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Article published In:
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 42:1 (2019) ► pp.137–142

The origin and spread of Mizo gender suffixes *-a and *-i on personal names

| California State University Fullerton

This study presents a diachronic puzzle of the gender suffixes’ origin in Mizo personal names, -a for male and -i for female. It also provides a plausible sociolinguistic explanation for the fast spread of its use by the whole population, that is, the use of these gender suffixes was expedited as a result of the adoption by the well respected missionaries.

Keywords: etyma, gender suffixes, prestige form, Proto-Kuki-Chin, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, retroactive myth
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The gender suffixes -a and -i in Mizo
  • 3.The puzzle of the diachronic source of -a and -i gender suffixes
  • The spread of -a and -i
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 June 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.16019.bik
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