The Kho-Bwa languages, also known as Kamengic, are a small family of languages, or pair of families, spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India. The name Kho-Bwa was originally proposed by George van Driem (2001). It is based on the reconstructed words *kho ("water") and *bwa ("fire"). Blench (2011) suggests the name Kamengic, from the Kameng area of Arunachal Pradesh. Alternatively, Anderson (2014)Anderson, Gregory D.S. 2014. On the classification of the Hruso (Aka) language. Paper presented at the 20th Himalayan Languages Symposium, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. refers to Kho-Bwa as Northeast Kamengic.
Both Van Driem and Blench group the Sherdukpen (or Mey), Lishpa (or Khispi), Chug (Duhumbi) and Sartang languages together. These form a language cluster and are clearly related. The pair of Sulung (or Puroik) and Khowa (or Bugun) languages are included in the family by Van Driem (2001) but provisionally treated as a second family by Blench (2024).
These languages have traditionally been placed in the Tibeto-Burman group by the Linguistic Survey of India. Jackson Sun, George van Driem, and multiple handbooks and language classification databases after them also label Kho-Bwa languages as Tibeto-Burman or otherwise Sino-Tibetan.van Driem (2001), vol. 2, p. 473.Wu, Bodt & Tresoldi (2022). The three authors also note that "Despite these doubts [regarding Puroik], the most commonly consulted handbooks (Burling 2003; Genetti 2016) and online language catalogues (Eberhard et al. 2019; Hammarström et al. 2021) list Kho-Bwa as a branch of the Trans-Himalayan family." Roger Blench, however, does not accept a Sino-Tibetan origin of these languages, claiming that similarities to such could instead be due to an areal effect.Blench (2011): "Certainly, the phonology and morphology of Arunachali languages looks superficially like Tibeto-Burman, which explains their placing in the Linguistic Survey of India. Unfortunately, this is rather where matters have remained [... this paper] proposes we should take seriously the underlying presumption probably implied in Konow's statement in Linguistic Survey of India. Volume III, 1, Tibeto-Burman family, Calcutta (1909:572)], that these languages may not be Sino-Tibetan but simply have been influenced by it; that they are language isolates."
The entire language family has about 15,000 speakers (including Puroik) or about 10,000 speakers (excluding Puroik), according to estimates made during the 2000s.
Word lists and sociolinguistic surveys of Kho-Bwa languages have also been conducted by Abraham, et al. (2018).
Classification The internal structure of the Kho-Bwa group of languages is as follows.Roger Blench & Mark Post (ms, 2024) (De)Classifying Arunachal Languages: Reconsidering the Evidence, p. 4–8. The similarities between Puroik–Bugun and Sherdukpen/Mey are sporadic and may be due to contact. Lieberherr (2015) considers Puroik to be a Tibeto-Burman language, which would imply that at least Bugun is as well.
Blench & Post (2024)
Puroik–Bugun Puroik (Sulung) Bugun (Khowa)
Mey (Mö) [dialect cluster] Sherdukpen [2 languages] Shergaon Rupa (Mö) Sartang (But Monpa) [2 languages] Rahung Jergaon Chug–Lish [1 language] Khispi (Lish) Gompatse Duhumbi (Chug)
Lieberherr & Bodt (2017) Lieberherr & Bodt (2017)Lieberherr, Ismael; Bodt, Timotheus Adrianus. 2017. Sub-grouping Kho-Bwa based on shared core vocabulary. In Himalayan Linguistics, 16(2). consider Puroik to be a Kho-Bwa language, and classify the Kho-Bwa languages as follows.
Kho-Bwa Puroik Bugun Western Kho-Bwa Sherdukpen, Sartang Chug (Duhumbi), Lish (Khispi)
Tresoldi et al. (2022) Based on computational phylogenetic analyses from Tresoldi et al. (2022), the phylogenetic tree of Kho-Bwa is roughly as follows:
Kho-Bwa Western Duhumbi–Khispi (Chug–Lish): Duhumbi (Chug), Khispi (Lish) Mey–Sartang: Shergaon, Rupa, Jerigaon, Khoina, Rahung, Khoitam Bugun A Bulu, Rawa, Kojo Rojo Sario Saria, Lasumpatte, Chayangtajo B Namphri, Kaspi Wangho, Dikhyang Singchaung, Bichom
Shared characteristics Common characteristics between Western Kho-Bwa and Puroik are given by Lieberherr & Bodt (2017).
Prefixes Kho-Bwa languages share the following prefixes: *a- in front of adjectives *kV- prefix before multiple parts of the head, such as the head itself, eyes, ears, and hair Some element in front of the names of a specific subset of objects in the sky, namely the moon, sun, stars, clouds, rain and snow. The prefixes themselves however, although they resemble each other, are not identical; Puroik prefixes *ham- while Western Kho-Bwa prefixes *nam-.
Sound changes Kho-Bwa languages share the following sound changes: The fortition of Sino-Tibetan initial *m- to *b-. Outright loss of initial *s-.
Examples In the below tables, the other Sino-Tibetan cognates are taken from Lieberherr & Bodt (2017), but the proto-Western Kho-Bwa forms are taken from Bodt (2024) and the Proto-Puroik forms are from Lieberherr (2015).
+ Fortition of *m to *b in Kho-Bwa Word "fire" "dream" "not" "person" Kho-Bwa Proto-Western Kho-Bwa *baj *ban *ba *bi Proto-Puroik *bai *baŋ̄ *ba *bii Other Sino-Tibetan Proto-Kuki-Chin *may *maŋ — *mii Tibetanme — ma mi
+ Loss of *s- in Kho-Bwa Word "die" "kill" "three" Kho-Bwa Proto-Western Kho-Bwa *i *at *um Proto-Puroik *ii *at *ɨm̄ Other Sino-Tibetan Proto-Kuki-Chin *thii *that *thum Tibetan√shi gsod gsum
Vocabulary The following table of Kho-Bwa basic vocabulary items is from Blench (2015).Blench, Roger. 2015. The Mey languages and their classification. Presentation given at the University of Sydney, 21 August 2015. Proto-Western Kho-Bwa (Proto-WKB) reconstructions are from Bodt (2024).
Gloss Mey (Shergaon) Mey (Rupa) Sartang (Jergaon) Sartang (Rahung) Lish (Khispi) Chug (Duhumbi) Proto-WKB one hǎn han hèn hân hin hin *hin two ɲǐt ɲik nìk ně ɲes niʃ *nʲis three ùŋ uŋ ùŋ ùún ʔum om *um four pʰʃì bsi sì psì pʰəhi psi *bli five kʰù kʰu kʰù kʰu kʰa kʰa *kʰa six ʧùk kit ʧìk ʨěy ʧʰuʔ ʧyk *kʰrʲuk seven ʃìt sit sìk sǐ, sě ʃis his *sʲit eight sàʤát sarʤat sàrgè sàrʤɛ́ saɾgeʔ saɾgeʔ *sar.gʲat nine tʰkʰí dʰikʰi tʰkʰì tɛ̀kʰɯ́ ṱʰikʰu ṱʰikʰu *da.kʰu ten sɔ̀ ̃ sõ sã̀ sɔ ʃan ʃan *sʷan head kʰruk kʰruk kʰrǔk kʰruʔ kʰoloʔ kʰloʔ *kʰa.rok nose nupʰuŋ nəfuŋ nfùŋ apʰuŋ hempoŋ heŋpʰoŋ *n̥a.pʰoŋ eye khibi kivi kábì kʰaʔby kʰumu kʰum *kʰa.bu ear kʰtùŋ gtʰiŋ gtʰìŋ ktèíŋ kʰutʰuŋ kʰutʰuŋ *kʰa.tʰuŋ tongue laphõ lapon ? le loi loi *luj tooth nuthuŋ tokʧe mísìŋ nitʰiŋ ʃiŋtuŋ hintuŋ *n̥a.tʰuŋ arm ik ik ìk ik hu hut *qʷut leg là lapon lɛ̌ lɛ̌ lei lai *laj belly ʃrìŋ sliŋ srìŋ sriŋ hiɲiŋ hiliŋ *sʲa.rʲiŋ, *n̥a.rʲiŋ bone skìk skik àhík skik ʃukuʃ ʃukuʃ *sʲa.kʰrus, *a.kʰrus blood hà ha(a) hɛ̀ ha hoi hoi *hruj face dòŋpù bo mi zə̀í doʔ doŋpa (various) tooth ntùŋ tokʧe mísìŋ ptə̀íŋ ʃiŋtuŋ hintuŋ *n̥a.tʰuŋ stomach àlà karbu ʧàk phriŋ hiɲiŋ hiliŋ (various) mouth ʧàw nəʧaw so ʨʨǒ hoʧok kʰoʧu *-tsʰʷa rain ʧuuma nimi nʧʰù ʧuʧuba namu namu *nam.tsʰa, *nam.mu
See also Kho-Bwa comparative vocabulary lists (Wiktionary)
Further reading
Ismail Lieberherr and Timotheus Adrianus Bodt. (2017) Sub-grouping Kho-Bwa based on shared core vocabulary. Himalayan Linguistics 16(2). 26–63. Paper (CLDF Dataset on Zenodo ) Binny Abraham, Kara Sako, Elina Kinny, Isapdaile Zeliang (2018). Sociolinguistic Research among Selected Groups in Western Arunachal Pradesh: Highlighting Monpa. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2018–009. (CLDF Dataset on Zenodo. ) Bodt, T. and J.-M. List (2019). Testing the predictive strength of the comparative method: An ongoing experiment on unattested words in Western Kho-Bwa languages. Papers in Historical Phonology 4.1. 22–44. (CLDF Dataset on Zenodo )
References
Blench, Roger. 2011. (De)classifying Arunachal languages: Reconsidering the evidence
Abraham, Binny, Kara Sako, Elina Kinny, Isapdaile Zeliang. 2018. Sociolinguistic Research among Selected Groups in Western Arunachal Pradesh: Highlighting Monpa. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2018–009.