Star, moon, spirits, and the affricates of Angami Naga: a reply to James A. Matisoff

Abstract

In a recent paper entitled "Stars, Moon, and Spirits: Bright Beings of the night in Sino-Tibetan" (1980), James A. Matisoff discusses the phonological status of the Angami Naga labiodental affricates and their ultimate importance in the wider context of Tibeto-Burman (TB) and Sino-Tibetan (ST) comparative reconstruction. Any paper, however modest its scope, dealing with the largest subgroup of TB, the approximately 60-80 Kuki-Naga (KN) languages, must be highly welcome because barely half a dozen serious scholarly works have appeared so far that significantly enhance our knowledge of KN. With the exception of languages like Tiddim Chin, Lushai, Tangkhul Naga and a few Southern Kuki languages, the whole field has been slumbering for the past 50 years or so.