Kadu or Kado (Kadu:
); is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Sal branch spoken in Sagaing Region, Myanmar by the Kadu people. Dialects are Settaw, Mawkhwin, and Mawteik [extinct], with 30,000 speakers total. Kadu is considered an endangered language, and is closely related to the Ganan and Sak languages.[2]
| Kadu | |
|---|---|
| Asak | |
| Native to | Myanmar |
| Region | Sagaing Region |
| Ethnicity | Kadu |
Native speakers | 30,000 (2007)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zkd |
| Glottolog | kadu1254 |
| ELP | Kadu |
Names
editAlternate names for Kadu listed in Ethnologue are Gadu, Kado, Kadu-Ganaan, Kantu, Kato, Kudo, Maw, Mawteik, Puteik, and Thet; the autonym is Asak.
Geographical distribution
editStatistics for Kadu-speaking villages are as follows:[1]
- Over 30 villages speaking the Mawteik dialect (nearly extinct)
- Over 30 villages speaking the Settaw dialect
- 5 villages speaking the Mawkhwin dialect
The speakers of the Kadu language live in Banmauk, Indaw, and Pinlebu, which are three townships in the Katha District, Sagaing Region, Myanmar. Among these three, Banmauk has the largest Kadu-speaking population and Pinlebu has the smallest Kadu-speaking population.[3] Many Kadu speakers have shifted to Burmese or are bilingual in Burmese.[2]
There is low mutual intelligibility among the Mawkhwin, Settaw, and Mawteik dialects of Kadu.[4] Settaw and Mawteik share 95 to 98% mutual intelligibility, while Mawkhwin Kadu and other Kadu varieties share 91 to 93% lexical similarity.[4] Kadu shares 84%–89% lexical similarity with Kanan.[4]
History
editThe Kadu were the dominant ethnic group in the Chindwin River valley at the beginning of the early 2nd millennium A.D. until the Chin people and subsequently the Shan people migrated into the Chindwin Valley (Matisoff 2013:13).[5]
Phonology
editVowels
editKadu vowels consist of eight monophthongs and a diphthong /ai/.[6]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ɘ | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
Consonants
editKadu has 20 consonants.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Alveolo-palatal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | plain | aspirated | |||
| Stop | p | pʰ | t | tʰ | k | kʰ | ʔ | |||
| Affricate | t͡ɕ | t͡ɕʰ | ||||||||
| Fricative | s | sʰ | ɕ | h | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||||
The final consonants need to be nasals /m, n, ŋ/ or voiceless stops /p, t, k, ʔ/.[3]
Tone
editKadu has three tones; high, mid, and low.[7]
Syllabic structure
editC1C2V1V2C3
C: Consonant
V: Vowel
C1: necessary, this can be any Kadu consonant except unvoiced nasals.
C2: optional, this can be only /l, w, y/.
V1: necessary, this can be any Kadu vowel, however, /ɘ/ appears only in the form of CɘC.
V2: optional.
C3: optional, this can be only /p, t, m, n, ʔ, ŋ/.[6]
Orthography
editConsonants
editKadu has 19 consonants
 k (/ka˨˦/) |
 kh (/kʰa˨˦/) |
 ṅ (/ŋa˨˦/) |
 c (/ca˨˦/) |
 ch (/sʰa˨˦/) |
 ñ (/ɲa˨˦/) |
 t (/ta˨˦/) |
 th (/tʰa˨˦/) |
 na (/na˨˦/) |
 pa (/pa˨˦/) |
 ph (/pʰa˨˦/) |
 ma (/ma˨/) |
 y (/ja˨˦/) |
 l (/la˨˦/) |
 v (/wa˨˦/) |
 ky (/tɕ˨˦/) |
 khy (/tɕʰ˨˦/) |
 sha (/ɕa˨˦/) |
 h (/ha˨˦/) |
Grammar
editKadu is an SOV language.[6]
Nouns
editAbstract nouns such as freedom, love, experience, and anger are not attested in the Kadu noun class. They are usually expressed by verbs or adjectival verbs.
The language has two categories of nouns:
1, So called "simple nouns" are treated as monomorphemic by the native speakers.
2, Nouns known as "complex nouns" are polymorphemic, and most of the complex nouns come from the process of compounding.
Verbs
editAdjectives that expresses dimensions and qualities such as "tong" (=big) and "lom" (=warm) function as verbs, and are categorized as verbs.
The verbs are structurally categorized as:
1, Simple verbs, which are treated as monomorphemic words by the native speakers.
and
2, Polymorphemic complex verbs.
Kadu verbs may be reduplicated using the same morpheme or may take attendant words to express the repeated or frequent actions.
V-V constructions function as resultative, directional, evaluative, explanatory, or manner.
Adverbs
editThe adverbs are also "simple" or "complex" like nouns and verbs.
One thing to point up is that the complex adverbs are derived from verbs or nominals by the processes of reduplication or semi-reduplication.
Numerals
edit| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Kadu has retained native numerals for only the numerals one, two, three, and four.[7] Other numerals have been supplanted by Tai Laing and Burmese numerals.[7][8][9]
Numerals are always attached to classifiers, although classifiers do not occur with multiples of ten.
As for ordinal numbers, Burmese ordinal numbers are used because the original ordinal numbers are already lost.
Pronouns
edit| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | nga | maleq |
| 2nd person | nang | haning |
| 3rd person | hing | antak, matak |
Quantifiers
editQuantifiers follow the head noun they quantify.
Particles
editThere are nominal relational markers, verbal particles, clausal particles, utterance final particles, and speaker attitude particles.
Interrogatives
editYes/no interrogatives
editYes/no questions are formed by simply adding either of the two interrogative particles "la" and "ka" at the end of the phrase.
Alternative questions
editYes/no questions can also be expressed by an alternative interrogative expression like "is it A or not A", which can be found in Mandarin Chinese as well.
Tag questions
editInterrogative sentences can be made by adding "chi" (=true) at the end of sentences, like "right?" in English language.
Wh- questions
editWh- questions are formed by attaching the Wh-word forming morphemes, "
ma" or "
ha", to specific nomials or nominal postpositions.
Wh- question words also may function as indefinite pronouns such as "whatever", "anyone" and so on.
Negation
editVerbs can be negated by negative proclitics, "a-" and "in-".[3]
Words
edit
|
| əsàʔ təmìsʰā taʔ ká buddha pʰəjásʰwàŋ tē waìŋ tətɕí mà |
| acak tamicha tat ka buddha phayachvan̊ te wain̊ ta kyi ma |
| Kadu people worship Buddha. |
|
| əsàʔ təmìsʰā tāʔ ká əmɛ̄awâ tāʔ ósʰətɕí tàʔ tē mít tɕí mà |
| acak tamicha tat ka amai ava tat o chakyi tat te mit kyi ma |
| Kadu people respect and love their parents, teachers. |
|
| əsàʔ tɕeíŋ sʰɔ̄m tətɕī tʰá mā |
| acak kyein̊ chom takyi tha ma |
| Let's learn Kadu. |
|
| əsàʔ tú təpaúʔ tɕí tʰà mā |
| acak tu tapot kyi tha ma |
| Let's speak Kadu. |
|
| ɕīʔɕā tāʔ tē əsàʔ tɕeíŋ sʰɔ̄m tɔ́ ī |
| rhit rha tat te acak kyein̊ chom to i |
| Teach Kadu to children. |
|
| məlê ŋā naīʔ ŋâ əsàʔ tɕeíŋ sʰɔ̄m tətɕī kû |
| male n̊a nait n̊a acak kyein̊chom ta kyi ku |
| We will all learn Kadu. |
References
edit- ^ a b Kadu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ a b "Kadu". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 2016-08-28. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
- ^ a b c Sangdong, David (2012). A grammar of the Kadu (Asak) language (Ph.D. thesis). La Trobe University. hdl:1959.9/528876.
- ^ a b c "Myanmar". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-10-10.
- ^ Matisoff, James A. 2013. Re-examining the genetic position of Jingpho: putting flesh on the bones of the Jingpho/Luish relationship. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 36(2). 1–106.
- ^ a b c d Huziwara, Keisuke (2013). "カドゥー語音韻論" (PDF). 東南アジア研究. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
- ^ a b c "Kadu". lingweb.eva.mpg.de. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
- ^ "Kanan". lingweb.eva.mpg.de. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
- ^ Huziwara, Keisuke (2020). "On the genetic position of Chakpa within Luish languages". Himalayan Linguistics. 19 (2). doi:10.5070/H91150999.
Further reading
edit- Benedict, P. K. (1939). Semantic differentiation in Indo-Chinese. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 4(3/4), 213–229. Retrieved February 12, 2016 JSTOR 2717775
- Brown, R. G. (1920). Kadus of Burma. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 1(3), 1-28. Retrieved February 12, 2016 JSTOR 607587
- Driem, G. V. (1993). The proto-Tibeto-Burman verbal agreement system. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 56(2), 292–334. Retrieved February 12, 2016 JSTOR 619904
- Grierson, G. (1921). Kadu and its relatives. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 2(1), 39–41. Retrieved February 12, 2016 JSTOR 607735
- Shafer, R. (1940). The vocalism of Sino-Tibetan. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 60(3), 302–337. Retrieved February 12, 2016, JSTOR 594419
- Thurgood, G., & LaPolla, R. J. (2003). The Sino-Tibetan languages.
- Voegelin, C. F., & Voegelin, F. M. (1965). Languages of the world: Sino-Tibetan fascicle five. Anthropological Linguistics, 7(6), 1-58. Retrieved February 12, 2016 JSTOR 30022507