Languages of the world
Jingpho (Jìngphòʔ gà/ဈိာင်ေဖါစ်)
Basic facts
Number of native speakers: 940,000
Recognized minority language: Myanmar
Also spoken: China, India
Script: Latin, 24 letters/Burmese, 37 letters
Grammatical cases: 8
Linguistic typology: agglutinative, SOV
Language family: Sino-Tibetan, Sal, Jingpho-Luish
Number of dialects: 3 main groups
History
19th century - Jingpho is first written
1965 - reform of the spelling system
Writing system and pronunciation
These are the letters that make up the Latin script: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t u w y z ʔ.
These are the letters that make up the Burmese script: ဗ ပ ဖ မ ဝ ဒ တ ထ န ည စ ၡ ရ လ ယ ဇ သ ဆ ဈ ဂ က ခ င ဟ အ ိ ု ေ ေါ.
Jingpho has four tones in open syllables and two in closed ones.
Grammar
Nouns have two numbers (singular and plural) and eight cases (nominative, accusative, locative, allative, ablative, terminative, genitive, and comitative).
There are no articles. Noun complements precede nouns.
Verbs are conjugated for mood, aspect, voice, subject, and direct object.
Dialects
There are three main dialect groups: Northeastern, Northwestern, and Southern. Northeastern Jingpho includes Dingga, Duleng, Dingphan, Khakhu, Shang, and Tsasen. Northwestern Jingpho comprises Diyun, Numphuk, Tieng, and Turung. Southern dialects are Nkhum, Shadan, Gauri, Mengzhi, and Thingnai.
Differences between them can be mainly found in phonology and lexicon. Standard Jingpho is based on the Southern group.
