Proto-Karenic language

Last updated
Proto-Karenic
Proto-Karen
Reconstruction of Karenic languages
Reconstructed
ancestor

Proto-Karenic or Proto-Karen is the reconstructed ancestor of the Karenic languages.

Contents

Reconstruction

The foundation of the reconstruction of Proto-Karen was laid by André-Georges Haudricourt in 1946, with revisions in 1953 and 1975. Haudricourt applied the comparative method to forms from two Karen languages, Pwo and Sgaw, from A Comparative Dictionary of the Pwo-Karen Dialect (1922) by W. C. B. Purser and Saya Tun Aung. Each of these languages has six tones, four in open syllables and two in checked syllables (those ending in a glottal stop). By comparing the lexical incidence of these tones, Haudricourt established eight correspondence sets, later labelled I to VIII by Gordon Luce, six in open syllables and two in checked syllables. The two languages had similar inventories of initial consonants, distinguishing aspirated, unaspirated and implosive stops and having only voiced sonorants. Implosives and sonorants were aligned between the two languages, but aspirated and unaspirated stops yielded three correspondence sets. Moreover, the initial correspondence sets occurred only with certain tone correspondence sets, as follows: [1] [2] [3]

Tone and initial correspondences between Pwo and Sgaw Karen
Initials (illustrated with bilabials)Tones
*A (modal)*B < **-s*B' < **-ʔ*D < **-p/t/k
pʰ:pʰ < *voiceless aspirated stop1h:1h (III)2h:2h (VI)2h:1h (V)3h:3h (VIII)
m:m < *voiceless sonorant
p:p < *voiceless unaspirated stop1b:1h (II)
ɓ:ɓ < *implosive stop
pʰ:p < *voiced stop1b:1b (I)2b:2b (IV)3b:3b (VII)
m:m < *voiced sonorant

This fits a common pattern in languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, including Tai languages, Hmong-Mien languages, Vietnamese and varieties of Chinese, in which a four-tone system, reflecting earlier final segments, develops a register distinction conditioned by the manner of the initial, leading to a tone split. The varying treatment of the first tone is also found in Tai and Chinese languages. [4] [5] Haudricourt's reconstruction was further supported by subsequent reporting that voiced stops and voiceless nasals are retained by other Karen languages, such as Geba. [6] Manson gave a sample of diagnostic words for use during field elicitation to classify Karenic languages: [7]

Diagnostic words for proto-Karen tone and initial categories (Manson 2009) [7]
Initial consonantTone class
*A*B*B′*D [lower-alpha 1]
Aspirated stops,
voiceless sonorants
1 (III)

water [*tʰi]
branch [*pʰaŋ]
flower [*pʰɔ]
chicken [*sʰan]
sleep [*m̥i]
die [*tʰi]

4 (VI)

star [*sʰa]
leaf [*l̥a]
fingernail [*m̥i]
fire [*m̥e]
give [*pʰe]
bitter [*kʰa]

7 (Va)

bone [*kʰri]
child [*pʰo]
right [*tʰwe]
spicy [*hɛ]
take [*pʰi]
pus [*pʰi/mi]

10 (VIII)

sky [*m̥oʔ]
iron [*tʰaʔ]
pig [*tʰɔʔ]
skin/bark [*pʰeʔ]
shoot (v.) [*kʰaʔ]
dark [*kʰeʔ/kʰuʔ]

Voiceless stops,
glottalised consonants
2 (II)

silver [*rɔn]
ginger [*ʔeŋ]
rabbit [*tɛ]
navel [*te]
spear [*pan]
white [*pwa]

5 (VIa)

egg [*ti]
cheek [*pu]
liver [*sɨn]
eat [*ʔam]
left [*se]
be at, exist [*ʔɔ]

8 (V)

paddy [*pɨ]
blow/howl [*ʔu]
head [*klo]
hand [*su]
breathe [*sa]
many [*ʔa]

11 (VIIIa)

alcohol [*siʔ]
wing [*teʔ]
heart [*saʔ]
call/shout [*kaʔ]
near [*pɔʔ]

Voiced stops
and sonorants
3 (I)

nest [*bwe]
tongue [*ble]
person [*bra]
name [*min]
drunk [*mun]
red [*le]

6 (IV)

sun [*mɤ]
stone [*loŋ]
snake [*ru]
arrow [*bla]
old [humans] [*bra]
hot [*go]

12 (VII)

monkey [*zoʔ]
eye/face [*meʔ]
brain [*nɔʔ]
intestines [*breʔ]
rib [*rɤʔ]
deep [*jɔʔ]

Haudricourt originally viewed the correspondence set V as irregular, and so reconstructed included only the three proto-tones *A, *B and *D. He added the proto-tone *B' in his 1975 revision. [8] [9] [10] Haudricourt's *B' class has been accepted by most modern workers on Karen, but is not included by Luangthongkum. [11] This class is not distinguished after originally voiced initials, but a similar merger is common in Chinese varieties. [12] Correspondence class V is not reflected as a distinct class in any modern Karen language, being merged with *A in Sgaw and Pa'O, with *B in Pwo, with *D in Kayan, Kayaw and Kaya, and with both B* and D* in Bwe-Gaba. [13] Luangthongkum has suggested that the words in class V might reflect an earlier final segment, a view that Haudricourt had also expressed. [11]

Phonology

The phonology of Proto-Karen according to Theraphan Luangthongkum (2019): [14]

Onsets

Initial consonants [15]
BilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasalsvoiceless*hm (m̥)*hn (n̥)*hɲ (ɲ̥)*hŋ (ŋ̥)
glottalised*ʔn
voiced*m*n
Stopsvoiceless aspirated*ph*th*ch*kh
voiceless unaspirated*p*t*c*k
glottal and glottalised*ʔb (ɓ)*ʔd (ɗ)
voiced*b*d*g
Fricativesvoiceless*s*h
Approximantsvoiceless*hw (w̥)*hl (l̥)
glottalised*ʔw*ʔl*ʔj
voiced*w*l*j
Rhoticvoiceless*hr (r̥)
voiced*r

In comparison with Haudricourt's original reconstruction, Luangthongkum has dropped *x and *ɣ, and added *ʔn, *ʔw, *ʔl, *ʔj and *hr. [15] [16]

Consonant clusters [15]
*Cw-*Cl-*Cr-*Crw-*Cj-
*hnw*hrw
*mw*ŋw*ml*ŋj
*ʔnw
*phw*thw*chw*khw*phl*khl*phr*thr*chr*khr*khrw
*pw*cw*kw*pl*kl*pr*tr*pj*chj*kj
*dw*gw*bl*gl*br*gr
*ʔbw*ʔdw*ʔbl
*sw*sl*sr
*rj

Rhymes

Only Pa'O has a full set of nasal and stop codas, though many occurrences of -p, -t or -k are found in loans from Shan or Pali. Other Karen languages may have nasalized vowels instead of nasal codas, and only glottal stop codas. Some have only open rhymes. [17]

Proto-Karenic rhymes [18]
PureGlide codaNasal codaStop coda
Front
vowel
*-i*-im*-in*-iŋ*-iʔ*-it*-ik
*-e*-ej*-eŋ*-eN*-eʔ*-ek
*-ɛ*-ɛj*-ɛm*-ɛn*-ɛŋ*-ɛN*-ɛʔ
Central
vowel
*-ɨ*-ɨm*-ɨn*-ɨŋ*-ɨN
*-ə*-əm*-əŋ*-əN*-əʔ
*-a*-aj*-aw*-am*-aŋ*-aN*-aʔ*-at
Back
vowel
*-u*-un*-uŋ*-uN*-uʔ*-uk
*-o*-ow*-om*-oŋ*-oʔ*-ot*-ok
*-ɔ*-ɔŋ*-ɔN*-ɔʔ*-ɔt

Here *-N represents an indeterminate nasal (*-m, *-n or *-ŋ). [18]

Tones

Most linguists accept Haudricourt's revised reconstruction with three proto-tones *A (modal), *B and *B' in open syllables, with checked syllables forming a separate category *D. [11] However, Luangthongkum accepts only *A, *B and *D. [18]

Sound changes and reflexes

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman to Proto-Karenic

Theraphan Luangthongkum (2014) lists the following sound changes that had taken place during the transition from Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB; James Matisoff's reconstruction) to Proto-Karenic (PK; Luangthongkum's own reconstruction). [19]

From Proto-Karenic to modern languages

Manson (2011) lists phonological innovations for each of his four primary subgroups of the Karen language branch as follows. [20]

Karen

See also

Notes

  1. The checked syllable class, designated *D by Luangthongkum following convention in Tai and other MSEA languages, was labelled as *C by Manson.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sino-Tibetan languages</span> Large language family of Asia

Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Sinitic languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese and the Tibetic languages. Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Most of these have small speech communities in remote mountain areas, and as such are poorly documented.

A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. Separating the checked tone allows -p, -t, and -k to be treated as allophones of -m, -n, and -ng, respectively, since they are in complementary distribution. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones. Because of the origin of tone in Chinese, number of tones found in such syllables is smaller than the number of tones in other syllables. Chinese phonetics have traditionally counted them separately.

In historical linguistics, transphonologization is a type of sound change whereby a phonemic contrast that used to involve a certain feature X evolves in such a way that the contrast is preserved, yet becomes associated with a different feature Y.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karenic languages</span> Language family

The Karen or Karenic languages are tonal languages spoken by some 4.5 million Karen people. They are of unclear affiliation within the Sino-Tibetan languages. The Karen languages are written using the Karen script. The three main branches are Sgaw, Pwo and Pa'O. Karenni and Kayan are a branch of Karen languages. They are unusual among the Sino-Tibetan languages in having a subject–verb–object word order; other than Karen, Bai and the Chinese languages, Sino-Tibetan languages have a subject–object–verb order. This is likely due to influence from neighboring Mon and Tai languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Keith Sprigg</span>

Richard Keith Sprigg was a British linguist who specialised in the phonology of Asian languages. Sprigg was educated under J. R. Firth and was a member of the first generation of professional British linguists. Also as a consequence Sprigg was an advocate of the prosodic phonological method of Firth. Sprigg worked on several Tibeto-Burman languages including Lepcha, and various Tibetan dialects. He taught for many years at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and retired to Kalimpong, West Bengal, India with his wife Ray, granddaughter of David Macdonald the author of The Land of the Lama and 20 Years in Tibet, until her death.

Akha is the language spoken by the Akha people of southern China, eastern Burma, northern Laos, and northern Thailand.

The Tangkhulic and Tangkhul languages are a group of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken mostly in northeastern Manipur, India. Conventionally classified as "Naga," they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are conservatively classified as an independent Tangkhul–Maring branch of Tibeto-Burman, pending further research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S'gaw Karen language</span> Sino-Tibetan language of Myanmar and Thailand

S’gaw, S'gaw Karen, or S’gaw K’Nyaw, commonly known as Karen, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the S'gaw Karen people of Myanmar and Thailand. A Karenic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, S'gaw Karen is spoken by over 2 million people in Tanintharyi Region, Ayeyarwady Region, Yangon Region, and Bago Region in Myanmar, and about 1 million in northern and western Thailand along the border near Kayin State. It is written using the S'gaw Karen alphabet, derived from the Burmese script, although a Latin-based script is also in use among the S'gaw Karen in northwestern Thailand.

Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language of all the Tai languages, including modern Lao, Shan, Tai Lü, Tai Dam, Ahom, Northern Thai, Standard Thai, Bouyei, and Zhuang. The Proto-Tai language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method.

Proto-Tibeto-Burman is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by James Matisoff. Several other researchers argue that the Tibeto-Burman languages sans Chinese do not constitute a monophyletic group within Sino-Tibetan, and therefore that Proto-Tibeto-Burman was the same language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Proto-Hmong–Mien (PHM), also known as Proto-Miao–Yao, is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hmong–Mien languages. Lower-level reconstructions include Proto-Hmongic and Proto-Mienic.

Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link words that were pronounced similarly at that time. The oldest surviving Chinese verse, in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), shows which words rhymed in that period. Scholars have compared these bodies of contemporary evidence with the much later Middle Chinese reading pronunciations listed in the Qieyun rime dictionary published in 601 AD, though this falls short of a phonemic analysis. Supplementary evidence has been drawn from cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages and in Min Chinese, which split off before the Middle Chinese period, Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, and early borrowings from and by neighbouring languages such as Hmong–Mien, Tai and Tocharian languages.

Manang, also called Manangba, Manange, Manang Ke, Nyishang, Nyishangte and Nyishangba, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal. Native speakers refer to the language as ŋyeshaŋ, meaning 'our language'. It is one of half a dozen languages of the Sino-Tibetan family. Manang and its most closely related languages are often written as TGTM in literature, referring to Tamang, Gurung, Thakali, and Manangba, due to the high degree of similarity in the linguistic characteristics of the languages. The language is unwritten and almost solely spoken within the Manang District, leading it to be classified as threatened, with the number of speakers continuing to decline. Suspected reasons for the decline include parents not passing down the language to their children, in order to allow for what they see as more advanced communication with other groups of people, and thus gain more opportunities. Due to the proximity of the district to Tibet, as well as various globally widespread languages being introduced into the area, use of the native language is declining in favor of new languages, which are perceived to aid in the advancement of the people and region.

Proto-Loloish is the reconstructed ancestor of the Loloish languages. Reconstructions include those of David Bradley (1979), James Matisoff (2003), and Ziwo Lama (2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area</span> Geolinguistic region sharing areal features such as tonality

The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien, Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar typological features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion. James Matisoff referred to this area as the "Sinosphere", contrasted with the "Indosphere", but viewed it as a zone of mutual influence in the ancient period.

Although Old Chinese is known from written records beginning around 1200 BC, the logographic script provides much more indirect and partial information about the pronunciation of the language than alphabetic systems used elsewhere. Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. The method introduced by Karlgren is unique, comparing categories implied by ancient rhyming practice and the structure of Chinese characters with descriptions in medieval rhyme dictionaries, though more recent approaches have also incorporated other kinds of evidence.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Sino-Tibetan language family and the common ancestor of all languages in it, most prominently the Chinese languages, the Tibetan language, Yi, Bai, Burmese, Karen, Tangut, and Naga. Paul K. Benedict (1972) placed a particular emphasis on Old Chinese, Classical Tibetan, Jingpho, Written Burmese, Garo, and Mizo in his discussion of Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Proto-Min is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese.

Taman is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in Htamanthi village in Homalin Township, Sagaing Region, northern Myanmar. It was documented in a list of 75 words in Brown (1911). Keisuke Huziwara (2016) discovered an elderly rememberer of Taman in Htamanthi who could remember some Taman phrases as well as a short song, but was not fluent in the Taman language. However, no fluent speakers of Taman remained in the area.

Blimaw is a Karenic language of Myanmar.

References

  1. Kato (2018), pp. 33, 35.
  2. Mazaudon (1977), pp. 5–7, 12–13.
  3. Weidert (1987), pp. 328–329, Chart 20.
  4. Kato (2018), p. 33.
  5. Mazaudon (1977), p. 7.
  6. Kato (2018), pp. 30, 32.
  7. 1 2 Manson (2009), p. 19.
  8. Kato (2018), pp. 33–35.
  9. Mazaudon (1977), p. 12–13.
  10. Weidert (1987), pp. 326–327.
  11. 1 2 3 Kato (2018), p. 36.
  12. Kato (2018), p. 35.
  13. Manson (2009), p. 16.
  14. Luangthongkum (2019), pp. xiii–xiv.
  15. 1 2 3 Luangthongkum (2019), p. xiii.
  16. Manson (2009), p. 11.
  17. Solnit (2013), pp. 2, 5, 16.
  18. 1 2 3 Luangthongkum (2019), p. xiv.
  19. Luangthongkum (2014), pp. 6–9.
  20. Manson (2011), p. 8.

Works cited

Further reading

Reconstructions

Vocabulary lists