Pnar language
| Pnar | |
|---|---|
| Pnar | |
| Native to | India, Bangladesh |
| Ethnicity | Pnar people |
Native speakers | 250,000 (2001)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Meghalaya |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pbv |
| Glottolog | pnar1238 |
Pnar (also known as Jaintia or Synteng[2]) is an Austroasiatic language spoken in India and Bangladesh.
"Pnar" is not an official language of Meghalaya State. It is one of the Khasi varieties such as Khynriam, Bhoi, War, Maram, Lyngngam, etc. The Pnars are parts of the Hynñiewtrep people culturally, and the language used in education is "Khasi". So, in Meghalaya State, the only indigenous official languages are: Khasi and Garo.
Phonology
Pnar has 28 phonemes: 7 vowels and 21 consonants. Other sounds listed below are phonetic realizations.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Near | Central | Near | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i/ | [ɨ] | /u/ | ||
| Near-close | [ɪ] | [ʊ] | |||
| Close-mid | /e/ | /o/ | |||
| Mid | [ə] | ||||
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ | [ʌ] | /ɔ/ | ||
| Open | /ɑ/ |
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | /m/ | /n/ | /ɲ/ | /ŋ/ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | /p/ | /t̪/ | /t/ | /tʃ/ | /k/ | /ʔ/ |
| voiced | /b/ | /d̪/ | /d/ | /dʒ/ | |||
| voiceless aspirated | /pʰ/ | /t̪ʰ/ | [tʃʰ] | /kʰ/ | |||
| voiced aspirated | [bʱ] | [d̪ʱ] | [dʒʱ] | ||||
| Fricative | /s/ | /h/ | |||||
| Trill | /r/ | ||||||
| Approximant | central | /w/ | /j/ | ||||
| Lateral | /l/ | ||||||
Syllable structure
Syllables in Pnar can consist of a single nucleic vowel. Maximally, they can include a complex onset of two consonants, a diphthong nucleus, and a coda consonant. A second type of syllable contains a syllabic nasal/trill/lateral immediately following the onset consonant. This syllabic consonant behaves as the rhyme. (Ring, 2012: 141-2)
References
- ^ Pnar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Sidwell, Paul. (2005). The Katuic languages: classification, reconstruction and comparative lexicon. LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics, 58. Muenchen: Lincom Europa. ISBN 3-89586-802-7
- ^ Ring, Hiram. 2012. A phonetic description and phonemic analysis of Jowai-Pnar. Mon-Khmer Studies 40:133–175. https://www.academia.edu/2040472/A_phonetic_description_and_phonemic_analysis_of_Jowai-Pnar
- Choudhary, Narayam Kumar (2004). Word Order in Pnar (PDF). Jawaharlal Nehru University. p. 87. Retrieved 2009-08-14.