Documentation of Tangkhul varieties
| Language | Tangkhul |
| Depositor | Freya Schumann, Pavel Ozerov, Linda Konnerth |
| Affiliation | University of Innsbruck |
| Location | India |
| Collection ID | 0846 |
| Collection Status | Forthcoming |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/c2227ab6-b0ab-4be4-b253-72e08e37ed28 |
Summary of the collection
Tangkhul is a cluster of languages spoken in Manipur and bordering areas of Myanmar comprising an unknown number of so called “village dialects”. The village varieties differ greatly in mutual intelligibility. While most of them appear to comprise a branch, some of the languages traditionally included in this cluster belong to other neighbouring branches of the area or exhibit transitional features. This collection includes data of five different Tangkhul varieties spoken in Ukhrul district, comprising wordlists for all varieties as well as several folktales for one of them. The data was collected in two stages, in 2016 and 2024, by the depositors.
Group represented
The materials represent the Tangkhul people, one of the major Naga communities of Northeast India. Tangkhul people live predominantly in Ukhrul district of Manipur, India, as well as in the bordering areas of Myanmar. The dominant religion, as for many other tribes in Northeast-India, is Christianity.
The name Tangkhul refers to an ethnic group, however, the linguistic landscape is diverse. This collection represents Tangkhul people and languages of different villages.
Language information
The Tangkhul varieties in this collection are located in Ukhrul district in Manipur. The lingua Franca of the community is “Standard Tangkhul” which is based on the variety spoken in the district capital Ukhrul. Although there are around 180,000 Tangkhul people, this is an ethnopolitical union characterised by internal linguistic diversity. Preliminary survey data suggests that nearly each village speaks a distinct variety and the degree of mutual intelligibility between the varieties fluctuates greatly. At present, it cannot be determined how many different varieties of Tangkhul there are.
Collection contents
The collection currently includes wordlists documenting the village varieties spoken in Shangshak Khullen, Khangkhui Khullen, Chahong, Thoyee, Bungpa, Leingangching, and Sorte, as well as transcribed and translated folktales in the Khangkhui Khullen variety. It also contains recordings of the Tangkhul varieties of the villages of Minthe, Lontha, Lithan, and Kharang Lehou Pokpi taken in Thotchanram, a village in Manipur’s Chandel district whose inhabitantsare migrants from Ukhrul district.
Collection history
The data in this collection was collected in two stages, the first in 2016, carried out by Linda Konnerth and Pavel Ozerov, and the second in 2024, carried out by Freya Schumann.
Acknowledgement and citation
Users of any part of this collection should acknowledge Linda Konnerth, Pavel Ozerov, and Freya Schumann as the principal investigators. For information about the collection of data in individual sessions, please consult the relevant session metadata.
Data from the collection should be cited as follows:
Konnerth, Linda, Ozerov, Pavel and Freya Schumann. 2026. Documentation of Tangkhul Varieties. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/c970caab-b6cd-4317-b488-a94423562e2d. Accessed on [insert date here]
