "mighty", "powerful"), bial ("round", "bulbous").

Consonants

Mizo is a tonal language, in which differences in pitch and pitch contour can change the meanings of words. Tone systems have developed independently in many of the daughter languages largely through simplifications in the set of possible syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants. Typically, a distinction between voiceless and voiced initial consonants is replaced by a distinction between high and low tone, while falling and rising tones developed from syllable-final h and glottal stop, which themselves often reflect earlier consonants.

Grammar

Mizo contains many analyzable polysyllables, which are polysyllabic units in which the individual syllables have meaning by themselves. In a true monosyllabic language, polysyllables are mostly confined to compound words, such as "lighthouse". The first syllables of compounds tend over time to be de-stressed, and may eventually be reduced to prefixed consonants. The word nuntheihna ("survival") is composed of nung ("to live"), theih ("possible") and na (a nominalizing suffix); likewise, theihna means "possibility". Virtually all polysyllabic morphemes in Mizo can be shown to originate in this way. For example, the disyllabic form phengphehlep ("butterfly"), which occurs in one dialect of the Trung (or Dulung) language of Yunnan

Yunnan

Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...

, is actually a reduced form of the compound blak kwar, found in a closely related dialect. It is reported over 18 of the dialects share about 850 words with the same meaning. For example, ban ("arm"), ke ("leg"), thla ("wing", "month"), lu ("head") and kut ("hand").

Unique Parts of Speech in Mizo Ṭawng

All kinds of Parts of Speech like noun, pronoun, verbs, etc. can be found in Mizo language with some additional unique kinds - post-positions and double adverbs.

Dialects

The Mizo dialects can be classified broadly as ten groups - Aso, Chho, Halam, Hmar, Lai, Lusei, Gangte, Mara, Miu-Khumi, Paite and Thado-Kuki.

Chho Groups

List: Chho (Cho)
Sub Groups: Mun, Kaang and Ukpu.

Regions:
All of Mindat, Kanpetlet, Matupi (Matupui) Township and some of Paletwa township in Burma. Some Townships in Arakan State and some townships in Magwe Division in Burma.

Hmar Groups

List: Hmar, Biate

Regions:Churachandpur District(Manipur), Jaintia Hills(Meghalaya),Shillong(Meghalaya),Aizawl District(Mizoram),NC Hills(Assam), Haflong(Assam).

Lai Groups

List: Lai, Laizo, Halam

Regions:
Falam, Hakha, Thantlang township in Chin State, Burma

Gangte Groups

List: Gangte, Rangte

Regions:
Manipur, Assam, Mizoram, Burma. Most majority at Manipur.

Mara Groups

List: Mara, Serkawr

Regions:
Exclusive of Saiha district in Mizoram, India where they have self and autonomous government under Mara Autonomous District Council

Mara Autonomous District Council

Mara Autonomous District Council is one of the three Autonomous District Councils within Mizoram state of Union India. Primarily, an autonomous administrative government meant for the Mara people living in the state. It is situated in the southern tip of Mizoram state bordering Myanmar...

. Maras also inhabit a contiguous area in Burma; however, they are administered under three townships of Matupi, Thantlang and Paletwa in Chin State, Burma. Mara is a recognized ethnic tribe under the sixth schedule of the constitution of India.

Paite Groups

List: Paite, Tedim

Regions:
Tedim, Tung Zang township in Chin State Burma and some township in Manipur State in India.

Thado-Kuki Groups

List: Kuki, Thado

Regions:
Few township in Sitkiang Division in Burma and few township in Manipur state viz- Churachandpur, Sadar Hills, NC Hills (Assam), Chandel, Tamenglong, India

Mizo literature

The Mizo language has a thriving literature with a Mizo Department at Mizoram University

Mizoram University

Mizoram University was established on July 2, 2001, by the Mizoram University Act, 2000 of the Parliament of India as a Central University the President of India as its Visitor...

, up to Ph.D. degree and Manipur University

Manipur University

Manipur University was established on June 5, 1980, under the Manipur University Act.1980 , as a teaching cum-affiliating University at Imphal with territorial jurisdiction over the whole of the state of Manipur. It was converted into a Central University w.e.f. 13 October 2005...

, up to M.A. degree.

Statistics

There are around 700,000 speakers of Mizo dialects (Lusei (Duhlian), Lusei (Hualngo)): 674,756 speakers in India (2001 census); 1,041 speakers in Bangladesh (1981 census); 12,500 speakers in Burma (1983 census).

External links

• Lorrain, J. Herbert (James Herbert) Dictionary of the Lushai language. Calcutta : Asiatic Society, 1940. (Bibliotheca Indica, 261)
• Mizoram.nic.in Official website of Mizoram.
• Mizoram Presbyterian
• Mizoram Baptist
• Mizoram Adventist