Learn the languages of Nagaland
Written guides to three low-resource languages that have very little else written about them online. Start wherever matches what you are trying to do.
If you are starting from zero
Nagamese is the practical entry point. It is the language you will actually use in Nagaland, and it is by a distance the easiest of the three: no tones, no verb agreement, no case inflection.
- Nagamese: the creole that holds Nagaland together — what it is, where it came from, and a five-minute grammar sketch.
- 80 Nagamese phrases for actually getting around — organised by situation.
- Nagamese grammar: a practical guide — the full system, with glossed examples.
Language guides
| Language | Overview | Grammar |
|---|---|---|
| Nagamese | Language guide | Grammar guide |
| Ao (Chungli) | Language guide | Grammar guide |
| Sema (Sümi) | Language guide | Grammar guide |
Across the three languages
- How to greet someone in Nagamese, Ao and Sümi — the first thirty seconds of a conversation, and the formality rule that matters most.
- Counting in Nagamese, Ao and Sümi — numerals side by side, and what the shared forms reveal.
- Pronouncing Naga languages —
ü, Ao tones, Sümi uvulars, and why spelling varies. - Nagamese and Assamese: how close are they really? — same words, different grammar.
Nagaland itself
- Nagaland: the land behind the languages — geography, history, wildlife and festivals.
- The Naga communities and their languages — who speaks what, and where.
- The Hornbill Festival: what to expect, and what to say — logistics plus phrases.
Tools on this site
- Translator — English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Manipuri and Nepali to and from Nagamese, Ao and Sümi, with voice input and audio output.
- NagaChat — conversation practice with explanations, 50 free messages a day.
- Phrasebook — searchable, categorised, copy-to-clipboard.
- Contribute — add a contributed phrase or correct a translation.
How the translations are produced, and what their limits are, is described in how NagaTranslate works.