Velar-Lateral Clusters and Meiteilon’s Closest Relatives

Nevertheless, through a combination of regular correspondences with proximal Trans-Himalayan branches, internal reconstruction, and newly-proposed etymologies, important clues about Meiteilon’s prehistory can be adduced. Firstly, Meiteilon cannot be part of the South-Central (Kuki-Chin) family. It exhibits different reflexes for Proto-Trans-Himalayan s and sʲ before back vowels, which are merged in most South-Central lexemes (VanBik 2009: 127), with the former becoming /h/ and the latter /s/. Furthermore, inherited tʰ- remains /tʰ-/, showing that Meiteilon did not undergo South-Central’s merger of s, sʲ, and inherited tʰ. Moreover, there are plausible Meiteilon-South-Central cognates wherein the Meiteilon form cannot be derived from the South-Central form, but an older reconstructed common ancestor could plausibly derive both forms. Finally, Meiteilon exhibits no sign of synchronic or diachronic stem alternation, a crucial factor for South-Central membership (VanBik 2009: 9).

While Meiteilon is not South-Central, there is a regular correspondence between Meiteilon initial /tʰ-/ and Proto-South-Central kʰl-. Meiteilon /tʰa/ ‘moon, month’ (Sharma 2006: 86) is cognate with Proto-South-Central kʰlaa³ 'moon, month’, and with Tibetan !་ zla < sla ‘moon’ (Hill 2019: 217), and Written Burmese la ‘moon’ (Hill 2019: 217). Similarly, Meiteilon thi /tʰí/ ‘dung, faeces’ and Proto-South-Central mik-kʰlii ‘tears’ lit. ‘eye-poop’ (VanBik 2009: 303) are cognate with one another and Old Burmese khliyḥ < kliyḥ ‘dung’ (Hill 2019: 63). There is a parallel correspondence between Meiteilon /t-/ and Proto-South-Central kl-: compare Proto-South-Central klaa-I, klaa-II ‘to fall’ (VanBik 2009: 29) and Meiteilon /ta-/ ‘to fall’ (Sharma 2006: 76) or Proto-South-Central kluu-I, kluuk-II ‘fall down’ (VanBik 2009: 29) and Meiteilon /tu-/ ‘to fall, tumble’ (Sharma 2006: 80). External examples confirm kl-, Old Burmese kla ‘fall’ (Ohno 2005: 299), and indicate that Meiteilon underwent a sound change k(ʰ)l- > t(ʰ)- in its prehistory. Such a sound change is also attested some South-Central languages, such as Sizang (VanBik 2009: 292, 297), but these languages undergo the same merger of s, sʲ, and tʰ in positions where Meiteilon does not.

From this evidence, it will be argued that, in roots which originally had l-, as evidenced by external cognates, both Meiteilon and Proto-South-Central innovated a prefix K-, which almost universally agrees in aspiration between the two. This is the kind of non-trivial innovation which is important in classifying languages. Based on this and some other novel evidence, an argument will be presented that Meiteilon is a sister language to Proto-South-Central but does not descend directly from it. The talk will also incorporate discussion of Tangkhulic and Maringic classification in light of the new evidence.

Works Cited:

Benedict, P. K. (1972). Sino-Tibetan: A Conspectus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chelliah, S. L. (1997). A Grammar of Meithei. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Grierson, G. (1921). “Kadu and Its Relatives.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 2(1), 39–42.

Hill, N. (2019). The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Ohno, T. (2005). “The Structure of Pagan Period Burmese.” In Studies in Burmese Linguistics, edited by Justin Watkins, 241–306. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Australian National University. https://doi.org/10.15144/PL-570.241.

Sharma, H. S. (2006). Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary. Imphal: Sangam Book Store. Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, Digital South Asia Library (University of Chicago).

VanBik, K. (2009). Proto-Kuki-Chin: A Reconstructed Ancestor of the Kuki-Chin Languages. Berkeley: Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Project, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley.