Mruic languages
Mruic or Mru–Hkongso is a small group of Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of two poorly attested languages, Mru and Anu-Hkongso. Their relationship within Sino-Tibetan is unclear.
Peterson & Wright proposed the name Mru–Hkongso.Classification
classifies Mru as part of the Northeast Indian areal group, a linkage that includes Tani, Deng, "Kuki-Chin–Naga", Meithei, Mikir, and Sal.
On the other hand, Bradley classifies Mru as part of Lolo-Burmese, based on Löffler's observations that Mru shares many phonological and lexical resemblances with Lolo-Burmese.
The Mru-Hkongso group was first proposed by Peterson & Wright, who do not consider it to be a subgroup of Lolo-Burmese.
Peterson notes that Mru and Hkongso do not have any features characteristic of Kuki-Chin languages that have been identified by VanBik, including lack of the sound change Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s > tʰ, lack of Kuki-Chin-type verb stem alternation, and lack of the singular first person pronoun *kaj which is present in most Kuki-Chin languages.
Peterson considers Mru-Hkongso to be a separate Tibeto-Burman branch, and notes the following similarities between Mru-Hkongso and Bodo–Garo languages.
- Bodo–Garo *=kho 'accusative'; Mru =k 'accusative'
- Bodo–Garo *=ba ‘also’; Mru-Hkongso =pö ‘also’
- Bodo–Garo *–ram 'locative nominalizer'; Mru –ram 'locative nominalizer'
- Bodo–Garo *=gVn 'future marker'; Mru –köm ~ kön 'irrealis marker'
- Bodo–Garo *–ha 'past marker'; Mru –khaj ~ -hö 'past marker'
- Bodo–Garo *–dV 'imperative marker'; Mru –diö 'imperative marker'
Peterson considers the similarities with Bodo–Garo to be due to the possible early split of Mruic from a Tibeto-Burman branch that included Bodo–Garo.Grammar
Both Mru and Hkongso display SVO order instead of the SOV word order typical of most Tibeto-Burman languages. Bai, Sinitic, and Karenic are the only other Sino-Tibetan language branches with primarily verb-medial word order.
