The Mising language is one of the many Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by various ethnic groups in North East India. It is a member of a cluster of languages labeled ‘North Assam Group” in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India. The close cognates of this language are spoken by several ethnic groups in Arunachal Pradesh of India, especially by a cluster of ethnic groups known as Adi (exonym ‘Abor’). The Mising tribe has its own characteristics of sounds, words, and sentences.
The alphabet of the Roman script has been adapted to express every sound of the Mising language. According to the Mising Agom Kebang(MAK), the Mising language has a total of 29 Phonemes, which include 14 vowels and 15 consonants.
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The 14 vowels can be divided into two categories depending on the length of pronunciation.
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1. Short vowel (O, A, I, U, E, É, Í)
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The short vowels are pronounced as follows
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I It is pronounced similar to i in the English alphabet.
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Í It is pronounced somewhat similar to u in the English alphabet but approaching more to the i sound.
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U It is pronounced similar to u in the English alphabet.
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E It is pronounced similar to e in the English alphabet.
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É It is pronounced similar to e in the English alphabet but approaching to the u sound.
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O It is pronounced similar to o in the English alphabet.
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A It is pronounced similar to a in the English alphabet.
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2. Long vowel (O:, A:, I:, U:, E:, É:, Í:)
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In order to write the long vowel the symbol: is used after the short vowel. The long vowel are pronounced similar to the short vowel but for a longer time.
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For example:-
I: like i in the English word machine.
A: like a in the English word father.
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The consonants of the Mising alphabets are:-
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K, G, NG, S, J, NY, T, D, N, P, B, M, R, L, Y, W, H.
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The consonants K, G, S, J, T, D, N, P, B, M, R, L, Y, W, and H are pronounced as in the English alphabet.
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NY and NG are pronounced as one sound. NY is used in between syllables only and it is pronounced somewhat like 'ni' but approaching 'yo' sound.
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NG is pronounced similar to ng in English words such as thing, nothing, ring, etc.
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H and W are used only in case of a proper noun.