Poula language

Poula
	Poumai
Native to	Manipur, Nagaland
Ethnicity	Poumai Naga
Native speakers	187,180 (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Angami-Pochuri Angami Poula; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pmx

Poula is an Angami-Pochuri language that is predominantly spoken by the Poumai Naga people in Senapati district in Manipur and Phek district in Nagaland.

History

There is a dearth of written literature in Poula language. Some written Poula appeared in form of the Bible and Christian hymns, translated by the Bible Society of India in 2009. Prior to that a Poumai Literary Society was formed in 2007 with the intention of producing reading materials in the language. In order to standardize the language, the Poumai Literary Society has attempted koineization, which was not successful as it was not possible to account for all the varieties of the language. This was partly due to the fact that the Poula language and its varieties have not been identified, described or analyzed yet. To standardize the orthography, we first need to understand the phonlogy of the language.

Phonetics and phonology

Phonology of Poula lacks syllable coda and also disallow consonant clusters in onset position. There are 25 consonant phonemes in Poula.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Gottal
Stops	p pʰ b		t tʰ d	c cʰ	k kʰ g
Nasal	m		n		ŋ ŋ̊ʰ
Tap or flap			ɹ
Fricative			s	ɕ ʑ		h
Affricate				tɕ dʑ
Approx		ʋ		j
Lateral			l

Vowels

There are six vowel phonemes in Poula.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i y
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

In Poula, the phoneme /ə/ is written with the grapheme 'ü' (now, many use it as 'ii') in Bible and Hymns which was devised by Bible Society of India. In addition Poula lacks high back round vowel [u] as a monophthong^[2], but [u] is present in nexus of diphthong; for example pou [pəu] `father'.

Tones

Poula is a tonal language, however tone is still not marked in the orthography. There are four tonemes in Poula.^[3]

Word	Tone	Gloss
/na˥/	High-falling	'baby'
/na˦/	Mid-Rising	'later'
/na˧/	Mid	'things'
/na˩/	Low	'paint'

References

↑ Poula at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
↑ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Sarmah, Priyankoo (2018). "Vowels and tones in Poula". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 41(1),22-45.
↑ Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Khyriem, Barika (2015). "Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview". North East Indian Linguistics 7,47-62, Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access.

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[e19-1] Poula at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)

[2] Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Sarmah, Priyankoo (2018). "Vowels and tones in Poula". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 41(1),22-45.

[3] Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina; Khyriem, Barika (2015). "Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview". North East Indian Linguistics 7,47-62, Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access.