Sümi language
| Sümi | |
|---|---|
| Sümi (Naga) | |
| Pronunciation | [sɨ˧ mi˩] |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Nagaland |
| Ethnicity | Sümi Naga |
Native speakers | 240,000 approx.(2011) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nsm |
| Glottolog | sumi1235 |
| ELP | Sumi Naga |
Sümi, also Sema, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nagaland, India.[1][2] It is spoken by the Sümi Naga people. It differs from every other Naga languages due to the presence of guttural sounds.[3][4]
According to the 2011 Census of India, the Sümi Naga had a Scheduled Tribe population of 236,313 in Nagaland.[5]
Geographical distribution
Sümi is spoken in central and southern Nagaland, mainly in Zünheboto District. There are also good number of speakers in parts of Niuland, Dimapur, Chümoukedima and Kiphire District(s), as well as in 7 villages of Tinsukia District, Assam (Ethnologue).
Dialects
Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Sümi.
- Dayang (Western Sümi)
- Lazami
- Jimomi
- Zumomi
Phonology
The transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Vowels
The vowels of Sümi are as follows:[6][7]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Notes:
- The close front and the close central vowels have been variously described as near-close [i̞, ɨ̞] and close [i, ɨ]. The close back vowel has only been described as close [u].[8][9]
- The mid vowels /e, o/ can be realized as either close-mid [e, o] or open-mid [ɛ, ɔ].[6][11]
- Teo (2012) describes the close-mid allophone of /o/ as slightly advanced [o̟].[8]
- /a/ has been variously described as near-open [ɐ][8] and open [ä].[10]
Consonants
The consonants of Sümi are as follows:[7][12]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ŋ | |||
| aspirated | mʱ | nʱ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | q | ||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | qʰ | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | tʃ ~ ts | |||||
| aspirated | tʃʰ ~ tsʰ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | ʃ ~ s | x | h | ||
| voiced | v ~ w | ʒ ~ z | ɣ | ||||
| Approximant | ɹ | j | |||||
| Lateral | plain | l | |||||
| aspirated | lʱ | ||||||
Allophones
- /ʃ~s, ʒ~z/ are realized [t͡ɕ~ɕ~t͜ʃ, d͡ʑ~ʑ~d͡ʒ] before /i, e/[13]
References
- ^ "Is Sütsa getting lost in transition?". MorungExpress. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
- ^ "Sütsa classified as 'definitely endangered' by UNESCO". MorungExpress. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
- ^ Sreedhar (1976).
- ^ Sreedhar (1980).
- ^ "ST-13 PCA A-11 Appendix: District wise Scheduled Tribe population, Nagaland". Census of India 2011. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. 2011.
- ^ a b c Teo (2012), p. 369.
- ^ a b Teo (2014), p. 20.
- ^ a b c Teo (2012), p. 368.
- ^ Teo (2014), pp. 27–28.
- ^ a b c Teo (2014), p. 28.
- ^ Teo (2014), p. 27.
- ^ Teo (2012), p. 366.
- ^ "A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland" (PDF). digitalcollections.anu.edu.au.
Bibliography
- Sreedhar, Mangadan Veetil (1976), Sema phonetic reader, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages
- Sreedhar, Mangadan Veetil (1980), A Sema Grammar, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages
- Teo, Amos B. (2012), "Sumi (Sema)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 42 (3): 365–373, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000254
- Teo, Amos B. (2014), A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland, Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics, ISBN 978-1-922185-10-5
External links
- Sümi DoReCo corpus compiled by Amos Teo. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and time-aligned morphological annotations.