Introduction

Kom and Aimol belong to the Kuki-Chin-Naga family within the Tibeto-Burman family of languages (Ethnologue, Burling, 2003). The classification of Kom and Aimol within the Kuki branch of Tibeto-Burman language reaches back to Grierson (1904), who has already observed that these two languages are closely related to the central Chin languages like Hmar, Pake, Mizo, Lushai, Chiru etc.

In the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.org), they are treated as part of the Northern group within Kuki-Chin. Burling (2003) also lists both Aimol and Kom as some of the varieties of Kuki-Chin spoken in Northeast India.

These two languages are spoken both in the hills and the plains of Manipur. Kom has been introduced in the schools of Manipur as a medium of instruction from Class I up to Class IX. Neither Kom nor Aimol have their own script. They use the Roman alphabet to write books and journals etc.

Kom and Aimol are recognised tribes of Manipur. They are settled mostly in the Churachandpur, Bishnupur and Chandel districts of Manipur. The population of Kom is 16,463 and Aimol is 2,643 (Indian Census, 2001). Kom and Aimol speakers can communicate with each other in their respective mother tongues. As for children, they use Manipuri or Meiteiron as the lingua franca for communication among themselves.

Numerals

A numeral is a word or phrase used to name a number. Numerals in Kom and Aimol can be studied in the following classification.