Pnar language

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.^[3]

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 Jainitia 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.^[4]

Pnar has 30 phonemes: 7 vowels and 23 consonants. Other sounds listed below are phonetic realizations.^[5] The sounds in brackets are phonetic realizations and the sounds in slashes are phonemes.

Syllables in Pnar can consist of a single nucleic vowel. Maximally, they can include a complex onset of two consonants, a diphthong nucleus, and a coda consonant. A second type of syllable contains a syllabic nasal/trill/lateral immediately following the onset consonant. This syllabic consonant behaves as the rhyme. (Ring, 2012: 141–2)