Region Assam Glottolog None | Ethnicity Hill Miri people | |
 | ||
Native speakers (undated figure of 10,100) Language family Sino-Tibetan
Tani
West Tani
Nyishi
Hill Miri ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Individual code:
mrg – (included under Plains Miri) | ||
Hill Miri or Sarak is a Tani language of India. It is spoken in Arunachal Pradesh by an estimated 9,000 people of the Hill Miri tribe. It appears to be a dialect of the Nishi language.
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Description
Hill Miri is a member of the Tani branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages and is considered a dialect of the Nishi language. It is spoken by 9,000 people in the northern regions of India by the Hill Miri people It is threatened because the younger generation is slowly breaking away from their people's tradition and language. The term "Hill Miri" is an exonym, as the Hill Miri people identify themselves simply as Nyishi. Many audiobooks of gospel narratives in the Hill Miri language have been collected.
History of scholarship
George Abraham Grierson, in his survey of India regarding its linguistics, researched the Nyishi language and published a record over a century ago.
Consonants
The following table includes an inventory of Hill Miri consonants.
Vowels are front /i, e/, central /ɨ, ʉ, ə, a/, and back /u, o/. Vowels occur long and short.
Grammar
The basic Hill Miri grammar and basic word order are like those of related Sino-Tibetan languages, similar to that of Nishi.