CHAPTER FIFTEEN TANI LANGUAGES Mark W. Post and Jackson T.-S. Sun 1 INTRODUCTION Tani refers to a compact cluster of Tibeto-Burman languages situated at the eastern end of the Himalayas, in a primarily mountainous area skirted on four sides by Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and the Brahmaputra River in Assam. The main concentration of Tani languages covers the central part of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, comprising the bulk of the following districts: East Kameng, Upper Subansiri, Lower Subansiri, Upper Siang, West Siang, East Siang, Lower Siang and Dibang Valley. Tani languages are spoken by populations who either are currently or at one time were ‘tribally’ identifi ed as Apatani, Nyishi, Na, Bangni, Tagin, Galo, Hill Miri or Adi (various subtribes), in addition to numerous smaller, usually clan-based or village-based self-identifi cations (such as Komkar). The single largest population of Tani language speakers, however, is the Mising tribe of upper Assam. The Tani languages are spoken in a basically continuous area, bordered in the west by Miji, Puroik, Koro and Hruso speakers, in the east by Idu speakers, in the south by speakers of Boro and Assamese, and in the north by speakers of Tibetic lan- guages. Lingua francas spoken in the Tani area include Assamese in the south and Arunachali Hindi in the central area. Tibetic languages were used as lingua francas in earlier decades, although their use has recently waned. The 2011 Census of India reports a total of 1,380,878 individuals in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam who self-identifi ed as belonging to a tribe whose mother tongue is a Tani language (Census of India 2011): these included 631,042 Tani tribespeople in Arunachal Pradesh, and 680,424 Mising in Assam (plus an additional 7,412 Mising in Arunachal Pradesh). These fi gures must be treated with caution, as it is not the case that all people who align tribally with a primarily Tani language-speaking population speak this lan- guage themselves; given the rapid spread of Hindi throughout Arunachal Pradesh (Modi 2005), and of Assamese among the Mising in Assam (Pegu 2011: 157), the number of fl uent Tani language speakers as a percentage of this total must be considerably lower. Scattered Tani communities spill over the Sino-Indian border into adjacent areas in Motuo (Miguba and Misinba tribes), Milin (Bokar and Tagin tribes), and Longzi (Bengni, Na, Bayi, Dazu and Mara tribes) counties of Tibet (Ou-Yang 1985: 76), where they are lumped with certain linguistically non-Tani peoples (e.g. the Idu, Sulung and Bangru) to form the Luoba nationality. Very little current information regarding these groups is available (although see Huber 2012). Tani languages vary greatly in terms of number of speakers, adequacy of description, and degree of endangerment. Mising has perhaps half a million speakers, but lacks a modern, comprehensive dictionary and grammar, and is currently undergoing considerable retrac- tion under the infl uence of Assamese. On the other hand, Tangam has only 150 speakers; however, it has a forthcoming modern (if relatively slight) comprehensive description, and all Tangam children seem – for the time being, at least – to be learning Tangam as a fi rst language and speaking it fl uently. Relatively urgent descriptive priorities include TANI LANGUAGES 323 Nyishi, a large and important language about which very little current information of certain reliability is available, Apatani, a relatively divergent language with a robust and intricate tone system which lacks a comprehensive and reliable description,1 as well as all Tani varieties still spoken in Tibet. 2 GENEALOGY AND SUBGROUPING Tani languages appear to constitute a distinct subgroup within Tibeto-Burman, as argued in Sun (1993). All Tani languages shown on the family tree in Figure 15.1 share a large amount of common core vocabulary, exhibit a very large number of regular sound corre- spondences, and in general support fi rm reconstruction of the phonology and vocabulary of their common proto-language ‘Proto-Tani’. Koro and Milang, spoken on the western and eastern fringes of the Tani area, show many similarities to Tani languages, and Milang in particular has previously been included within the Tani subgroup. Post and Modi (2011) argued against the inclusion of Milang in Tani proper, showing that the strongest resemblances to Tani languages were undoubtedly due to contact with Padam Adi. Around the same time, Post and Blench (2011) placed Koro and Milang in a distinct ‘Siangic’ subgroup. In addition to Siangic languages, Tani languages show many lexical and grammatical resemblances to the easterly Idu-Tawrã languages, and to Tawrã in particular. Unfortunately, however, the current state of description does not enable us to determine whether these resemblances are due to common inheritance or to earlier lan- guage contact. Sun (1993) divided Tani languages into two major branches, on phonological and lex- ical grounds: Western Tani (WT), clustered around the Subansiri and Kameng Rivers, and Eastern Tani (ET), clustered around the Siang/Brahmaputra. The WT/ET division almost Proto-Tani Idu-Tawrã Koro Western Tani Eastern Tani Milang Tangam, Bori Karko, Siang Damu Shimong Apatani Subansiri Pailibo Bokar, Ramo Minyong Pasi-Padam Mising (= “Lower Adi”) Na-Bangni- Nyishi-Hill Galo Upper Tagin Miri-Lower Tagin Central contact zone FIGURE 15.1 PROVISIONAL FAMILY TREE OF THE TANI LANGUAGES (REVISION OF SUN 1993: 297) 324 TIBETO-BURMAN: LANGUAGES OF NE INDIA certainly has at least some sort of genealogical basis as Sun proposed; however, language contact has played an at least equally powerful role in the evolution of Tani languages, and has led to convergence and shared innovation both within and across genealogical branches. Post (2015) reviewed 15 Tani phonological innovations exhibited by 15 Tani languages, and found that no two high-level innovations identifi ed the same set of genea- logical branches. In general then, it is best to view the Tani languages as a dialect continuum, with a reconstructible shared ancestor, but with a subsequent evolution marked at least as much by areal sharing of innovations as by sharp genealogical branching. Figure 15.1 provides a heuristic Tani family tree on the basis of what might be called ‘aggregate shar- ing of innovations’. Depending on which of these innovations are attributed to genealog- ical inheritance, and which are attributed to contact, a large number of alternative trees could be drawn (particularly with respect to geographically central Tani languages). 3 PHONOLOGY Syllable and word are both important organizational units in Tani phonology. The Proto- Tani (PT) syllable canon is (Ci )(G)V (X), in which C i is an optional initial consonant, V is an obligatory nucleus, G is an optional approximant r or j , and X is an optional coda, either a nucleus-identical V or a fi nal consonant Cf (generally drawn from a relatively restricted set). In at least one language – Apatani – the X constituent may also be represented as nasalization over the nuclear vowel. Tani syllables with an X constituent are bimoraic, or heavy; syllables without an X constituent are monomoraic, or light. Many phonological processes in Tani languages depend on this weight distinction, including syncope and prominence assignment in Galo (Post 2007: §4.2.3), and the realization of tones in Apatani (Post and Tage 2013). The PT syllable canon is well-preserved by the modern languages, albeit in different ways; generally speaking, onsets (including clusters) are better preserved in WT languages, while ET languages are more conservative with rhymes. Tani segment inventories are relatively simple. Consonants are found at labial, alveo- lar, (alveolo-)palatal, velar and glottal places of articulation ( Table 15.1 ). Dental and ret- rofl ex consonants are not found in Tani languages – nor indeed are they found in either the Arunachali variety of Hindi or in the neighbouring Eastern Indo-Aryan language Assamese; occasional transcriptions of dentals and retrofl exes in the sources would accordingly seem to be errors. All Tani languages contrast voiceless and voiced plosives. Affricates pattern with plo- sives in languages which retain them; in Siang-area languages such as Pugo Galo and Lower Adi, tɕ historically merges to ɕ and thence s or h . PT contrasted voiced and voice- less fricatives, but this distinction is maintained by very few modern languages other than Na/Bangni; in most modern languages, fricatives have merged to a two-way distinction between a glottal h , and a medial fricative, either the conservative ɕ (mostly in northerly lects) or the innovative, Indo-Aryan-infl uenced s (towards the south). A small number of languages, including Apatani, have also innovated a velar fricative x . A breathy/glottal onset distinction among vowel-initial words is found in some languages, with the breathy onset ʱ- reconstructible to a subset of PT fricatives, and the glottal onset ˀ - refl ecting vowel-initial morphemes at the PT stage; for example, compare Northwestern Galo ʱ áa - ‘come; set (sun)’ (< PT * vaŋ , cf. Bangni vaa -) with ˀàp- ‘shoot’ (< PT * (ˀ ) ap , cf. Bangni ap -). Neither onset is found word-medially: compare the cognate fi rst and second forma- tives in Northwestern Galo ʱag-jàa ‘fermented soya bean’ and pej-àk ‘soya bean’. Other Tani languages, such as lower dialects of Lare Galo and Lower Adi, have merged these categories completely, retaining only a single fricative s or h . TANI LANGUAGES 325 TABLE 15.1 PROTO-TANI CONSONANT INVENTORY, BASED ON SUN (1993: 56) Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive [ -VD ] *p *t *tɕ *k (*ˀ) Plosive [+ VD ] *b *d *dʑ *g Nasal *m *n *ɲ * ŋ Fricative [ -VD ] *f *ɕ *h Fricative [ +VD ] *v *ʑ * ɦ Lateral *l Rhotic *r Semivowel *j TABLE 15.2 PROTO-TANI VOWEL INVENTORY, BASED ON SUN (1993: 67) Front Central Back High *i *ɨ *u Mid *e *ə *o Low *a Most Tani languages preserve the PT seven vowel inventory ( Table 15.2 ); although Apatani split and merged PT * ə to the polar vowels (e.g.