Anāl language

Anāl, also known as Namfau after the two principal villages it is spoken in, is a Northern Kukish language, part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, spoken by the Anal people in India and a dwindling number in Burma. It had 13,900 speakers in India according to the 2001 census, and 50 in Burma in 2010.^[1] The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.^[2]

Anāl
Anāl written in Meitei script
Native to	India and Myanmar
Region	Southeast Manipur
Ethnicity	Anāl Naga
Native speakers	14,000 (2001 census)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Central Tibeto-Burman (?) Kuki-Chin–Naga Kuki-Chin Anāl
Dialects	Langet
Writing system	Latin script Meitei script (to lesser extent)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	anm
Linguist List	qfs Langet
Glottolog	anal1239
ELP	Anal

The Department of Language Planning and Implementation of the Government of Manipur offers a sum of ₹5,000 (equivalent to ₹8,500 or US$100 in 2023), to every individual who learns Anal language, under certain terms and conditions.^[3]

Anal is also written in the Latin script,^[4] with a literacy rate of about 74%.^[1]

Langet may be a dialect, though its position within Kukish is uncertain (Shafer 1955:106).^{[needs update]}

Geographical distribution

Anal is spoken in southeastern Manipur, in the Chandel district, on the banks of the Chakpi River in towns such as Chandel and Chakpikarong, and also in the Tengnoupal district (Ethnologue).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	voiceless	m̥	n̥		ŋ̊
	voiced	m	n		ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d	dʒ
Fricative			s			h
Approximant	voiced	ʋ	l
	voiceless		l̥
Rhotic	voiced		r
	voiceless		r̥

/dʒ/ can also be heard as a glide [j] in free variation.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

^[5]

Vocabulary

The following vocabulary exemplifies words in the language.^[6]

Anal	gloss	Anal	gloss
khol	'deep hole'; 'social division'	ahno	'kind of short skirt'
lunguin	'kind of long shawl'	zupar	'rice beer'
piruili	'elopement'	Jol min	'bride price'
ithin	'divorce'	sinnuperu	'adultery'
pakum	'hearth'	mote	'first-born'
kopu	'second-born'	cakhow	'brown rice'
khon	'fifty rupees'	thunlon	'grave'
dao	'kind of iron blade'	shingkho	'plate'
vopum	'basket'	athiru	'kind of bead necklace'
akarfo	'kind of China necklace'	sanamba	'kind of fiddle'
tilli	'kind of flageolet'	tuklee	'kind of loom'

References

1. Anāl at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. "Meitei | Ethnologue". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019.
3. "Applications invited for local language training programme". Imphal Free Press.
4. Bareh 2007, p. 120
5. Devi, Thounaojam Thajamanbi (2015). A Descriptive Grammar of Anal. Silchar: Assam University.
6. Bareh 2007, pp. 119–128

Bibliography

• Bareh, Hamlet (2007). Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Manipur. Vol. III. New Delhi: Mittal. ISBN 978-81-7099-790-0.
• Prakash, Col Ved (2007). Encyclopaedia of North-East India. New Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 978-81-269-0708-3.

External links

• ELAR collection: A community-driven documentation of natural discourse in Anal, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language deposited by Pavel Ozerov
• Anal DoReCo corpus compiled by Pavel Ozerov. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.