Chungli Ao language

Chungli Ao is the prestige dialect of Ao and it is a Sino-Tibetan language of northeast India. It is the most widely spoken of the Ao languages which also comprise Mongsen Ao and Changki. It is taught up to the tenth grade in schools of the Mokokchung district. It is also spoken by the Ao Nagas of Nagaland, a hill state in northeast India. Being the official language of religion, the dialect has a Bible translation and is used in church services as well as to make public announcements. A local Chungli newspaper is also published online. The number of speakers who reported Chungli Ao as their mother tongue are approximately 130,000 according to the 2011 census report of India. A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Central-Naga has been compiled by Daniel Bruhn

Chungli Ao
Native to	India
Region	Nagaland
Ethnicity	Ao Naga
Native speakers	130,004 (2011 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Ao languages Ao language Chungli Ao
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	chon1286
ELP	Chungli

History

During the American Baptist Mission to Naga Hills, Dr E.W. Clark first came in contact with the Molungkimong village that paved the way for a common Ao language. Chungli Ao is spoken in Molungkimong and Molungyimsen and other villages throughout Ao territory by roughly 50% of the Ao-speaking population. The speech of Molungkimong is the prestige dialect due to Baptist missionaries' influence. Most Ao can speak Chungli even if they are from Mongsen-speaking regions. Chungli is taught in schools. Various trans-Dikhu neighbouring dialects of Chungli Ao are spoken east of the Dikhu River in Yacham, Tengsa, and Longla. These are poorly documented; Yacham and Tengsa may be separate languages (van Driem 2001).

Numbers

Number system

×	Numeral	Cardinal number	Ordinal number
1	1	ka	tamaba
2	2	ana	tanabuba
3	3	asem	asembuba
4	4	pezü
5	5	pungu
6	6	terok
7	7	tenet
8	8	ti
9	9	teku
10	10	ter
11	11	terka
12	12	ter ana
13	13	ter asem
14	14	ter pezü
15	15	ter pongu
16	16	ter terok
17	17	ter tenet
18	18	ter ti
19	19	ter teku
20	20	metsü

Phonology

Chungli Ao is a tonal language. There are three distinct tonal levels: low, mid and high. There is evidence to prove that low and mid as well as low and high are contrastive. Chungli also has two contour tones, which are high-low and low-mid, though they are quite rare.

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e	ə
Low		a

Consonants

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t			k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
Affricate			ts	tʃ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ			h
	voiced		z
Approximant	lateral		l
	central	w	ɹ		j

Morphology

1) Chungli Ao is an agglutinative language where the verbs lack person and number marking. For example:

PREFIX – STEM -LEXICAL SUFFIX – DERIV. SUFFIX – INFLEC. SUFFIX

me- NEG             -maʔ ‘completely’   -tsɨʔ BEN             -tsɨ IRR
te- PROH            -et ‘persistently’  -tep RECIP            -əɹ PRES 
                     etc.                etc.                  etc. 

This applies for both finite and non-finite forms of the verb.

2) The following table shows the case marking present in Chungli Ao.

Case marking

×	Agentive case	Instrumental case	Allative case	Ablative case	Locative case
	i	i	i	nuŋi	nuŋ