Konyak language

Konyak
Native to	Nagaland, India
Ethnicity	Konyak
Native speakers	250,000 (2001 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Brahmaputran Konyak Konyak–Chang Konyak
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nbe
Glottolog	kony1248

Konyak is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Konyak people of Nagaland, northeastern India.

Dialects

Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Konyak.

3

Tableng is the standard dialect spoken in Wanching and Wakching.

Phonology

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).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

The vowels /a/, /o/ and /u/ are lengthened before approximants. /ə/ doesn't occur finally.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p pʰ	t̪	c	k kʰ	ʔ
Nasal	m	n̪	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative			s		h
Lateral		l
Approximant	w		j

The stops /p/ and /k/ contrast with the aspirated /pʰ/ and /kʰ/. /p/ and /c/ become voiced intervocalically across morpheme boundaries. The dental /t/ is realised as an alveolar if preceded by a vowel with a rising tone. The approximants /w/ and /j/ are pronounced laxer and shorter after vowels; /w/ becomes tenser initially before high vowels. If morpheme-initial or intervocalic, /j/ is pronounced with audible friction. /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /c/, /ɲ/, /s/, /h/ and /l/ do not occur morpheme-finally, while /ʔ/ does not appear morpheme-initially. Except for morpheme-initial /kp/ and /kʰl/, consonant clusters occur only medially.