The Pacoh language is a member of the Katuic language group, a part of the Eastern [1] Mon–Khmer linguistic branch. Most Pacoh speakers live in central Laos and central Vietnam.[2] Pacoh is undergoing substantial change, influenced by the Vietnamese.[3]
| Pacoh | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Laos, Vietnam |
| Ethnicity | Pacoh |
Native speakers | 32,000 (2002–2005)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pac |
| Glottolog | paco1243 |
Alternative names are Paco, Pokoh, Bo River Van Kieu. Its dialects are Pahi (Ba-Hi). They are officially classified by the Vietnamese government as Ta'Oi (Tà Ôi) people.
Phonology
editVowels (Sidwell 2003):
Pacoh has six vowel qualities, all of which occur long and short, in modal and creaky voice. Creaky vowels are lowered compared to modally voiced vowels. There are three diphthongs which also occur modal and creaky. Unlike other languages in the area, vowel phonation does not seem to have originated in the phonation of preceding consonants.
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High modal | i iː | ɨ ɨː | u uː |
| Low modal | e eː | ə əː | o oː |
| High creaky | ḛ ḛː | ə̰ ə̰ː | o̰ o̰ː |
| Low creaky | ɛ̰ ɛ̰ː | a̰ a̰ː | ɔ̰ ɔ̰ː |
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modal | iə | ɨə | uə |
| Creaky | ḛa | ə̰a | o̰a |
Grammar
edit| 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | dual | plural | singular | dual | plural | singular | dual | plural | |
| General | kɨ: | maj | dɔ: | ɲaŋ | ʔiɲa: | ʔaɲa: | hɛ: | ʔipɛ: | ʔapɛ: |
| Genitive | ʔɳkɨ: | ʔmmaj | ʔndɔ: | ʔɲɲaŋ | ʔndɔ:-ʔiɲa: | ʔndɔ:-ʔaɲa: | ʔŋhɛ: | ʔndɔ:-ʔipɛ: | ʔndɔ:-ʔapɛ: |
| Dative | ʔakɨ: | ʔamaj | ʔadɔ: | ʔaɲaŋ | ʔadɔ:-ʔiɲa: | ʔadɔ:-ʔaɲa: | ʔahɛ: | ʔadɔ:-ʔipɛ: | ʔadɔ:-ʔapɛ: |
Pacoh is an analytic SVO language with six parts of speech—including verbs, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, and sentence particles, all variably depend on each other in syntactic relationship, and five important grammatical cases—nominative, accusative, dative, locative, predicative. There are no markers for the nominative and accusative cases, and word order is relied on to distinguish them instead.
Jǫ:n
give
ʔakɨ:
DAT-1SG
ʃac
book
maj
2SG
"Give me your book."
dɔ:
NOM-1PL
pe:ŋ
shoot
ʔa-ceʔ
ACC-bird
daŋ
means
tumiəŋ
crossbow
"I shot the bird with crossbow."
The predicative case marks a noun dependent on noun, usually common nouns, extension relator nouns, and demonstrative nouns.
ʔnkǫ:ŋ
man
ʔən
that
ʔiəw
old
ʔnkoh
that-PRED
"That old man."
References
edit- ^ Pacoh at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Table 41: Austroasiatic languages. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
- ^ Mark J. Alves. "A grammar of Pacoh: A Mon–Khmer language of the central highlands of Vietnam". Pacific Linguistics Publishers. Archived from the original on 2007-08-29. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
Further reading
edit- Alves, M. J. (2006). "A grammar of Pacoh: a Mon–Khmer language of the central highlands of Vietnam". Pacific linguistics, 580. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University. ISBN 0-85883-568-1
- Watson, Richard L. (1964). "Pacoh Phonemes". Mon-Khmer Studies.