| Pangkhua | |
| Also Known As: | Pangkhu |
| States: | Bangladesh |
| Region: | Bilaichari, Jorachari, Barkal, & Baghaichari districts, and parts of Rangamati district.Chamdur valley and Adjacent hills in Lawngtlai district, Tlabung and West Phaileng subdivision. |
| Speakers: | 3,200 in Bangladesh |
| Date: | 2012 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Speakers2: | unknown number in India |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam3: | Central Tibeto-Burman (?) |
| Fam4: | Kuki-Chin-Naga |
| Fam5: | Kuki-Chin |
| Fam6: | Central |
| Iso3: | pkh |
| Glotto: | pank1249 |
| Glottorefname: | Pankhu |
Pangkhua (Pangkhu), or Paang, is a Kuki-Chin language primarily spoken in Bangladesh. Most speakers of Pangkhu are bilingual in Bengali, and most education in Pangkhu is conducted in that language.
Since there is essentially no literature in Pangkhua, other than oral folk tales and songs, the Pangkhua community members use Lushai literature. There are minimal language differences between Pangkhua, Tlanglau, Falam Chin, Bawm and Mizo.[1]
The dialects of the two main communities that use Pangkhu, Bilaichari and Konglak, share 88% of their basic vocabulary. Residents of Pangkhua Para refer to their village as Dinthar (IPA: pronounced as //d̪int̪ʰar//; from Mizo d̪in 'stay' and Mizo and Pangkua t̪ʰar 'new')
Pangkhu has twenty-one consonant phonemes:
| Stop | Voiceless | pronounced as /link/, ph | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, kh | (pronounced as /link/) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Rhotic | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Glide | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
There are also seven vowel phonemes:
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close-mid | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
The basic syllable structure of Pangkhu is (C)(L)V(X), with L being a lateral consonant and X being a coda consonant.
There are two tones: a high tone and low tone.[2]
Augmentative -pui and diminutive -te can be affixed to kinship terms in order to denote relative age or size.
| pɑ | father | pɑte 'father's younger brother' | pɑpui 'father's elder brother' | |
| nu | mother | nute 'mother's younger sister' | nupui 'mother's elder sister' | |
| thing | tree | thingte 'tree-plant' | thingpui 'big tree' | |
| tui | water | tuite 'small river' | tuipui 'river' | |
| kut | hand | kutte 'little finger' | kutpui 'thumb' |
The gender suffixes -pɑ and -mɑ may derive a new referent from a root, as in lɑl 'monarch', lɑlpɑ 'king, and lɑlnu 'queen'.
Negation -ləu can be suffixed to a root to denote its opposite, as in dam 'healthy' and damləu 'sick'.
In Pangkhua, only human nouns can be marked for plurality and only animate marked for gender. Relator nouns share a function similar to adpositions in other languages.
| Locational | kiɑng | by | |
| kung | 'from, near' | ||
| lɑi | 'between' | ||
| ler | 'at the top' | ||
| mɑng | 'in front' | ||
| nuɑi | 'under' | ||
| sung | 'inside' | ||
| chung | 'on top' | ||
| nung | 'behind, later' | ||
| Temporal | sung/hun | 'during' | |
| Directional | kɑng | 'by' | |
| Associative | ruɑl | 'with' | |
| Ablative | thɒ(k) | 'from' | |
| Benefactive | (mə)rɑng | 'for' |
Book: Akter, Zahid . A Grammar of Pangkhua . Berlin, Boston . De Gruyter Mouton . 2024 . 10.1515/9783111387673.