Vaiphei is a Sino-Tibetan language belonging to the Kuki-Chin languages linguistic sub-branch of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages. It is spoken mainly in the Indian state of Manipur and minutely in Mizoram, Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. The dialect spoken in Manipur exhibits a least partial mutual intelligibility with the other Zo-Mizo dialects of the area including Thadou, Hmar, Paite, Simte, Mizo and Gangte languages.
Geographical distribution Vaiphei is spoken in more than 30 villages of Lamka District, Southern Manipur (Ethnologue). There are also speakers in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
Orthography There is no official single spelling system, but many use the orthography of Mizo. Some writers use the circumflex ⟨ˆ⟩, but its meaning is inconsistent. is represented by ⟨o⟩ in open syllables and ⟨aw⟩ in closed syllables in the orthography. The glottal stop is represented by the letter ⟨h⟩.
Phonology
Consonants Vaiphei has the following consonants, with the first symbol being its orthographical form and the second one its representation in the IPA:
LabialAlveolarVelarGlottalPlosive voiceless ⟨p⟩ ⟨t⟩ ⟨k⟩ ⟨h⟩ aspirated ⟨ph⟩ ⟨th⟩ ⟨kh⟩ voiced ⟨b⟩ ⟨d⟩ ⟨g⟩ Affricate ⟨ch⟩ Nasal ⟨m⟩ ⟨n⟩ ⟨ng⟩ Fricative voiceless ⟨s⟩ ⟨h⟩ voiced⟨v⟩ ⟨z⟩ Lateral ⟨l⟩
are heard as unreleased in word-final position. The aspirated and voiced stops are restricted to syllable-initial position.
The glottal stop occurs only in syllable-final position, always occurs with low tone, and can be deleted.
The fricatives and the affricate do not occur word-finally.
The voiceless plosives, nasals, and laterals can all be the first members in a vowel sequence, and all phonemes except the glottal stop can be the second. Consonant clusters can be found in some loanwords, e.g., . can all form geminates, e.g., .
Vowels
Monophthongs Vaiphei has five phonemic monophthongs.
Front Back Close ⟨i⟩ ⟨u⟩ Mid ⟨e⟩ ⟨o/aw⟩ Open ⟨a⟩
tends to be realized as word-finally.
Diphthongs Vaiphei has eight diphthongs, . These can all occur in word-medially and word-finally, but cannot occur word-initially.
Tone Vaiphei is a tonal language with three contrastive tones, two contour tones and a low tone. Suantak (2013) uses numerals, where 1 is lowest and 5 is highest, and provides Chao tone letters.
+Tones Tone Chao tone letter IPA gloss Low (21) Rising (23) Falling (52)
All three tones can occur on any vowel. All tones can occur with though the rising and falling tones do not co-occur with the glottal stop .
Tone sandhi occurs in compound words; for example, a low tone becomes a rising tone when preceded by a rising tone (e.g., + → ).
Syllable structure The syllable structure in Vaiphei is (C)V(C). The maximal syllable is CVC.
+Basic syllable patterns Syllable IPA Gloss V VC CV CVC
References
Sources
External links