A Case Study of Northeastern Thailand
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TONAL VARIATIONS The That Phanom district of Nakhon AND CHANGES IN A Phanom province was selected as the field site since three Tai languages, Lao, LANGUAGE MIXTURE Nyo, and Phuthai, are spoken there. The AREA : A CASE STUDY concept of Gedney's tone boxes was OF NORTHEASTERN adopted but lexically modified for the THAILAND (ISAN)1 languages in question. The SIL CECIL programme was used for investigating the tonal systems and tonal characteris Phinnarat tics. On the basis of the available litera Akharawatthanakun2 ture, the prototypes of Lao, Nyo, and Phuthai tones were tentatively deter mined. Abstract This study reveals that the prototypes In northeastern Thailand or "Isan";Lao, ofPhuthai tones are still retained in the otherwise known as the northeastern Phuthai language, while those of Lao Thai dialect, is used as a lingua franca and Nyo have been changed to a certain by people living in the area, in which extent due to mutual interference. That minority ethnic groups are scattered. is, their tones have been distorted from Some of the ethnic groups speak Tai dia the tonal prototypes. This means that lects/languages, such as the Nyo, both major and minor languages spoken Phuthai, Saek, Kaloeng, Yoi, as well as in the same area are susceptible to others. When tonal languages belong change; and that at least some of the ing to the same language family are spo changes can be caused from external ken in an area with the respective speak factors. Furthermore, it is questionable ers in constant contact, it is worthwhile whether the new data from the present to investigate to what extent their tonal research supports a single set of tonal systems and tonal characteristics have prototypes for Lao. To give definite an influenced each other. To achieve this, swers, more research needs to be done. the earliest available literature has been examined to obtain what appear to be prototypical tonal systems for the three Introduction languages. The specific goal, then, was to determine how well these prototypes In northeastern Thailand, generally have been preserved in a region of high known as the Isan region, Lao or Lao language contact. Isan is spoken by the Lao or Lao Isan people, the majority group, and various minority languages are sporadically spo I This paper is based on the author's ongo ken. Some of the ethnic groups speak ing research and M.A. thesis (Akharawattha Tai dialects/languages, such as the Nyo, nakun, 1998) which was supervised by Dr. Phuthai, Saek, Kaloeng, Yoi, as well as M.R. Kalaya Tingsabadh, as a point of de others. It is generally understood that parture. Lao or Lao Isan is used as a lingua franca 2 Ph.D. Candidate, Department ofLinguis by people living in the area while the tics, Faculty ofArts, Chulalongkom Univer- minorities use their own languages to sity, Bangkok, Thailand. communicate within their own groups. Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:24:00AM via free access Tonal Variations and Changes in a Language Mixture Area As a Lao native speaker of Udonthani, Phuthai no.7, Lao no.53 = Nyo no.4, Lao a province in the Isan region, I am inter no.54 = Nyo no.3, Lao no.55&56 - ested in Lao as well as other surround Nyono.5&6).6 ing minority languages. It is noticeable that the accents of Lao spoken in some In addition to confirming the migration areas, for example in Nakhon Phanom of each ethnic group, such similarity of and Sakon Nakhon where Nyo and tone mergers and splits between Lao, Phuthai are minorities, are different Nyo, and Phuthai leads to questions from others I have heard, including about the influence on the tonal lan mine. My special interest is in the tonal guages which might have occurred over systems which are perhaps the most use very many years. Therefore, it is worth ful criterion for dialect boundaries while to investigate to what extent the within the Tai-speaking area (Gedney tonal systems and tonal characteristics 1972). The suspicion is that the influ have influenced each other when tonal ence on the tones in Lao and minority languages belonging to the same lan languages can be one cause of such dif guage family are spoken in an area ference between Lao accents. where the respective speakers are in constant contact. I have examined earlier available litera ture, relating to the tonal systems of The Lao tonal systems in the That Lao3 ·and minority languages, mainly Phanom district of Nakhon Phanom spoken in nothern Isan, Nyo4 as well as province had been investigated in my 5 Phuthai , and it is noticeable that while pilot study and it was found that the tonal most of the tonal systems in each lan system of Lao spoken in the northern guage are distinctly different, there ap area of the district was noticeably dif pears no clear-cut difference between ferent from that spoken in the southern them. In other words, some tonal sys area. Based on my personal experience, tems in the three languages show the I strongly suspected that the accent of same or similar patterns of tone merg Lao spoken in the northern area was in ers and splits (see the appendix 2 for the fluenced by some minority languages pairs of the same or similar tonal sys spoken in the same locale. Therefore, tems in Lao, Nyo, and Phuthai, for ex the northern area of the That Phanom ample Lao no. 45 - Nyo no.9&10, Lao district was selected as the field site for no.51 - Nyo no.l &2 = Phuthai no.6 - investigating the influence on the tonal languages, since three Tai languages, 3 From Brown (1965), Chamberlain (1975 Lao, Nyo, and Phuthai, are spoken there. & 1984 ), Chantanakhom & Rattanaprasert In the northern part of the That Phanom (1983), Chinchest (1989), Daecha (1987), district, there are a few villages of Dejvongsa et. al. ( eds.) (1972), Haas (1958), Phuthai and very few ofNyo, therefore, Ho~nchamlong ( 1985), Khanittanan ( 1973 ), Osatananda ( 1997), Panka ( 1980), we can infer that Lao is the majority in Pungpaopan ( 1984), Simmonds (1965), and that area. Wattanaprasert & Liamprawat (1985). 4 From Brown (1965), Chamberlain (1975 & 1984), Koowatthanasiri (1981), and Simmonds (1965). 6 The symbol = is used instead of the 5 FromBrown (1965), Chamberlain (1984), words "is the same as", and the symbol Khanittanan ( 1977), and Sritararat ( 1983). - as "is similar to". 31 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:24:00AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities 5.2, 2002 Twenty "Lao", fifteen "Nyo", and ten languages but the linguistic character "Phuthai" were selected to be the istics of their speech show a consider sources of information, according to the able degree of mixture. This paper aims ethnic name they call themselves and to show the tonal variations and changes their languages. Based on information in the languages ofthe "Lao", the "Nyo", from village headmen and villagers, as well as the "Phuthai", and also to each study location selected had to have show the patterns of tonal mixture in been inhabited only by a single group, these languages. Furthermore, there will and people from those villages had to be further discussion about the hypoth have been in contact with each other for eses of tone changes in Lao and Nyo a very long time. languages. From studying the earlier literature as Language data mentioned above, it can be claimed that most of the tone merger and split pat As mentioned above, there is more than terns in these three languages are dif one tonal system in the Lao, Nyo, and ferent as well as most of the tonal char Phuthai spoken in the studied area, and acteristics. But on studying the tones in that led to questions about tonal varia these three languages used in a language tions and changes in the three languages. mixture area, an unexpected phenom Therefore, the earlier available literature enon was found: the "Lao" and the was examined to obtain what appear to "Nyo" tonal systems overlap while the be the prototypical distinctive merger ones of the "Phuthai" do not. Also, with and split patterns for the three languages. reference to the tonal characteristics, it The frequency of tone merger and split was found that these three languages patterns was the criterion for determin share several similar tone shapes. It was ing the prototypical tonal system. In also found that the "Phuthai" is the only other words, the pattern which predomi group which is consistant in using their nantly appears in each language will be own ethnic name, the name oftheir lan proposed to be the prototypical one of guage as well as the linguistic charac each language. The same method was teristics oftheir speech. Conversely, the used to determine the prototypical tonal "Lao" and the "Nyo" use their own re characteristics. These can be seen in spective names for themselves and their Figure 1. 32 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 03:24:00AM via free access Tonal Variations and Changes in a Language Mixture Area Figure 1 The prototypical tonal systems of the Lao, Nyo, and Phuthai languages7 Lao Nyo Phuthai A B c DL DS A B_lc DLtDS A B DS L 1 1 2 2 2 ~hl 3 ~ 3 v ~ r"' r 3 r 4 4 4 r 11 ~ t 1) A 1-23-4 1) A 123-4 1) A 123-4 2) B 1234 2) c 1234 2) DL 1234 3) C1=DL123 3) B4=C=DL4 3) A4=B123=DL 4)B;t:DL 4) B=DL 4) B4=C4 5) B=DL The conclusion from earlier studies To determine how well these prototypes leads me to assume that the patt.ems have been preserved in a region of high which appear most in Lao are B 1234, language contact, these prototypical C 1=DL 123, and B DL; the ones in Nyo tones were compared to the ones in the are columns B, C, and DL coalescence; languages of the "Lao", the "Nyo", and and the ones in Phuthai are the mergers the "Phuthai".