Opening the text
The Lhota Nagas

John Stuart Mill · en
O Hutton Sahib, young man of a foreign race,
    What is that letter which has come for you from abroad?
    O Hutton Sahib, young man of a foreign race,
    The letter you got so quickly
    Is it to call us to go to the German War?
    Look how in every village
    The bucks plan each with his friend to go.
    Oh, we will go to the German War.
    Let not a word of the letter fall fruitless.
    We men of the Mountains, we the bucks
    Have routed the enemies of the Sahib.
    Let us return quickly, us the braves of the Mountains.
    Let our women-folk at home hear the news,
    Let them hear that we have routed the enemies of the Sahib.
    We braves of the Mountains are coming back.
    Let our women-folk at home hear the news.
    Let them meet us with drinks of “madhu.”
    Bid them come and meet us on the road.
    Tell our two [221] Sahibs to send word to them.
    They have given us money as countless as the grains of ash on the
                                                                [hearth
    But he who gives thought to it,
    Only he will keep his money.








PART VI

LANGUAGE


Sir George Grierson, in his Linguistic Survey of India, places [222]
the Lhota language in the central sub-group of Naga languages, together
with Ao, Tangsa, [223] Thukumi [224] and Yachumi. The Lhotas have no
script of their own, though they have a tradition that they once
possessed skins with writing on them. Being hungry they ate the skins
and have been illiterate savages ever since. [225]

The grammar of the language has been described by Dr. W. G. Witter of
the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in his Outline Grammar of
the Lhota Naga Language. I propose to confine myself, therefore, to a
brief note founded on that work.

There are two dialects, the Liye and Ndrung, spoken north and south of
the Doyang respectively, which differ but little save in the
pronunciation of certain consonants. For example, Liye tiing (seven)
becomes kiing in Ndrung; similarly otyak (basket) becomes okyak; otyam
(needle) becomes opyam, and so on.




Vowels.

[Alphabet.]

    A     long as in “father.”
    A     short as u in “but.”
    E     long as a in “pay.”
    E     short as e in “then.”
    I     long as in “machine.”
    I     short, a little longer than the i in “sin.”
    O     long as in “bone.”
    O     short as in French “dot.”
    U     long as in oo in “fool.”
    U     short as in “pull.”
    Ü     as in “turn.”

Only syllables which are strongly long or short have been so marked.




Diphthongs.

There are no true diphthongs. The separate sounds of vowels which occur
together can just be distinguished, though often very faintly.




Consonants.