Zou (also spelled Zo and known as Zoham or Zokam) is a language of the Northeastern branch of Kuki-Chin languages originating in western Burma and spoken also in Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India.
The term Zou (more often "Zo") is sometimes used as a blanket term for the languages spoken by the Kuki-Chin-Mizo peoples.
Phonology
The set of 23 Zou consonantal phonemes can be established on the basis of the following minimal pairs or overlapping words. Besides these 23 Phonemes, 1 consonant is a borrowed phoneme (i.e. /r/), which is found only in loan words, in very rare cases (e.g. /r/ in /rəŋ/ "color"). Along with these consonants, Zou has 7 vowels: i, e, a, ɔ, o, u, ə.
+ Consonant PhonemesLabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalPlosivevoicelessaspiratedvoicedAffricateFricativevoicelessvoicedNasalLateralTrill()Semivowel
+VowelsFrontCentralBackCloseClose-midOpen-midOpen
Writing system Zou is often written in a Latin script developed by Christian missionary J.H. Cope, listed below. In 1952, M. Siahzathang of Churachandpur created an alternative script known as Zolai or Zoulai, an alphabetic system with some alphasyllabic characteristics. Zou cultural, political, and literary organizations began to adopt the script starting from the 1970s, and the Manipur State Government subsequently showed support for both Siahzathang and the script.
Vowels
Letter IPA a aw e i o u
Consonants
Letter IPA b ch d g h , at the end of a syllable j k kh l m n ng p ph r s t th v z
Grammar Verbs Zou verbs can be classified into three types: Stem (1), Stem (2), Stem (3) as given below: +Types of Zou Verbs Stem 1Stem 2Stem 3Stem 4piê-givepie?pe-piehpuo-carrypuo?po-pua-
Numbers Zou numbers are counted as follows: NumeralZouEnglishHindi0 zero 1 one 2 two 3 three 4 four 5 five 6 six 7 seven 8 eight 9 nine 10, ten 11 eleven 12 twelve 13 thirteen 14 fourteen 15 fifteen 16 sixteen 17 seventeen 18 eighteen 19 nineteen 20 twenty 30 thirty 40 forty 50 fifty 60 sixty 70 seventy 80 eighty 90 ninety 100 hundred 1,000, one thousand 10,000 , , ten thousand 100,000, , one hundred thousand, one lakh 1,000,000, , one million 10,000,000, , ten million 100,000,000, one hundred million
Linguistic relations Zou among the Northeastern Kuki-Chin languages is closely related to the Central languages such as the Duhlian (Lusei/Lushai) or Mizo language (endonym in Duhlian or Lushai is Mizo ṭawng), the lingua franca language of Mizoram.
Zou as spoken in India is similar to the Paite language of the Paite, though Zou lacks the word-final glottal stops present in Paite."Their language is called Zou which is similar to the language spoken by the Paite. Unlike the Zou, the Paite possess the terminal glottal stop 'h'. For example, a word for 'good' is hoih in Paite while it changes into hoi in the Zou language. Sannemla (Zou folksongs) are also popular among the Paite, although they are rendered in their individual dialect bearing the characteristic phonetic differences."
Geographical extent At its largest extent, the geographic area covered by the language group is a territory of approximately 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2) in size, in Burma, India and Bangladesh.Encyclopaedia of South-Asian tribes - Volume 8 - Page 3436 Satinder Kumar - 2000 "According to the 1981 census, 12,515 persons speak the Zou language" However political boundaries and political debates have distorted the extent of the area in some sources.
In Burma It is used in Chin State, Tiddim, and the Chin Hills. Use of Burmese has increased in the Zo speaking Chin State since the 1950s. Ethnologue reports that Zou is spoken in the following townships of Myanmar.
Chin State: Tonzang, Hakha, and Tedim townships Sagaing Division: Kalay, Khampat, and Tamu townships
In India Manipur Chandel district: Singngat subdivision and the Sungnu Sachih / Kana area Churachandpur district Mizoram Assam
In Bangladesh In Bangladesh it is used by the Bawm people.
References
Further reading
External links Zo Tonology Omniglot Zou Tongdot