Ao is a Tibeto-Burmese language spoken by representatives of the Ao people living in the Indian state of Nagaland . Ao are conditionally classified as naga languages, although, most likely, it is not completely related to them. The Ethnologue Handbook reports 232,000 native speakers of this language (2001 data).
| Ao | |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Regions | Nagaland |
| Total number of speakers | |
| Classification | |
| Category | Languages of Eurasia |
| |
| Writing | |
| Language Codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | - |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| WALS | |
| Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
| Ethnologue | |
| IETF | |
| Glottolog | |
Dialects
There are 3 main dialects: chungli , mongsen and changky . Chungli is the most widespread and prestigious dialect studied in schools in the region. Changky is common in only three villages: Changky, Japu and Longjemdang; studied rather poorly. In addition to their dialect, many carriers also own another (usually chungle, less often mongsen). Mutual understanding also depends on the dialect. Almost all AO villages have their own language features.
Writing
Latin-based writing was created by missionaries in the 1880s, it does not reflect the features of pronunciation and does not highlight tones. In 1964, the Bible was written in this spelling.
Notes
- ↑ Naga, Ao // Ethnologue - 19 - Dallas, Texas : SIL International , 2016.