Lamkang

Lamkang (ISO-639-3 code: lmk)

Lamkang is one of the Naga tribes of Manipur in North-East India. Hiroi-Lamgang, Lamkaang and Lamkang Naga are few alternate names of the community. Anciently, they were known as Ksen, meaning ‘red’ or ‘red people’. Surte, Leivon, Kaangteen, Tholung, Jaangvei, Silsi, Suungnem, Sankhil, Dilbung, and Khular are the names of ten clan systems in Lamkang society. Today they are mostly inhabited at 34 villages in hilly Chandel district, including Phaidaam Pantha of the investigator’s field work location officially known as Purum Pantha, the southeastern part of Manipur (the homeland for many ethnic groups of people having diverse culture). Traditionally, they used to build houses on hill-slopes or elevated plains so that approaching enemies could easily be spotted. Though, Lamkang community being a patriarchal society, besides maintains strong affinal ties with the matrilineal side as well. Their population is 7,770 people, according to recent Census of India 2011report.

Various linguistic scholars classify Lamkang in different ways. Bradley (2002) claims that Lamkang is an Old Kuki-Chin in Sal group of Tibeto-Burman languages. Shafer (1974) considers it belong to Old Kuki branch of Kukish Section in Burmic Division. Benedict (1972) has regarded it as an Old Kuki under the Kuki-Proper of Kuki-Naga Division. Grierson-Konow (1904) has placed it under old Kuki sub-divion of Kuki division in Kuki-Chin Group of Tibeto- Burman sub-family. Lamkang exhibits agglutinative nature. Like most other Tibeto-Burman languages, it is an SOV (subject-object-verb) type of language. Lamkang has twenty consonants- /p/, /pʰ/, /b/, /t/, /tʰ/, /d/, /k/, /kʰ/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /s/, /h/, /t͜ʃ/, /d͜ʒ/, /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/ and six vowels- /i/, /e/, /ə/, /a/, /u/, /o/. There are ‘low’ and ‘high’ tone pitches of some specific words that distinguish the meaning of utterances. For example-/rù/ ‘bone’ /rú/ ‘bamboo’. It is generally conceived that the native speakers of Lamkang deny in the existence of dialectal variations within the community just on the basis of their high mutual intelligibility.