Review of "A grammar of Mongsen Ao"

This splendid grammar describes the variety of Ao Naga spoken in Mangmetong ("Upright Corpse‟), a village of about 2000 people in Mokokchung District of Nagaland. The Ao are the dominant tribe of Nagaland, with a population of over 170,000, divided into two major dialect groups. Chungli,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matisoff, James A.
Other Authors: University of California, Berkeley
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177702
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This splendid grammar describes the variety of Ao Naga spoken in Mangmetong ("Upright Corpse‟), a village of about 2000 people in Mokokchung District of Nagaland. The Ao are the dominant tribe of Nagaland, with a population of over 170,000, divided into two major dialect groups. Chungli, spoken by about 50% of the Ao, has greater prestige, and is always used in church services; Mongsen, to which the Mangmetong subdialect belongs, is spoken by 40%, while 10% speak other dialects.1 As with many other Tibeto-Burman (TB) groups like Nungish or Tangkhulic, Ao shows great dialectal variation from village to village, so that the safest way to identify a dialect is by a loconym, or village name. Ao is not really endangered at present, although it is facing increasing competition from Nagamese, the Indo-Aryan based pidgin widely used for inter-group communication in Nagaland.