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Khamti
(တဲး)ၵမ်းတီႈ / (တဲး)ၵံးတီႈ (Tai) Khamti
Region	Burma, India
Ethnicity	Khamti
Native speakers	13,000 (2000–2007)
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Southwestern Northwestern Khamti
Writing system	Burmese script (Khamti variation, called Lik-Tai)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kht
Glottolog	kham1290
ELP	Khamti

The Khamti language is a Southwestern Tai language spoken in Myanmar and India by the Khamti people. It is closely related to, and sometimes considered a dialect of, Shan.

Name

Khamti has been variously rendered Hkamti, Khampti, Kam Ti, Kamti, Tai Kam Ti, Tai-Khamti, Khamti Shan, Khampti Shan, Khandi Shan, Hkampti Shan, and Khampti Sam (Burmese: ခန္တီးရှမ်းလူမျိုး). The name Khamti means 'place of gold'.

Demographics

In Burma, Khamti is spoken by 3,500 near Myitkyina and by 4,500 in Putao District, Kachin State (both reported in 2000). In India, it is spoken by 5,000 in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, in the Dikrong Valley, Narayanpur, and north bank of the Brahmaputra (reported in 2007).

Three dialects of Khamti are known: North Burma Khamti, Assam Khamti, and Sinkaling Khamti. All speakers of Khamti are bilingual, largely in Assamese and Burmese.

History

The language seems to have originated around Mogoung in Upper Burma. Mung Kang was captured, a large group of Khamtis moved to the north and east of Lakhimpur. In the year 1850, 300–400 Khamtis settled in Assam.

Phonology

Initial consonants

Khamti has the following initial consonants:

/c/ can be heard as or across dialects. /s/ can also be heard as .

Note: only the variety found in Myanmar uses the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the rhotic /r/.

Final consonants

Khamti has the following final consonants:

- occurs after front vowels and -, - occurs after back vowels and -.

Vowels

The Khamti language uses the following vowels:

/ɤ/ only appears in the dialect in Myanmar.

Tones

Khamti uses five tones, namely: low falling /21/, mid rising /34/, mid falling /42/, high falling /53/~, and high level /55/~.

Grammar

Syntax

Unlike other Tai languages that display SVO word order, Khamti has SOV word order.

Nouns

Nouns are divided into common nouns and proper nouns.

Common nouns

Common nouns can pluralized by adding /nai khau/ behind the noun. Common nouns are class categorized by using classifiers such as the generic /an/, /ko/ for people and /to/ for animals.

Proper nouns

People's names and place names are classified as proper nouns. Khamti prefixes people's names, depending on the social class or status of that person. These prefixes are gender specific. The prefix for Miss is /na:ng/ and the prefix for Mr is /tsa:i/. A prefix for Mr used to respectfully address a male of higher status is /tsau/ or /tsau nuai/.

Pronouns

Khamti uses a triparte pronoun system, consisting of singular, dual and plural forms. The dual form and the first person plural form are further divided between inclusive and exclusive forms. The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Khamti language:

Demonstratives

Khamti uses the following demonstratives:

Writing system

The Tai Khamtis have their own writing system called 'Lik-Tai', which they share with the Tai Phake people and Tai Aiton people. It closely resembles the Northern Shan script of Myanmar, which is a variant of the Mon–Burmese script, with some of the letters taking divergent shapes. Their script is evidently derived from the Lik Tho Ngok script since hundreds of years ago. There are 35 letters including 17 consonants and 14 vowels. The script is traditionally taught in monasteries on subjects like Tripitaka, Jataka tales, code of conduct, doctrines and philosophy, history, law codes, astrology, and palmistry etc. The first printed book was published in 1960. In 1992 it was edited by the Tai Literature Committee, Chongkham. In 2003 it was again modified with tone marking by scholars of Northern Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh.

Consonants

• က - ka - k -
• ၵ - kha - kh -
• ꩠ - ga - g -
• ၷ - gha - gh -
• င - nga - ng -
• ꩡ - ca - c -
• ꩢ - cha - ch -
• ꩣ - ja - j -
• ꩤ - jha - jh -
• ꩥ - nya - ny -
• ꩦ - ṭa - ṭ -
• ꩧ - ṭha - ṭh -
• ꩨ - ḍa - ḍ -
• ꩩ - ḍha - ḍh -
• ၼ - ṇa - ṇ -
• တ - ta - t -
• ထ - tha - th -
• ၻ - da - d -
• ꩪ - dha - dh -
• ꩫ - na - n -
• ပ - pa - p -
• ၸ - pha - ph -
• ၿ - ba - b -
• ၹ - bha - bh -
• မ - ma - m -
• ယ - ya - y -
• ꩳ or ရ - ra - r -
  • ြ () medially, such as ၸြႃ (phraa, "Buddha")
• လ - la - l -
• ဝ - wa - w -
• ꩬ - sa - s -
• ꩭ - ha - h -
• ꩮ - ḷa - ḷ -
• ꩯ - fa - f -
• ꩲ - za - z -
• ꩱ - xa - x -
• ꩴ - oay - oay -
• ꩵ - qn - qn -
• ꩶ - hm - hm -
• ဢ - a - a -

Vowels

• ႊ - a -
• ၢ - ā, aa -
• ႃ - ā -
• ိ - i -
• ီ - ī -
• ု - u -
• ူ - ū -
• ေ - e -
• ူဝ် - o -
• ဲ - ai -
• ၢဲ - aai -
• ဝ် - au -
• ်ွ - au -
• ၢဝ် - aau -
• ံ - aṁ -
• ႄ - ae -
• ေႃ - aw -
• ွ - aw -
• ိဝ် - iu -
• ႅ - ia -
• ႅဝ် - iau -
• ျႃ - iaa -
• ိူ - oe -
• ွဲ - oi -
• ွ - ua -
• ဴွ - uai -
• ွႃ - uaa -
• ေူ - ui -
• ို - ue -
• ိုဝ် - uee -
• ုဝ် - uo -
• ႂ် - aue -
• ိုဝ် - uea -

Tones and other diacritics

Displaying with the dummy letter ဢ,

• tone 1 :
  • for checked syllable, including single consonant - ဢႉ
  • for else - ဢႇ
• tone 2 - ဢႛ
• tone 3 - ဢႈ
• tone 4 - ဢး - In speaking, it may become .
• tone 5:
  • for short open syllable - ဢႚ (rare usage)
  • for else - ဢ (unmarked)
• ဢ် - asat - final consonant, silences inherent vowel
• ꩰ - duplication

Further reading

• Thai Khamti Grammar
• Inglis, Douglas. (forthcoming) Khamti Shan anti-ergative construction: a Tibeto-Burman influence? Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 40(2).
• Inglis, Douglas. 2014. This here thing: Specifying Morphemes an3, nai1, and mai2 in Tai Khamti Reference-point Constructions. PhD Dissertation. The University of Alberta.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2013. Oral stop consonants in Tai Khamti: An acoustic study in voice onset time. Paper presented at ISCTLL46. Dartmouth College.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2013. Deictic mai2 'here' as an object marker in Khamti Shan: A Tibeto-Burman influence in Tai?. Paper presented at ISCTLL46. Dartmouth College.
• Inglis, Douglas. 2004. Preliminary report: Khamti Shan wordlist and lexicostatistical results. Payap University. Chiang Mai.

References

1. Khamti at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. ^ Diller, Anthony (1992). "Tai languages in Assam: Daughters or Ghosts". Papers on Tai Languages, Linguistics and Literatures: 16.
3. ^ "Khamti". Endangered Languages Project. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
4. "Khamti". Khamti - A Language of Siamese-Chinese sub-family. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
5. Needham, J.F. (1894). Outline Grammar of the Khamti Language. Government Printing, Burma.
6. ^ Inglis, Douglas (2017). "Myanmar-based Khamti Shan Orthography". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society.
7. ^ Weidert, Alfons (1977). Tai-Khamti phonology and vocabulary. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner.
8. Wilaiwan Kanittanan. 1986. Kamti Tai: From an SVO to an SOV language. In Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (ed.), South Asian Languages: Structure, Convergence and Diglossia, 174-178. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
9. ^ Inglis, Douglas (2007). "Nominal Structure in Tai Khamti". www.academia.edu. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
10. Ben Mitchell. "Notes on Khamti" (PDF). 20162-notes-khamti.pdf. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
11. ^ "Khamti alphabet and language". Omniglot. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
12. Hosken, Martin. "Representing Myanmar in Unicode: Details and Examples Version 4" (PDF). Unicode. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
13. INGLIS, Douglas (January 2017). "Myanmar-based Khamti Shan Orthography". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Retrieved 8 February 2021.

External links

• The Khamti language at Omniglot
• Mung huw Tai Khamti Song
• Tai-Khamti Song - Tai-Khamti Girls
• Tai-Khamti Talk
• Words of Life Khamti People/Language Movie Trailer
• Tai Khamti Song - Mung hau
• Tai Khamti Song - panlong sau

• Languages of Myanmar
• Languages of Assam
• Southwestern Tai languages
• Languages of Arunachal Pradesh