← Table of contents
The Mikirs

Note 3 — VII. AFFINITIES.

Reading edition

We next notice that ten is expressed by two separate words, kèp (in ten and its multiples) and krē (in the compounds from eleven to nineteen). So far as vocabularies have yet been published, the only other tribes of the Tibeto-Burman family3 which have a word resembling kèp for ten are Maring Naga, one of the Naga-Kuki languages, where it is chip, and Shö or southern Chin, where gip is used for ten in the sequence thirty, forty, fifty, etc. (thum-gip, thirty, mlī-gip, forty, nghā-gip, fifty, exactly corresponding to the Mikir thòm-kèp, philī-kèp, phòngō-kèp). The close resemblance of the other numerals in Maring to Mikir forms is noticeable; four is filī, five fungā, and six tharuk. The other word for ten, krē, strongly resembles the Angāmi kerr or kerru and the Kachcha Naga gārēo; in the Central Naga group the prefix ke- has been replaced by ta- or te-, and the words for ten are ter, tarā (Ao), tarō, tarā, tarē (Lhota), etc. In the Naga-Kuki group Sopvoma has chirō, Marām kero, Tangkhul tharā, etc. In the Kuki-Chin group Meithei tarā is the same word: in the Central Chin another prefix, pu-, pö-, or pā-, is used, and we have Lai pörā, Banjogi parā, Taungthā parhā. There are no Boṛo forms which correspond to krē, nor any much resembling kèp.

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings