Paza in the Linguistic Ecology of Northern Laos

Approaches to Language and Culture

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Franz Boas argued for the central importance of language to an understanding of culture. Specifically, Boas noted that certain aspects of linguistic structure, such as grammatical categories, rarely become objects of conscious reflection. Because of this, he proposed, these aspects of language provide a window onto primary ethnological phenomena (or "fundamental ethnic ideas"; see Stocking 1966, Silverstein 1979). In contrast, aspects of custom and tradition more available to conscious reflection are subject to secondary explanation and reanalysis, and get caught up in higher-order subjective schemes of social evaluation (as, e.g., "high", "popular", "traditional", "noble" and so on, see Sapir 1924). In recent years, linguistic anthropologists have focused on differences in the degree to which cultural phenomena are available to conscious awareness, finding here not a reason to privilege some kinds of data over others but rather a central mechanism of cultural dynamism. In what follows, we explore these issues at the heart of the language/culture relationship and some of the associated complexities of current semiotic theory through a consideration of the language-culture nexus in two settings in mainland Southeast Asia: historical developments in twentieth century Vietnam and contemporary life in rural communities of lowland Laos. We evaluate the implications of these case studies for directions in linguistic anthropology broadly, as well as for research on language and culture in mainland Southeast Asia. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110726626/html

Journal of Research Institute, Topics in Middle Mekong Lingustics 3, 2022

The Duodenary Cycle is a method of reckoning time that is used widely in mainland Southeast Asia. In the upland areas, ethnic groups that have historically been in contact with speakers of Chinese and Tai languages commonly use a 12-day cycle for determining what livelihood and ritual activities should be done on which days. The terminology used in these cycles shows influence from different cultures and languages, but there has also been a significant degree of internally motivated innovation. In this paper we explore data from several Tibeto-Burman languages spoken along the Laos-China-Vietnam border area. While the linguistic influence of Tai and Chinese are predictably strong we find various strategies to localize the duodenary system, where native terms for the symbolic animal are incorporated. These processes are of interest in light of the history of the original duodenary systems, which were themselves a product of cultural and linguistic contact, and where symbolic and specific names for the days have been in flux.

2016

A common notion among those working in endangered language documentation and maintenance, is that most communities speaking small, endangered languages pattern in a similar way. Having spent most of our careers studying minority and endangered languages in the Americas, we the authors, came to share this notion. For example, we believed that preserving the language in the home domain was essential for its survival (Fishman, 1991). Another pattern we saw from the Americas was that literacy could have the effect of speeding up language shift (Fishman, 2002; Luykx, 2011). In 2013, we moved to Borneo and Thailand, respectively, and began studying minority languages there. There were several ways we gained access to information about Asian languages. (1) One of the writers spent almost three years immersed in one minority community, (2) Another writer supervised linguistic theses at a Thai university, (3) We conducted language surveys, and (4) We held sociolinguistic workshops involving ...

MANUSYA

There are some researches indicating the presence of Tai Yor or Lao Nyo or Nyo speakers in the Aranyaprathet district, Sa Keaw province of Thailand and in Banteay Meanchey province of Cambodia. This is surprising because as it is generally understood the Nyo people are predominantly located in Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom province and in the Kantharawichai district, Maha Sarakham province. In order to investigate this discrepancy in 2012 the Lao Nyo was studied by the author in Banteay Meanchey province and data were gathered on the phonological system and basic words of the so called Lao Nyo dialect. The objectives of this paper are first to prove that the Lao Nyo dialect in Banteay Meanchey is neither Nyo nor Yo, and secondly to investigate some of the reasons underlying the identification of this Tai dialect as Lao Nyo. There are four sets of evidence presented here 1) a comparison of the tone boxes between Nyo, Yo, Lao Nyo and Lao; 2) a comparison of the development of prot...

Journal of Lao Language, Vol 1, 2019

The ethnonym "Lao" is ancient and geographically widespread. Often scholars have assumed that the differing locations and ethnic referents of the term are random and not traceable to any specific group or ethnicity. In this paper, the various forms of the ethnonym are examined in a comparative and historical linguistic frame in order to show that the origins of the term derive from a common ancestor.

Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2002

In Three Tibeto-Burman languages of Vietnam (2004) I outlined the Vietnam locations and situations of three Northern Loloish languages-Phu Kha (Phù Lá), Xá Phó, and Lôlô. 1 In this paper I present data and analysis on the remaining TB groups of that country-the Côông, the Sila, the Lahu, and the Hani, all found in Lai Châu Province in the far northwest and all belonging to the Central and Southern sub-groupings of the Loloish language. Like the three Northern Loloish language, all these are found very near the border with China and all-except possibly Sila-are presumed to have ultimately come from the north. However, we are only beginning to understand the obviously complex language history that has led to many linguistic groups living in close proximity and the sequencing of migration and conflict that are woven into the intricate tapestry of M ng Te District. 2 Indeed, until now there has been very little known in general about these four languages aside from basic information about their home territory, numbers, and some cultural features. That is not to say that all these languages have been points of utter darkness. The Lahu and Hani languages of Thailand and China, for example, have been described and analyzed in great depth. The work of Matisoff 1973, 1978 is especially notable for Lahu, and Hansson 1989 and Li and Wang 1981 have published much on Hani. But information about the other two languages-the smaller groups, Côông and Sila-has been brief and incomplete. These places do not allow of a full statement about any of these languages, but I hope, nevertheless, to provide more details about all these languages and how they compare to language forms outside Vietnam, cf. also my website 3 for a tabulation of about 500 items taken from my field study of language of this area. In the following, I will first discuss Côông and Sila and then go on to Lahu and 1 The research reported on here has been sponsored by a 1995 grant NEH RT-21754-95 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the grants SBR 9511285 and SBR9729043 from the National Science Foundation to the author and Dr. Kenneth J. Gregerson all entitled "Languages of the Vietnam-China Borderlands". I wish also to acknowledge the assistance of Profs. Nguy n V n L i, Hoàng V n Ma, To V n Thang, who arranged and accompanied me on the field trips that led to the data and analysis here. Many thanks as well are due Pete Unseth, who spent many hours digitizing the data from my original tape recordings, and Tr n Thu n for help with some of the Vietnamese data. Most of all I wish to thanks Graham Thurgood who was able to unlock the system of tonal development in all of these languages. 2 Lai Châu province has the most complex linguistic situation of any place in Vietnam and much of that complexity is due to the number of groups in M ng Te. In addition to the Tibeto-Burman groups, one finds there White Thái farmers and the little studies Mon-Khmer grouping-M ng. 3 http://ling.uta.edu/~jerry/. 2. The Côông. The Côông people of M ng Te District live in five villages: Bo L ch (Can H Commune), N m Khao, N m P c (N m Khao Commune), Tác Ngá (M ng M Commune), and N m Kè (M ng Tong Commune). Their population was given as 1261 in the last official census 1989. The population is estimated to have reached 1560 by the year 2000 PV (1998:21). It is said that their ancestors originally came from China, but our informant, Mr. Lý V n Làng, about 55 years of age in June 1999, had no information about the time or source of this migration. Bradley (1977:68) states that the Côông probably fled China as a consequence of the Moslem uprisings in Yunnan Province during the 19 th century and the first decades of the 20 th century and then were resettled during the wars between the Burmese and Vietnamese into NW Vietnam. The Côông autonym is also a puzzlement. In EMPV (363) it states that the most widely used name is a toponym from one of their villages, Bo L ch, a White Thái designation meaning 'iron mine'. Thus the Côông refer to themselves in their own language as [sam 33 kho 33 (tsha 33 a 31)] 'iron mine people'. The [tsha 33 a 31 ] is used to designate 'people, group, ethnicity', such as [a 31 kha 33 tsha 33 a 31 ] 'Hani' and [za 33 z 33 tsha 33 a 31 ] 'Yao'. At N m Khao and N m P c the autonym [phui 33 a 31 ] is known but little used. It also resembles the name the Côông use for the Lahu [kha 55 ph i 33 ]. A number of people have also suggested the name Côông L Ma, which is said to refer to a place in China where they once lived. Bradley regards Côông to be a language closely related to Phunoi (1977:68, 1979, 1997), "In Vietnam, the Phunoi are called Côông, and speak a slightly different dialect…" Côông was first recorded by LeFèvre-Pontalis 1892, which we have not consulted. We, however, have been able to examine Bradley's word list. 4 In his description of Phunoi Bradley (1979:45-7) notes the existence of minor syllables, as the j in j-ba 33 'elephant', initial voiceless nasals /hm hn h hmj/, a voiceless lateral /hl/, and a voiceless palatal glide /hj/. Phunoi, moreover, has final consonants /-p-t-m-n/ and four tones described as high level, mid level, low level and low rising. The vowel nuclei are /i u e o ai a au/. Of the minor syllables, Bradley says (47) that the word for hand là also appears as a minor syllable [l ] in some compounds. 2.1. Distinctive features of Côông. The Côông of Vietnam has a high level tone (55), a mid-falling tone (31), and a 4 I was also able to listen to data recorded in the 70's in Vientiane, Laos by Jimmy G. Harris. There were about 1000 items in that list. Harris later trained this speaker how to write his language in a romanized script and how to organize a dictionary. 4. Lahu. There are three kinds of Lahu spoken in Vietnam: Yellow Lahu, Black Lahu, and White Lahu We were able to study only the Black Lahu of this area. The total Lahu population in 1989 was 5,319 and estimated by PV to have reached 6,600 by 2000. The Lahu have many names in M ng Te. The Black Lahu group often refer to themselves as Khucong or [khu 33 tsh 33 ]. They look down on their Yellow Lahu neighbors, calling them contemptuously [ne 53 tu 33 ] 'Jungle Spirits'. 6 According to the EMPV (354) the local White Thai majority term all the Lahu in M ng Te Xá Toong L ng, White Thai for 'Spirits of the Yellow Banana Leaves'. Other scornful exonyms are Xá Qu meaning 'Devil Savages'. In addition to these names the Lahu have distinctive monikers for each of their subgroups: (1) La H S or Yellow Lahu (living in the two communes Pa V S and Pa as well as in the villages of Là Pé, Nhu Tè, and Hóm Bô of the Ca L ng Commune, (2) La H Na or Black Lahu (living in the village of N m Phìn, as well as N m Khao, N m C u, Phìn H , N m X of Ca L ng commune), and (3) La H Phung or White Lahu (living often together with the Yellow Lahu in the villages of Xà H , Ma, Pha Bu, Pa and Kh Ma of Pa commune as well as Hà Xe of Ca L ng commune), It is reported that the Lahu originally came from the J npíng area of Yúnnán Province, China. 4.1. Distinctive features of Lahu. Since Lahu has been so exhaustively described in Matisoff 1973 and 1988 and Bradley 1978, I will dispense with sketching is features and simply note that it has the following inventory of initial consonants /p t t k q ph th t h kh qh b d g m n f h v j l/ and vowels /i u e o a /. The seven tones for Vietnam Black Lahu are 33, 35 53, 31 212, 53 and 31. 4.2. Comparative comments. The Lahu of M ng Te speak a language that differs some from the Black Lahu recorded in Matisoff 1988 and the Zàngmi ny y y n hé cíhu 1991 in many respects. These differences seem focused mostly in the lexical domain. One major difference is the variation of velar and uvular stops.

Brill Tibetan Studies Library 20. Brill, 2017

Sociohistorical Linguistics in Southeast Asia blends insights from sociolinguistics, descriptive linguistics and historical-comparative linguistics to shed new light on regional Tibeto-Burman language varieties and their relationships across spatial, temporal and cultural differences. The approach is inspired by leading Tibeto-Burmanist, David Bradley, to whom the book is dedicated. The volume includes twelve original research essays written by eleven Tibeto-Burmanists drawing on first-hand field research in five countries to explore Tibeto-Burman languages descended from seven internal sub-branches. Following two introductory chapters, each contribution is focused on a specific Tibeto-Burman language or sub-branch, collectively contributing to the literature on language identification, language documentation, typological analysis, historical-comparative classification, linguistic theory, and language endangerment research with new analyses, state-of-the-art summaries and contemporary applications. [Note: pdf includes title pages and front matter only]

Language shift is the process by which a speech community in a contact situation gradually abandons one language in favor of another. Because the causal factors of language shift are largely social (Fishman 1991), languages, groups, and communities with diverse social situations can be expected to exhibit varying levels of language shift. This paper reports on the linguistic vitality of Miqie [ISO 639-3:yiq], an endangered Central Ngwi/Yi language of Yunnan, China, and identifies the social factors contributing to language shift. Findings from participant interviews in 11 village survey points show there are varying degrees of language endangerment, with intermarriage and access to a major road as primary indicators of shift. This paper evaluates different tools for assessing linguistic vitality and uses the Language Endangerment Index (Lee & Van Way in press) to assess Miqie language endangerment at the village level. Language shift information is essential in the description and documentation of a language, especially because the contexts in which the language is spoken may disappear faster than the language itself.

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2020

This collection of 10 articles is from the conference "The Anthropology of Language in Mainland Southeast Asia", held August 19 and 20, 2019 at the University of Sydney.

in The Journal of Lao Studies, Special Issue 2, 2015, pp. 54-76

Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 2023

Background: Northern Khmer speakers in five villages in Chuea Phloeng sub-district, Prasat district, Surin province, Thailand, are notable for being a Northern Khmer descendant community who have a long-standing and close relationship with the surrounding Takaw forest. This study examines the relationship between Northern Khmer speakers and the Takaw forest as documented ethnobotanical knowledge and vocabulary maintenance. The data collection was carried out among participants of two age groups, using quantitative and qualitative methods: a basic vocabulary test, an ethnobotanical knowledge test, which is based on the Traditional Knowledge and Language Vitality Index , and an interview to collect Northern Khmer basic vocabulary and plant names and their associated ethnobotanical knowledge. The statistical analysis shows a significant weak correlation, suggesting that Northern Khmer speakers who have a high level of language proficiency are likely to have ethnobotanical knowledge at a high level. The transmission of knowledge typically starts in childhood, and family members serve as a primary source of knowledge. Children learn about plants and the forest through family activities that they engage in daily, taught by adults generally using the Northern Khmer language. Conclusions: The villagers' experience with wild plants of the Takaw forest has been accumulated and passed down between generations through the use of the Northern Khmer language. This study contributes to a better understanding of how ethnobotanical knowledge is encoded in a language, and how both knowledge and language can be maintained for future generations.

Canadian Literature, no. 242, 2020, pp. 134-137.

Published as part of "small, deferred: On Souvankham Thammavongsa's Writing." Co-authored by Vinh Nguyen, Beth Follett, Anjula Gogia, Bryan Thao Worra, Candida Rifkind, Joanne Leow, Warren Heiti, Guy Beauregard, Denise Cruz, Y-Dang Troeung, and Souvankham Thammavongsa.

The Highlander, Volume 1, Issue 1, Winter 2019, 19–25

2018

The Akha language is a member of the Akoid languages of the Lolo (Yipho)-Burmese branch of Tibeto-Burman linguistic stock (Bradley 1997). It is spoken widely across Mainland Southeast Asia, in areas such as Yunnan Province of China,