Mlabri language

Last updated
Mlabri
Yumbri
Native to Thailand, Laos
Native speakers
130 (2007) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mra
Glottolog mlab1235
ELP Mlabri
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Mlabri is a language spoken by the Mlabri people in the border area between Thailand and Laos.

Contents

It is usually classified as a Khmuic language, a subgroup of the Austroasiatic languages. Linguist Jørgen Rischel has studied the language and described its peculiarities in several works. He divides the language into three varieties: one spoken by a small group in Laos and previously called Yumbri, and two others spoken by larger groups in Thailand. They differ in intonation and in lexicon.

Although it is possible to count up to ten in Mlabri, only the numerals one and two may be used to modify a noun, and the word for 'two' has uses closer to 'pair' or 'couple' in English than a numeral.

Phonology

Mlabri distinguishes rounding in its back vowels. It does not have the register systems of some other Austroasiatic languages.

Front Back
unroundedrounded
i ɯ u
e ɤ o
ɛ ʌ ɔ
a

All vowels occur long and short. /a/ is fronted after palato-alveolar consonants, and may approach [ɛ]. There is also a very short vowel /ɪ/ that has limited distribution. Schwas occur in pre-tonic syllables, but may be epenthetic. There are several diphthongs.

Consonants include the two implosive stops /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, attested in words such as ɓuʔ 'slow' and ɗɤŋ 'can'. [2] These apparent implosive stops could be analyzed as pre-glottalized stops, as pre-glottalization is also a used for sonorants. Consonants also include voiceless sonorants, as in m̥ɛʔ 'new', n̥taʔ 'tail', ŋ̊uh 'sit', l̥ak '(there is) none', or w̥ep 'shoulder'. Arguably, these could be analyzed as a sequence of /h/ and a sonorant.

Initial consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Obstruent aspirated ~ s h
tenuis p t c k ʔ
voiced b d ɟ ɡ
glottalizedʔb ~ ɓ ʔd ~ ɗ
Nasal voiced m n ɲ ŋ
voiceless ɲ̥ ŋ̊
Sonorant voiced w l , r j , j
voiceless , ( )
glottalizedʔwʔj

/r̥/ is only attested in minor syllables.

Mlabri has a different set of consonants which occur at the ends of syllables, including aspirated sonorants /lʰ,rʰ,jʰ/.[ citation needed ][ are these voiceless or murmured? ] The second is a trill, and the third more post-alveolar than palatal. Other final consonants are /ptckʔmnɲŋhlrjw/

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thai language</span> Language spoken by Thai people

Thai, or Central Thai, is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai people and a vast majority of Thai Chinese. It is the sole official language of Thailand.

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are semivowels like and, nasal consonants like and, and liquid consonants like and. This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandawe language</span> Language isolate of central Tanzania

Sandawe is a language spoken by about 60,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma Region of Tanzania. Sandawe's use of click consonants, a rare feature shared with only two other languages of East Africa – Hadza and Dahalo, had been the basis of its classification as a member of the defunct Khoisan family of Southern Africa since Albert Drexel in the 1920s. Recent investigations however suggest that Sandawe may be related to the Khoe family regardless of the validity of Khoisan as a whole. A discussion of Sandawe's linguistic classification can be found in Sands (1998).

Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.

Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice. Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant for examples.

Dahalo is an endangered Cushitic language spoken by around 500–600 Dahalo people on the coast of Kenya, near the mouth of the Tana River. Dahalo is unusual among the world's languages in using all four airstream mechanisms found in human language: clicks, implosives, ejectives, and pulmonic consonants.

Khmu is the language of the Khmu people of the northern Laos region. It is also spoken in adjacent areas of Vietnam, Thailand and China. Khmu lends its name to the Khmuic branch of the Austroasiatic language family, the latter of which also includes Khmer and Vietnamese. Within Austroasiatic, Khmu is often cited as being most closely related to the Palaungic and Khasic languages. The name "Khmu" can also be seen romanized as Kmhmu, Khmu', Kammu, or Khamuk in various publications or alternatively referred to by the name of a local dialect.

The Khmuic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken mostly in northern Laos, as well as in neighboring northern Vietnam and southern Yunnan, China. Khmu is the only widely spoken language in the group.

Ngadha is an Austronesian language, one of six languages spoken in the central stretch of the Indonesian island of Flores. From west to east these languages are Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio, and Palu'e. These languages form the proposed Central Flores group of the Sumba–Flores languages, according to Blust (2009).

The Sikkimese language, also called Sikkimese, Bhutia, or Drenjongké, Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke and Denzongke, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman languages. It is spoken by the Bhutia in Sikkim, India and in parts of Province No. 1, Nepal. The Sikkimese people refer to their own language as Drendzongké and their homeland as Drendzong. Up until 1975 Sikkimese was not a written language. After gaining Indian Statehood the language was introduced as a school subject in Sikkim and the written language was developed.

This article discusses the phonological system of the Czech language.

Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor dialectal differences in sounds. The language has both monophthongs and diphthongs, and many consonants can be voiced or unvoiced.

The phonology of the Zuni language as spoken in the southwestern United States is described here. Phonology is a branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelabit language</span> Austronesian language spoken on Borneo

Kelabit is one of the most remote languages of Borneo, on the Sarawak–North Kalimantan border. It is spoken by one of the smallest ethnicities in Borneo, the Kelabit people.

Kensiu (Kensiw) is an Austro-asiatic language of the Jahaic subbranch. It is spoken by a small community of 300 in Yala Province in southern Thailand and also reportedly by a community of approximately 300 speakers in Western Malaysia in Perak and Kedah States. Speakers of this language are Negritos who are known as the Mani people or Maniq of Thailand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jah Hut language</span> Austroasiatic language spoken in Malaysia

Jah Hut is an Austroasiatic language spoken around the Krau river in peninsular Malaysia. The Jah Hut are one of the indigenous Orang Asli peoples.

Stieng is the language of the Stieng people of southern Vietnam and adjacent areas of Cambodia, and possibly Laos. Along with Chrau and Mnong, Stieng is classified as a language of the South Bahnaric grouping of the Mon–Khmer languages within the Austroasiatic language family. In the Austroasiatic scheme, the Bahnaric languages are often cited as being most closely related to the Khmer language.

Jru' is a Mon–Khmer language of the Bahnaric branch spoken in southern Laos. It is also known as "Loven", "Laven" or "Boloven" from the Laotian exonym Laven or Loven, which is derived from the Khmer name for the Boloven Plateau. The Jru' people engage in coffee and cardamom cultivation, as well as other agricultural activities.

Jedek is an Aslian language from the Austroasiatic family first reported in 2017. Jedek speakers describe themselves as ethnic Menriq or Batek to outsiders, but their language, although very closely related, is distinct from these languages.

References

  1. Mlabri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Baetscher, Kevin (2015). "Mlabri". The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. 2: 1003–1030.

Further reading