Vocalic contrasts in Hnaring Lutuv

Abstract

Lutuv, sometimes called Lautu, is an under-documented Chin language from the Tibeto-Burman language family spoken in Chin State in western Burma by 15 000 to 18 000 people (Eberhard et al., 2022, citing 2005 data that do not account for current military violence and displacement). Lutuv is also spoken in diaspora communities worldwide, including by about 1000 people in the Chin refugee community of Indianapolis (community estimate). Ongoing fieldwork with the Hnaring variety has revealed that, compared to related languages, Lutuv has undergone radical syllable structure simplification and attendant vowel inventory expansion. In addition to the low vowel /a/ and mid vowels /e, ə, ɔ/, Lutuv contains six to ten high vowels. These tentatively include four diphthongal vowels (/ie, yə, uɔ, Ɯə/) as well as six monophthongs /i, y, ɨ, ʉ, Ɯ, u/. We explore the distribution of the vowels via a combination of acoustic and comparative data in an effort to better understand the articulatory and featural specifications thereof, with special attention paid to the high vowels. If all of these monophthongs truly are high, it would represent a startlingly large and typologically uncommon high vowel inventory.