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Mizo
Mizo ṭawngCategory:Articles containing Lushai-language text or Duhlian ṭawngCategory:Articles containing Lushai-language text
Pronunciation	[mi.zɔ t͡ɾɔŋ]Category:Pages with Lushai IPA
Native to	India (Mizoram, Manipur,Tripura) Myanmar (Chin State and Sagaing Region) Bangladesh (Chittagong Hill Tracts)
Ethnicity	Mizo
Native speakers	1,000,000+[a] (2011–2022)[1][2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Central Tibeto-Burman (?) Kuki-Chin-Naga Kuki-Chin Central Mizo
Early forms	Proto-Kuki Chin Central Kuki-Chin Mizo language
Writing system	Latin (Mizo alphabet)[3][4] Bengali-Assamese script[3]
Official status
Official language in	Mizoram (India)
Recognised minority language in	Manipur Tripura
Regulated by	Mizo Language Development Board
Language codes
ISO 639-2	lus
ISO 639-3	lus
Glottolog	lush1249
Linguasphere	73-DCA-aCategory:Language articles with Linguasphere code
Regions where Mizo is educational, and official   Regions where Mizo is educational, but not official   Regions where Mizo is not official and not educational   Regions with significant Mizo speakers, and where Mizo is a working language
Mizo is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Mizo also known as Duhlián ṭawngCategory:Articles containing Lushai-language text is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Mizoram, where it is the official language and lingua franca.^[5] It is the mother tongue of the Mizo people and some members of the Mizo diaspora. Other than Mizoram, it is also spoken in Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, and Assam states of India, Sagaing Region and Chin State in Myanmar, and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is mainly based on the Lusei dialect but it has also derived many words from its surrounding Mizo clans such as Hmar, Pawi, etc.^[6]

The language is also known as Duhlian and Lushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among the Mizo people to be encountered by the British in the course of their colonial expansion.^[7]

Classification

Mizo is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family.^[8] Most linguist scholars classify Mizo as a part of the Central Kuki-Chin languages.^[9][10] In Mizo, the Kuki-Chin languages are recognised as Zohnahthlâk ṭawngho/Mizo ṭawnghoCategory:Articles containing Lushai-language text.^[11] Within the central Kuki-Chin group, VanBik places it in the North Central group with other neighbouring languages such as Laiholh and Maraic.^[12] Other scholars, such as Schafer, classified it in the Kukish section of Burmese.^[10] Paul K. Benedict classified it under Central-Kuki under the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch.^[10][13]

Phonology

Grammar

Writing system

The Mizo alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet and has 25 letters. A written script for Lushai was created in 1874 by Thomas Herbert Lwein.^[20]

In its current form, it was devised by the first Christian missionaries of Mizoram, J. H. Lorrain and F. W. Savidge,^[21] based on the Hunterian system of transliteration.

A circumflex ^ was later added to the vowels to indicate long vowels, viz., Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û, which were insufficient to fully express Mizo tone. Recently,Category:All articles with vague or ambiguous timeCategory:Vague or ambiguous time from February 2012^[when?] a leading newspaper in Mizoram, Vanglaini, the magazine Kristian Ṭhalai, and other publishers began using Á, À, Ä, É, È, Ë, Í, Ì, Ï, Ó, Ò, Ö, Ú, Ù, Ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have.^[22][23]

Sample texts

The following is a sample text in Mizo of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:^[24]

Mizo: Mi zawng zawng hi zalèna piang kan ni a, zahawmna leh dikna chanvoah intluk tláng vek kan ni. Chhia leh ṭha hriatna fím neia siam kan nih avangin kan mihring puite chungah inunauna thinlung kan pu tlat tur a ni.Category:Articles containing Lushai-language text

English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.Category:Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text

Literature

Mizo has a thriving literature, which has both written and oral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century.^[25]

The Mizoram Press Information Bureau lists some twenty Mizo daily newspapers just in Aizawl city, as of March 2013.^[26]

See also

• Mizo name
• Mizo honorifics

Notes

References

Sources

• Benedict, Paul K. (1972). Sino-Tibetan: A Conspectus (PDF). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08175-7.
• Chhangte, Lalnunthangi (1986). A preliminary grammar of the Mizo language (PDF). Michigan: University Micofilms International. Retrieved 27 October 2025.
• VanBik, Kenneth (2009). Proto-Kuki-Chin: A Reconstructed Ancestor of the Kuki-Chin Languages (PDF). California: University of California. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-944613-47-4. Retrieved 5 July 2025.
• K. S. Singh: 1995, People of India-Mizoram, Volume XXXIII, Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta.
• Grierson, G. A. (Ed.) (1904b). Tibeto-Burman Family: Specimens of the Kuki-Chin and Burma Groups, Volume III Part III of Linguistic Survey of India. Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta.
• Grierson, G. A: 1995, Languages of North-Eastern India, Gian Publishing House, New Delhi.
• Lunghnema, V., Mizo chanchin (B.C. 300 aṭanga 1929 A.D.), 1993.
• Zoramdinthara, Dr., Mizo Fiction: Emergence and Development. Ruby Press & Co.(New Delhi). 2013. ISBN 978-93-82395-16-4

External links

Mizo language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Lorrain, J. Herbert (James Herbert) Dictionary of the Lushai language. Calcutta : Asiatic Society, 1940 (Bibliotheca Indica, 261).
• Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus database
• Mizoram.nic.in – official website of Mizoram.
• Mizo Language Resource collection of Mizo language documentation in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive