Diphthongs in Kanashi

Abstract

Kanashi is identified as a Tibeto-Burman language of Sino-Tibetan language family. The language has been classified as a Kinauri language belonging to West-Himalayish group of Tibeto-Kanauri branch of Tibeto-Burman group. Kanashi has been referred by UNESCO as definitely endangered. Retrospective literature survey reveals that the language is yet to be documented properly. Therefore as a part of language documentation the phonological studies of Kanashi have been undertaken. The study of diphthongs of the language has been considered in the present paper. Diphthongs are the phonological segments where two vowels form clusters to form a single syllable. The data of the present paper has been collected from Kanashi native speakers during field investigation in Malana village of Himachal Pradesh. IPA has been used for data collection.