Pnar language
Sylheti Austroasiatic language
Pnar (Ka Ktien Pnar), also known as Jaiñtia is an Austroasiatic language spoken in India and Bangladesh.
Geographic distribution
As a Khasic language, Pnar belongs to a complex dialect continuum which includes mixed varieties whose exact relations remain a matter of debate among linguists. A language map of Meghalaya designed by Anna Daladier shows two major Pnar-speaking areas separated by a thin strip of Khasi and War-speaking areas. Together, the two Pnar areas encompass most of the East Jaintia Hills, West Jaintia Hills and West Khasi Hills districts.
A more recent map designed by Hiram Ring for a Khasic languages handbook by Paul Sidwell relies on a different classification. There, only the former two districts are labeled as Pnar, whereas the varieties spoken in the West Khasi Hills belong to Maharam, a related but distinct language. Both maps also show small pockets of Pnar speakers in the neighboring state of Assam, In the former map, they are limited to the area directly adjacent to Meghalaya, whereas the latter map also shows a group of Pnar-speaking villages around Haflong.
Phonology
Pnar has 30 phonemes: 7 vowels and 23 consonants. Other sounds listed below are phonetic realizations. The sounds in brackets are phonetic realizations and the sounds in slashes are phonemes.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pnar language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.