Lyngngam

Language name and locationː Lyngngam, India, Bangladesh [Refer to Ethnologue]
语言名称和分布地区: 林恩加姆语, 印度东北部阿萨姆邦, 梅加拉亚邦及及孟加拉国境内

1. wə // tʃə	21. ʔaːr pʰu wə
2. ʔar	22. ʔaːr pʰu ʔaːr
3. laj	23. ʔaːr pʰu laj
4. saːo	24. ʔaːr pʰu saːo
5. san	25. ʔaːr pʰu san
6. hərəː	26. ʔaːr pʰu hərəː
7. hɲu	27. ʔaːr pʰu hɲu
8. pʰraː	28. ʔaːr pʰu pʰraː
9. kʰndaj	29. ʔaːr pʰu kʰndaj
10. tʃə pʰuː	30. laj pʰu
11. kʰat wə	40. saoː pʰu
12. kʰat ʔaːr	50. san pʰu
13. kʰat laj	60. hərəː pʰu
14. kʰat saːo	70. hɲu pʰu
15. kʰat san	80. pʰraː pʰu
16. kʰat hərəː	90. kʰndaj pʰu
17. kʰat hɲu	100. tʃə spʰaʔ
18. kʰat pʰraː	200. ʔar spʰaʔ
19. kʰat kʰndaj	1000. tʃə spʰaʔ
20. ʔaːr pʰu	2000. ʔaːr hadʒar, 10,000. tʃə hadʒar

Linguist providing data and dateː Dr. Anne Daladier, LACITO-CNRS (Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique), Paris, France. October 19, 2011, March 22, 2012.

提供资料的语言学家: Dr. Anne Daladier, 2011 年 10 月 19 日. 2012 年 3 月 22 日.

Other comments: Lyngngam has a decimal system. The above data is taken from Langkymma dialect of Lyngngam in West Khasi Hills, India. Lyngngam is spoken by approximately 12,000 speakers in Kamrup district, Assam state and Meghalaya state, India as well as Bangladesh. Lyngngam cardinals belong to a late Pnaric cardinal system which slightly differs from a War one, more conservative from an AA viewpoint. The Pnaric and War composite cardinal systems are analysed in details in the light of very conservative Pnaric-War-Lyngngam (PWL) Austro-Asiatic ''groupings'' systems in Daladier (to appear)

'' Grouping is used in the sense of Menninger (1969). The names of these PWL groups are found again with shifts in their cardinal values all over AA languages''

Groupings in this PWL counting system use combinations of groupings in base four, five and twenty. Vestiges of such numeration bases are found in Munda cardinals (see Zide 1978) and in TB cardinals (see Matisoff 1997 and Mazaudon 2010). Vestiges of numeration in base four and five are found in some MK cardinal systems, see Jenner (1976) and MPI (2010).

In addition to the Pnar and War cardinal systems, where Khasi and Lyngngam cardinal systems are inherited from the Pnar one, two main pairs of number classifiers for humans and non humans are used in Pnaric-War-Lyngngam: a pnaric one and a War one. Interestingly Lyngngam seems to have remains of a South Munda one with opposite values.

In Pnar and in Khasi ŋut is used for people, təlli for goods and ʤur for pairs of animals. In War -be, -baj is suffixed as a number classifier for people and khlɔn for whatever is not human. They add the idea of being a pair or a triad etc. for the counted elements, which usually denote in context a set of exactly two, or three etc. elements; for example in War: ^Ɂũr.be ˀi hun ‘a set of two children, both children’, laj.be ˀi hun ‘the three (of them) children’; ^Ɂũ khlɔn ˀi kwoj ‘a couple of betel nuts’.

In Langkymma Lyngngam, cardinals are suffixed with -re and -de classifiers for non humans from ‘two’ to ‘nine’ as follows: -re for ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘four’, ‘six’, (‘seven’), ‘eight’, ‘nine’ and -də for ‘five’. After ‘nine’, Lyngngam uses Pnar classifiers. Pnaric ŋut is used as a classifier for people and təlləj, from pnaric təlli, is used as a classifier for non humans after nine. Zide (1978:57) shows that in GtaɁ (South Munda), -re and -de are suffixed to cardinals to count people (as opposed to cattle and goods) in the following way: -re/-rwa is added to cardinals three, four, seven, eight, nine, ten and -de/-da to cardinals five and six. The similarity of the use of -de and -re in Lyngngam and in GtaɁ suggests in addition to many other data, a previous common quinary grouping number system. Lyngngam has more common lexical elements with Munda than Pnar, War and Khasi. There is a switch in Lyngngam in the value of number classifiers -re, -de used to count non humans while -re is used in AA to count humans. *raː is a classifier for people in West Bahnaric languages, see Jacq and Sidwell (2000). -r is still used in Munda and in PWL to denote inhabitants of places as in War ‘people of the rivers’.

References:

Daladier A. 2010 ''Counting techniques with their “grouping” names in Pnar,

War, Khasi and Lyngngam and their relation to Austroasiatic number systems''

presentation at NEILS 5 Conference (to appear)

Jenner, P., (1976). « Les noms de nombre en Khmer » in Diffloth, G. and Zide, N. eds.

Austroasiatic Number Systems, (special issue), Linguistics : 39-61

Matisoff, James. 1997. Sino-Tibetan Numeral Systems: prefixes, proto-forms

and problems. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics

Mazaudon, M. (2010). “Number building in Tibeto-Burman languages” in Morey,

Post eds. NEILS 2, India, CUP India

Menninger, K. (1969). [1934]. Number words and number symbols. A cultural history

of numbers, Cambridge Mass.: M.I.T. Press

Zide, N. (1978). Studies in the Munda numerals, Mysore: CIIL

1. oːv	21. arpuː vel
2. aːr	22. arpuː aːr
3. lai	23. arpuː lai
4. sav	24. arpuː sav
5. san	25. arpuː san
6. riro	26. arpuː riro
7. niyu	27. arpuː niyu
8. dra	28. arpuː dra
9. daire	29. arpuː daire
10. cippoːv	30. laipu
11. cippoːv vel	40. savpu
12. cippoːv aːr	50. sanpu
13. cippoːv lai	60. riropu
14. cippoːv sav	70. niyupu
15. cippoːv san	80. drapu
16. cippoːv riro	90. dairepu
17. cippoːv niyu	100. cispaː
18. cippoːv dra	200. aːrcispaː
19. cippoːv daire	1000. jiljaː < Indo-Aryan
20. arpu	2000. aːrjiljaː

Linguist providing data and dateː Dr. Raman Senkuttuvan, Assistant Linguist (Lien) Anthropological Survey of India (Now) Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India. October 12, 2011.
提供资料的语言学家: Dr. Raman Senkuttuvan, 2011 年 10 月 12 日.

Other comments: Lyngngam has a decimal system. Lyngngam dialect in West Khasi Hills, Mawshynrut block is divergent, and may not be a dialect of Khasi. Note that 'j' = IPA [dʒ], 'c' = IPA [tʃ], 'v' = IPA [w].

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