The language is also known as Duhlian and Lushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among the Mizo people to be encountered by the British in the course of their colonial expansion.[7]
Mizo has eight tones and intonations for each of the vowels a, aw, e, i and u, four of which are reduced tones and the other four long tones. The vowel o has only three tones, all of them of the reduced type. The vowels can be represented as follows:[10]
The glottal and glottalised consonants appear only in final position.
Tone
As Mizo is a tonal language, differences in pitch and pitch contour can change the meanings of words. Tone systems have developed independently in many daughter languages, largely by simplifications in the set of possible syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants. Typically, a distinction between voiceless and voiced initial consonants is replaced by a distinction between high and low tone, and falling and rising tones developed from syllable-final h and glottal stop, which themselves often reflect earlier consonants.
The eight tones and intonations that the vowel a (and the vowels aw, e, i, u, which constitutes all the tones in Mizo) can have are shown by the letter sequence p-a-n-g, as follows:[11]
long high tone: páng as in páng là (which has the same intonation as sáng in the sentence Thingküng sáng tak kan huanah a ding).
long low tone: pàng as in Tui a kawt pàng pâng mai (which has the same intonation as vàng in the word vànglaini).
peaking tone: pâng as in Tui a kawt pàng pâng mai (which has the same intonation as thlûk in I hla phuah thlûk chu a va mawi ve).
dipping tone: päng as in Tuibur a hmuam päng mai (which has the same intonation as säm in Kan huan ka säm vêl mai mai).
short rising tone: pǎng as in naupǎng (which has the same intonation as thǎng in Kan huanah thǎng ka kam).
short falling tone: pȧng as in I va inkhuih pȧng ve? (which has the same intonation as pȧn in I lam ka rawn pȧn)
short mid tone: pang as in A dik lo nghâl pang (which has the same tone as man in Sazu ka man)
short low tone: pạng as in I pạng a sá a nih kha (which has the same tone as chạl in I chạlah thosí a fù).
Notation of vowels with intonation
Short tones
Long tones
mid
rising
falling
low
peaking
high
dipping
low
a
(ǎ / ă) / ả
(ȧ / ã) / ą
ạ
â
á
ä
à
o
(ǒ / ŏ) / ỏ / (ó)
ọ / (ò)
aw
(ǎw / ăw) / ảw
(ȧw / ãw) / ąw
ạw
âw
áw
äw
àw
u
(ǔ / ŭ) / ủ
(ů / ũ) / ų
ụ
û
ú
ü
ù
e
(ě / ĕ) / ẻ
(ė / ẽ) / ę
ẹ
ê
é
ë
è
i
(ǐ / ĭ) / ỉ
(ĩ) / į
ị
î
í
ï
ì
Note that the exact orthography of tones with diacritics is still not standardised (notably for differentiating the four short tones with confusive or conflicting choices of diacritics) except for the differentiation of long tones by using the circumflex from short tones. As well, the need of at least seven diacritics may cause complications to design easy keyboard layouts, even if they use dead keys and even if not all basic Latin letters are needed for Mizo itself, and so publications may represent the short tones using digrams (e.g. by appending some apostrophe or glottal letter) to reduce the number of diacritics needed to only four (those used now for the long tones) on only two dead keys.
A circumflex^ was later added to the vowels to indicate long vowels, viz., Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û, which were insufficient to fully express Mizo tone. Recently,[when?] a leading newspaper in Mizoram, Vanglaini, the magazine Kristian Ṭhalai, and other publishers began using Á, À, Ä, É, È, Ë, Í, Ì, Ï, Ó, Ò, Ö, Ú, Ù, Ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have.[17][18]
Mizo: Mi zawng zawng hi zalèna piang kan ni a, zahawmna leh dikna chanvoah intluk tlâng vek kan ni. Chhia leh ṭha hriatna fîm neia siam kan nih avangin kan mihring puite chungah inunauna thinlung kan pu tlat tur a ni.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^Mc Kinnon, John and Wanat Bruksasri (Editors): The Higlangders of Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 65.
^"Vanglaini". www.vanglaini.org. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
^ abWeidert, Alfons, Component Analysis of Lushai Phonology, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV – Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, volume 2, Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1975.
K. S. Singh: 1995, People of India-Mizoram, Volume XXXIII, Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta.
Grierson, G. A. (Ed.) (1904b). Tibeto-Burman Family: Specimens of the Kuki-Chin and Burma Groups, Volume III Part III of Linguistic Survey of India. Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta.
Grierson, G. A: 1995, Languages of North-Eastern India, Gian Publishing House, New Delhi.
