Bugun, also known as Khowa, is an oral, Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan) language spoken in West Kameng district of the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh in India. The 2011 Census Report of India indicates that 1434 individuals are speakers of Bugun. The Bugun community is primarily engaged in agriculture and other allied occupations. While Bugun continues to be their mother tongue, the emergence of Arunachali Hindi – a lingua franca – has affected not only the linguistic practices, but also the cultural traditions of the community (Barbora, 2025).
Bugun, along with five other languages spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, which include Khispi, Duhumbi, Sartang, Sherdukpen, and Puroik, are grouped as Kho-bwa or Kamengic languages, as proposed by George van Driem. Although there is a high geographic proximity of Bugun with many other Kho-bwa languages, the lexical similarity and mutual intelligibility between these languages are rather low. Bugun and Puroik varieties are slightly closer to each other than to other Western Kho-bwa varieties (Lieberherr & Bodt, 2017).
The phonological system of Bugun displays notable similarities with the phonologies of other languages in its geographic vicinity. It is likely to have an eight-vowel phonemic inventory, comprising front vowels (/i/, /e/), a central vowel (/a/, /ɨ/, /ə/), and back vowels (/u/, /o/, /ɔ/) (Singha & Krishna, 2024). These can be nasalised but may not be contrastive. The language substantially features consonant clusters and nasalised vowels, with a limited tonal system, likely distinguishing only between level and rising tones. While semi-vowels are employed as syllable codas, vowel-initiated morphemes are uncommon. (Blench, 2018). Additionally, Bugun exhibits a high degree of derivational, as well as inflectional morphological productivity (Dondrup, 1990).
Bugun possesses a unique feature of nasal pre-glottalisation, wherein pulmonic airflow is interrupted by a closure of the glottis, thereby creating a distinct gap between the articulation of the previous sound and the articulation of the nasal (Courtland, 2013). Some of the phonetic cues to identify the occurrence of pre-glottalisation include near-silence or the absence of sound waves, stoppage of the pulmonic airflow, and a spike in the articulatory volume after the glottal stop. The identification of word-initial pre-glottalisation can be identified through the delay in the voicing caused due to the closed glottis. Although any typological or genealogical relationship is unlikely, Bugun’s characteristic nasal pre-glottalisation can be observed word-initially in the Sui language spoken in China.
The data in this dictionary is collected through in-person interviews with fluent Bugun speakers - Kombeng Katiram Maspu, Kirang Norbu Maspu, and Jimbu Murphew.
Works Cited
Barbora, M. (2025). Bugun: An Endangered Language and Community of Arunachal Pradesh, India. In: Dash, N.S., Arulmozi, S., Ramesh, N. (eds) Handbook on Endangered South Asian and Southeast Asian Languages. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80752-7_13
Blench, R. (2018). Introduction to Bugun, Preliminary draft. https://rogerblench.info/Language/NEI/Kamengic/Bugun/Language/Bugun language overview.pdf
Courtland, M. (2013). Let Buguns be Buguns: A Preliminary Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology of the Bugun Language. https://www.academia.edu/64371906/Let_Buguns_be_Buguns_A_Preliminary_Phonetics_Phonology_and_Morphology_of_the_Bugun_Language
Dondrup, Rinchin. (1990). Bugun language guide. Itanagar: Directorate of Research, Government of Arunachal Pradesh.
George van Driem. (2001). Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
Government of India. (2011). ST-15: Scheduled tribe by mother tongue (for each tribe separately) (State/UT level), Arunachal Pradesh - 2011. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/12544#:\~:text=India - ST-15: Scheduled,level)%2C Arunachal Pradesh - 2011
Lieberherr, I., & Bodt, T. (2017). Sub-grouping Kho-bwa based on shared core vocabulary. Himalayan Linguistics, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.5070/H916232254
Singha, Aman Kumar & Krishna B. (2024). A Phonetic and Phonological Sketch of Bugun Vowels. Presented at the 27th Himalayan Languages Symposium at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
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Note: This section on Bugun was created by Living Tongues intern Devika Menon in 2025, under the supervision of Greg Anderson and Anna Luisa Daigneault.