Singpho dialect

Singpho
Native to	India
Ethnicity	Singpho
Native speakers	2,500 (2006)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sal ? Kachin–Luic Jingpho Singpho
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sgp
Glottolog	sing1264[2]

Traditional Singpho attire

Singpho is a dialect of the Jingpho language spoken by the Singpho people of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. It is spoken by at least 3,000 people. "Singpho" is the local pronunciation of "Jingpho".

The Jingpho/Singpho (Jinghpaw, Chingp'o), or Kachin, language is a Tibeto-Burman language mainly spoken in Kachin State, Burma (Myanmar) and Yunnan Province, China. The term Kachin language can refer either to the Jingpho language or to a group of languages spoken by various ethnic groups in the same region as Jingpo: Lisu, Lachit, Rawang, Zaiwa, Lhaovo, Achang (Ngo Chang), and Jingpho. These languages are from distinct branches of the highest level of the Tibeto-Burman family. Total estimated native speakers are 950,000 (2001 census).

Singpho is spoken the eastern extreme of northeastern India, such as Bordumsa Circle, Tirap District, Arunachal Pradesh, and also in nearby parts of Lohit District (Dasgupta 1979).

The Jingpho alphabet is based on the Latin script. Jingpho has verbal morphology that marks the subject and the direct object. Here is one example (the tonemes are not marked). The verb is 'to be' (rai).

person and number	present	past
1sg	rai n ngai	rai sa ngai
2sg	rai n dai	rai sin dai
3sg	rai ai	rai sai
1pl	rai ga ai	rai sa ga dai
2pl	rai ma dai	rai ma sin dai
3pl	rai ma ai	rai ma sai

Jingpho syllable finals can consist of vowels, nasals, or oral stops.

Jingpho/Singpho language has five tones. For Example:

Wa (high short tone) compensate Á
Wa (middle tone) teeth Ä
Wa (high tone) father Ã
Wa (Low tone) come back Ā
Wa (Low short tone) pig Ą

Tones are not usually marked in writing.

References

1. Singpho at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Singpho". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.