Chapter 18 Aung Si 1 Background Danau (Also Danaw, Tʰənɔʔ; Dnu) Is a Small Palaungic Language That Has Pre- Viously Attracte

chapter 18 Danau

Aung Si

1 Background

Danau (also Danaw, tʰənɔʔ; dnu) is a small Palaungic language that has pre- viously attracted little scholarly attention; until now the only significant lin- guistic publication in English is the rather short account by Luce (1965) of his collection of some Danau data while passing through the speaker area in 1963). The material presented here was collected during fieldwork carried out by the present author over a two-month period in late 2012,1 and reflects a first attempt at a sketch grammar of the language. The Danau live in three or four villages to the south of the town of Aung- ban in Shan State, Myanmar. Most of the villages—Taungbohla, Chaunggya and Thaethit—can only be reached via a poorly-maintained dirt road, which is navigable only by motorbike. Only the village of Naung In is accessible by a sealed road, being just off the major highway that links Aungban, the airport town of Heho, and the state capital Taunggyi. Ethnologue provides a reason- able estimate of 5,000 for the number of people identifying as Danau. The first three villages mentioned above can be said to be ‘purely’ Danau villages, although their nearest neighbours are dominated by Pa’O speakers. The final village, Naung In, has a mixture of Danau and Pa’O inhabitants. The Danau are a practically unknown ethnic group in most parts of Myan- mar. Even in the town of Aungban, which is frequented by Danau farmers sell- ing their produce on market days, people tend to confuse Danau with Danu, the dominant ethnic group of Aungban, whose members speak a dialect of Burmese. Pa’O people living in nearby villages, however, have frequent contact with Danau speakers, and are aware of the names and locations of the villages.

1 The author is indebted to U Wariya, a Danau monk at Aungchantha Monastery in Aungban, for facilitating meetings between the author and key community members, to the people of Taungbohla and Thaethit villages for their contribution as language consultants, to U Win Kyaw Aung and U Kyaw Moe of Aungban for field assistance, to U Khin Maung Aye, Daw Than Yi, U Than Oo and Daw Thant Zin Aye for their hospitality in Aungban, and to the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme for funding support.

The language situation in the villages was encouraging, in spite of predictions as far back as the 1960s that the language was ‘dying’ (Luce 1965). Even very young children were able to speak Danau fluently to their peers or their elders, and practically all the adults I encountered were able to also speak Pa’O and Burmese, albeit in a heavily accented manner. As an ethnic group, the Danau differ from neighbouring groups by not pos- sessing the key signs of cultural distinctiveness that the latter value and cherish. These include an ethnic costume, distinctive musical instruments and unique musical styles. The Danau have instead adopted the costume, instruments and music of their Pa’O neighbours, and even elderly Danau people insist that this has always been the case. Indeed, it was not possible to identify, even with the assistance of enthusiastic senior community members, any Danau people who could sing any traditional Danau songs, or narrate any Danau epics or folk tales.

2 Phonetics/Phonology

2.1 Word/Syllable Structure The Danau word is typically one or two syllables. The typical maximal syllable structure for strong syllables in Danau is as follows, where C stands for a con- sonant, G for a glide /l, w, r, j/, V for a vowel, and T for a tone.

C(G)V(C)T klɨʔ ‘good’

In addition, Danau has two types of weak syllables which are always followed by a strong tone-bearing syllable. One weak syllable type is of the shape Cə-, the other consists of a syllabic nasal N̩-. The latter can carry a tone, though it is not clear whether tone is actually distinctive in this syllable type. The two types of weak syllables can combine in the order CəN-, which results in an unstressed closed presyllable. The complex word structures found in indig- enous words are the following.

CəCGVCT tǝphwɐ̄t ‘mat’ N̩CGVCT ŋ̄pwɐ̄t ‘woman’s bag’ (short form) CəNCGVT tǝŋ̄pwɐ̄t ‘women’s bag’ (full form)