Himalayan Linguistics

Changki is one of three Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Ao in Nagaland (India), the other two being Mongsen and Jungli, the prestige language. Though no proper research has been done, Changki has always been considered to be linguistically closer to Mongsen by the Ao as well as in earlier literature. With a phonemic inventory of four vowels, six diphthongs, 21 consonants, and three contrastive tones, the phonological system is similar to both Mongsen and Jungli, but closer to Mongsen. Several differences are also observed. Based on the phonological description, the present orthography is also discussed in this paper, with suggestions that will make the orthography more consistent and transparent, reducing learnability issues.