11 - Tibeto-Burman vowels (medials)

Summary

All five vowel phonemes occur in medial position. Lushei distinguishes between short and long vowels in this position, and this distinction is reflected in Haka and other Kuki-Naga languages. Other TB languages, insofar as they have been recorded accurately, do not show this feature in any consistent way, although vowel length is sometimes marked. The Lushei distinction between a and a·, and between u and u·, is reflected in certain correspondences in Bodo-Garo and Burmese-Lolo (see below), hence we must suppose that the distinction obtained also for o and o· e and e·, i and i· although it is possible that the TB vowel system was asymmetrical. Lushei has relatively few forms with long vowels connected with general TB roots, and it would appear that TB medial vowels were ‘normally’ short (all final vowels were phonemically long). Numerous examples of roots with short medial vowel are scattered throughout the preceding pages; in the discussion below emphasis is placed on roots with long medial vowel.

Medial a is preserved before all types of finals in Tibetan, Kachin, Burmese, Garo, Lushei and most TB languages. Lepcha, which has -o for TB final *-a, normally shifts to o, e.g. ǎtsom ‘hair’ < TB *tsam, lom ‘road’ <TB *lam, but tyaŋ ‘dark’ <TB *tyaŋ.