Khamti language



The Khamti language is a Southwestern Tai language spoken in Myanmar and India by the Khamti people. It is closely related to, and sometimes considered a dialect of, Shan.

Name
Khamti has been variously rendered Hkamti, Khampti, Kam Ti, Kamti, Tai Kam Ti, Tai-Khamti, Khamti Shan, Khampti Shan, Khandi Shan, Hkampti Shan, and Khampti Sam (ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး). The name Khamti means 'place of gold'.

Demographics
In Burma, Khamti is spoken by 3,500 near Myitkyina and by 4,500 in Putao District, Kachin State (both reported in 2000). In India, it is spoken by 5,000 in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, in the Dikrong Valley, Narayanpur, and north bank of the Brahmaputra (reported in 2007).

Three dialects of Khamti are known: North Burma Khamti, Assam Khamti, and Sinkaling Khamti. All speakers of Khamti are bilingual, largely in Assamese and Burmese.

History
The language seems to have originated around Mogoung in Upper Burma. Mung Kang was captured, a large group of Khamtis moved to the north and east of Lakhimpur. In the year 1850, 300–400 Khamtis settled in Assam.

Initial consonants
Khamti has the following initial consonants:

/c/ can be heard as [c] or [tʃ] across dialects. /s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].

Note: only the variety found in Myanmar uses the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the rhotic /r/.

Final consonants
Khamti has the following final consonants:

-[w] occurs after front vowels and [a]-, -[j] occurs after back vowels and [a]-.

Vowels
The Khamti language uses the following vowels: /ɤ/ only appears in the dialect in Myanmar.

Tones
Khamti uses five tones, namely: low falling /21/, mid rising /34/, mid falling /42/, high falling /53/~[33], and high level /55/~[44].

Syntax
Unlike other Tai languages that display SVO word order, Khamti has SOV word order.

Nouns
Nouns are divided into common nouns and proper nouns.

Common nouns
Common nouns can pluralized by adding behind the noun. Common nouns are class categorized by using classifiers such as the generic for people and  for animals.

Proper nouns
People's names and place names are classified as proper nouns. Khamti prefixes people's names, depending on the social class or status of that person. These prefixes are gender specific. The prefix for Miss is and the prefix for Mr is. A prefix for Mr used to respectfully address a male of higher status is or.

Pronouns
Khamti uses a triparte pronoun system, consisting of singular, dual and plural forms. The dual form and the first person plural form are further divided between inclusive and exclusive forms. The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Khamti language:

Demonstratives
Khamti uses the following demonstratives:

Writing system
The Tai Khamtis have their own writing system called 'Lik-Tai', which they share with the Tai Phake people and Tai Aiton people. It closely resembles the Northern Shan script of Myanmar, which is a variant of the Mon–Burmese script, with some of the letters taking divergent shapes. Their script is evidently derived from the Lik Tho Ngok script since hundreds of years ago. There are 35 letters including 17 consonants and 14 vowels. The script is traditionally taught in monasteries on subjects like Tripitaka, Jataka tales, code of conduct, doctrines and philosophy, history, law codes, astrology, and palmistry etc. The first printed book was published in 1960. In 1992 it was edited by the Tai Literature Committee, Chongkham. In 2003 it was again modified with tone marking by scholars of Northern Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh.

Consonants

 * က - ka - k - [k]
 * ၵ - kha - kh - [kʰ]
 * ꩠ - ga - g - [g]
 * ၷ - gha - gh - [gʱ]
 * င - nga - ng - [ŋ]
 * ꩡ - ca - c - [t͡ʃ], [t͡s]
 * ꩢ - cha - ch - [t͡ʃʰ]
 * ꩣ - ja - j - [ɟ]
 * ꩤ - jha - jh - [ɟʱ]
 * ꩥ - nya - ny - [ɲ]
 * ꩦ - ṭa - ṭ - [ʈ]
 * ꩧ - ṭha - ṭh - [ʈʰ]
 * ꩨ - ḍa - ḍ - [ɖ]
 * ꩩ - ḍha - ḍh - [ɖʱ]
 * ၼ - ṇa - ṇ - [ɳ]
 * တ - ta - t - [t]
 * ထ - tha - th - [tʰ]
 * ၻ - da - d - [d]
 * ꩪ - dha - dh - [dʱ]
 * ꩫ - na - n - [n]
 * ပ - pa - p - [p]
 * ၸ - pha - ph - [pʰ]
 * ၿ - ba - b - [b]
 * ၹ - bha - bh - [bʱ]
 * မ - ma - m - [m]
 * ယ - ya - y - [j]
 * ꩳ or ရ - ra - r - [r~ɹ]
 * ြ ([ɾ]) medially, such as ၸြႃ (phraa, "Buddha")
 * လ - la - l - [l]
 * ဝ - wa - w - [w~v]
 * ꩬ - sa - s - [s]
 * ꩭ - ha - h - [h]
 * ꩮ - ḷa - ḷ - [ɭ]
 * ꩯ - fa - f - [f]
 * ꩲ - za - z - [z]
 * ꩱ - xa - x - [x]
 * ꩴ - oay - oay - [oaʲ]
 * ꩵ - qn - qn - [qⁿ]
 * ꩶ - hm - hm - [mʰ]
 * ဢ - a - a - [ʔ]

Vowels

 * ႊ - a - [a]
 * ၢ - ā, aa - [aː]
 * ႃ - ā - [aː]
 * ိ - i - [i]
 * ီ - ī - [iː]
 * ု - u - [u]
 * ူ - ū - [uː]
 * ေ - e - [eː]
 * ူဝ် - o - [oː]
 * ဲ - ai - [ai]
 * ၢဲ - aai - [aːi]
 * ဝ် - au - [au]
 * ်ွ - au - [au]
 * ၢဝ် - aau - [aːu]
 * ံ - aṁ - [(a)ŋ̊]
 * ႄ - ae - [ɛ]
 * ေႃ - aw - [ɔ]
 * ွ - aw - [ɔ]
 * ိဝ် - iu - [iu]
 * ႅ - ia - [ia]
 * ႅဝ် - iau - [iau]
 * ျႃ - iaa - [iaː]
 * ိူ - oe - [ɤ]
 * ွဲ - oi - [oi]
 * ွ - ua - [ua]
 * ဴွ - uai - [uai]
 * ွႃ - uaa - [uaː]
 * ေူ - ui - [ui]
 * ို - ue - [ɯ]
 * ိုဝ် - uee - [ɯː]
 * ုဝ် - uo - [wo]
 * ႂ် - aue - [aɯ]
 * ိုဝ် - uea - [ɯa]

Tones and other diacritics
Displaying with the dummy letter ဢ,


 * tone 1 [21]:
 * for checked syllable, including single consonant - ဢႉ
 * for else - ဢႇ
 * tone 2 [34] - ဢႛ
 * tone 3 [42] - ဢႈ
 * tone 4 [53] - ဢး - In speaking, it may become [33].
 * tone 5:
 * for short open syllable - ဢႚ [44] (rare usage)
 * for else - ဢ [55] (unmarked)
 * ဢ် - asat - final consonant, silences inherent vowel
 * ꩰ - duplication