Miri or Mising, also known as Plains Miri, is a Tani language ( Agom ) spoken by the Mising people. There are 629,954 speakers (as per Census of India, 2011), who inhabit mostly the Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Majuli, Golaghat, Tinsukia districts of Assam and also some parts of Arunachal Pradesh. The primary literary body of Mising is known as ‘Mising Agom Kébang (Mising Language Society)’.
The Mising, Padam and Minyong speak dialects of the same language.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | (tʃ) | k | |
| voiced | b | d | (dʒ) | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | (h) | |||
| voiced | z | |||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | (w) | l | j | |||
- ^ Jump up to:a b and are typically rare, and mainly occur as allophones of /t d/ when after fricatives /s z/.
- ^ is heard in place of /s/ within variations of a local dialect.
- ^ is heard phonetically in different environments if a front or central vowel precedes a back vowel (i.e. /aɔ/ ~ ).
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | ɨ ɨː | u uː |
| Mid | ɛ ɛː | ɜ ɜː | ɔ ɔː |
| Open | a aː |
Geographical distribution
A traditional Mishing house is stilted.
Ethnologue gives the following locations for Mising speakers. The Hill Miri live in Arunachal Pradesh, while the Plains Miri live in Assam.
- Assam: North Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Majuli,Charaideu,Bishwanath,Golaghat, and Tinsukia districts
- Arunachal Pradesh
- Districts of East Siang, Lower Dibang valley and Lohit. Also on both sides of Kamla river in Ziro subdivision, Lower Subansiri district
- Daporizo subdivision, Upper Subansiri district