Talk:Lotha language

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Inaccuracy of information
Dear Administrator, The information regarding the Lotha (Naga) tribe is all inaccurate! Lotha people speak Lotha language, not Ao. Ao is different tribe in Nagaland state, India. I am saying this with authority as I belong to this tribe. The language does not resembles with Mongsen Ao, as well as the Meithei language. Kindly rectify it at the earliest.

Sincerely, Phyob Odyuo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.205.192.73 (talk) 02:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This article about the Lotha language. In the infobox says that the people who speak it are the Lotha Naga, where it is said that they speak Lotha. Ao is a group of different languages (not a single language) of which Lotha is a part. If you have a source that says otherwise, kindly present that. That Lotha resembles Meithei is dubious, because that is not part of any established branch of Sino-Tibetan. Both that and that it resembles Mongsen Ao is unsourced, so I have removed that. --JorisvS (talk) 09:39, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect to Phyob Odyuo, I would like to address both the issues mentioned by him with regards to Mongsen Ao as well as the Meitei language. First off, as the administrator mentioned, Ao is a group of languages which encompasses Ao (Mongsen and Chungli), Lotha, Sangtam, Yimchungru and some smaller languages. Secondly, Meitei is definitely a Sino-Tibetan language - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meitei_language. I myself am a (part) native speaker of Lotha, and have spent a few years in Manipur, where I was struck by the amount of similarity between the languages. For instance, even taking the basic counting system:

Number   Lotha   Meitei One      Ekha    Ama Two      Ini     Ani Three    Ethum   Ahum Four     Mezhu   Maree Five     Mungo   Manga Six      Tiruk   Taruk Seven    Tiyung  Taret Eight    Tiza    Nipaan Nine     Tokhu   Maapan Ten      Taro    Tara

Or in basic vocabulary - "give" (imperative) in Lotha is "pia" and "piro" in Meitei. "Name" in Lotha is "Omying" and "Ming" in Meitei and so and so forth. For instance:

"What is your name?"

"Nichhui mying ndola?" (Lotha)

"Nungi ming kari kauwei" (Meitei) (the difference here is that this is literally more like "What do they say your name is" a la Russian).

Given the geographical distance between the groups, it's very unlikely that this is the result of mutual influence.

The problem is that the languages of the North-East of India (and Sino-Tibetan languages in general) have received scant study and attention, and I'm not even sure that the whole Sino-Tibetan grouping is even a robust one to begin with. Nevertheless, the connections between Meitei and Lotha (as well as other related languages) is amply clear.

Mongsen Ao is the "dialect" of Ao that is spoken along the borders between Mokokchung and Wokha, and is definitely the version of Ao that is closer to Lotha than standard Ao (Chungli) is. The relation seems to be similar to that between Avestani and Sanskrit whereby the word "tsungrrhum" in Lotha means "Devil" whereas it's "God" in Mongsen Ao. (Just like the word "daiva" (sic) in Avestani meant "devil" while meaning "god" in Sanskrit). Further details can be extracted indirectly from this paper - https://escholarship.org/content/qt3px1v3n8/qt3px1v3n8.pdf?t=ny5whq

It's ridiculous for Mr. Phyob Odyuo to be making such extreme statements about the Lotha language when it is clear that he has not studied the language and its origins at any level of depth. I'm an amateur linguist myself, but even to me it's clear that languages which share varying levels of intelligibility via common lexicon are usually not necessarily genetically connected (Arabic and Persian, for instance) whereas languages which have a common origin show certain, often regular, patterns of mutation to the point that the language may not be mutually intelligible, but they're definitely part of the same genetic family - Cantonese and Mandarin for instance.

Perhaps we can use this discussion to stimulate some badly needed research into languages of the North-East of India (a veritable hotbed of languages, just like the Caucasus) instead of getting offended by reasonable theories.

Best Regards,

Timmy