Poula language


Poula is an Angami-Pochuri language that is predominantly spoken by the Poumai Naga people in Senapati district in Manipur and Phek district in Nagaland, India. The language of Chingjaroi is also closely related to Poula but is distinct. A descriptive grammar of Poula is available.

Grammar

Phonology

The phonology of Poula lacks syllable codas and also disallows consonant clusters in onset position. There are 25 consonant phonemes in Poula.

Vowels

There are six vowel phonemes in Poula.
FrontCentralBack
High
Mid
Low

In Poula, the phoneme /ə/ is written with the grapheme 'ü' in Bible and Hymns which was devised by Bible Society of India. In addition Poula lacks high back round vowel as a monophthong, but is present in nexus of diphthong; for example pou `father'.

Tones

Poula is a tonal language, however tone is not currently marked in the orthography. There are four tonemes in Poula.
WordToneGloss
High-falling'baby'
Mid-Rising'later'
Mid'things'
Low'paint'

Poula is an extremely innovative language–unlike Kuki-Chin languages–for having simple morphology.

Morphology

Nouns and verbs are the two content word classes. There are no ‘adjective’ and ‘adverbs’ words classes, however nominalized verbs may modify nouns and non-finite converbial verbs may modify verbs. There several functional words found.