II STRUCTURE

Kokborok sounds and phonetics

It is a typical Tibeto-Burmese language and consists of the following sounds:

Vowels

Vowels
	Front	Central	Back
High	i, y		u
High-mid	e
Low-mid			ɔ
Low	a

 
'a' as in father

'e' as in end

'i' as in in

'o' as in hot

'u' as in put

'w' as in German ü and French u (represented by IPA symbol y).

Original writers decided to use the letter w as a symbol for a vowel which does not exist in the English language.

Consonants

Consonants
	Labial	Dental	Apico-Alveolar	Lamino- Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless stops	p pʰ	t̪ t̪ʰ		tʃ͡	k kʰ
Voiced stops	b	d̪		dʒ͡	g
Voiceless fricatives			s			h
Nasals	m		n		ŋ
Liquids			l, r

The consonants are b, d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, y along with combined consonants ch, kh, ph, th, ng.

N' is the pronunciation of the nasal sound; e.g., in' (yes).

Ng is a digraph and is generally used in the last syllable of a word; e.g., aming (cat), holong (stone).

Ua is often used initially; e.g., uak (pig), uah (bamboo), uatwi (rain).

Uo is often used finally; e.g., thuo (sleeping), buo (beat).

Diphthong

A diphthong is a group of 2 vowels. The wi diphthong is spoken as ui after sounds of the letters m and p. Two examples are: chumui (cloud) and thampui (mosquito). The ui diphthong is a variation of the wi diphthong. Other less frequently occurring diphthongs such as oi are called closing diphthongs. A closing diphthong refers to a syllable that does not end in a consonant.

Syllables

A majority of words are formed by combining the root with an affix. Some examples are;

kuchuk is formed from the root chuk (to be high), with the prefix, ku.

phaidi (come) is formed from the root phai (to come), with the suffix di.

There are no Kokborok words beginning with ng. At the end of a syllable, any vowel except w can be found, along with a limited amount of consonants: p, k, m, n, ng, r and l. Y is found only in closing diphthongs like ai and wi.

Clusters

"Clusters" are a group of consonants at the beginning of a syllable, like phl, ph + l, in phlat phlat (very fast), or sl in kungsluk kungsluk (foolish man). Clusters are quite impossible at the end of a syllable. There are some "false clusters" such as phran (to dry) which is actually phw-ran. These are very common in echo words : phlat phlat, phre phre, prai prai, prom prom, etc.

Tone

There are two tones in kokborok, a high and a low tone. To mark the high tone, the letter h is attached to the vowel with the high tone.

Example: low tone High tone

lai-easy laih-crossed

bor-senseless bohr-to plant

cha-correct chah-to eat

nukhung-family nukhuhng-roof

Morphology

Morphologically kokborok words can be divided into five categories. They are the following.

(a) Original words: thang-go; phai-come; borok-man; kotor-big; kuchu-small; kwrwi-not; etc.

(b) Compound words, that is, words made of more than one original words: nai-see; thok-sweet; naithok-beautiful; mwtai-god; nog-house; mwtainog-temple; bwkha-heart; kotor-big; bwkhakotor-brave; etc.

(d) Naturalized loan words: gerogo-to roll; gwdna-shoulder; tebil- table; poito-faith; etc.

(e) Loan words: yar-friend; etc.

Kokborok grammar

There is a clear cut difference in Kokborok between nouns and verbs. All true verbs are made with a verbal root followed by a number of suffixes, these suffixes are not placed at random but according to definite rules.

Counting and Numbering

 
Counting in Kokborok is called lekhamung. The basic numbers are:

1.			sa
2.			nwi
3.			tham
4.			brwi
5.			ba
6.			dok
7.			sni
8.			char
9.			chuku
10.			chi
20.			nwichi (khol)
100.			ra
101.			sara sa
200.			nwira
1000.			sai
1001.			sa sai
2000.			nwi sai
10,000.			chisai
20,000.			nwichi sai
100,000.			rasai
200,000.			nwi rasai
1,000,000.			chirasai
2,000,000.			nwichi rasai
10,000,000.		rwjak
20,000,000.		nwi rwjak
1,000,000,000.		rarwjak
1,000,000,000,000.		sai rarwjak
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.	rasaisai rarwjak

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