The Wancho language of Kamhua Noknu village

Abstract

Abstract This article compares the word list collected by and published in LTBA 21.2 by the late Robbins Burling and Mr Mankai Wangsu in 1998 , a word list that represents ‘Lower Wancho’, with a word list collected from Mr Banwang Losu of Kamhua Noknu village, in the Upper Wancho area. Along with the word list and a brief discussion of the phonology of this Upper Wancho variety, we introduce the Wancho script, created by Banwang Losu, now included in Unicode and being used for teaching in the Wancho area. The article includes an introduction presenting information about the diversity of clans and linguistic varieties with what we now term Wancho, and also contains a brief phonological overview with script included and some grammatical information relating to verb stem alternation found in Wancho, and mostly expressed by tone variation between the stems.