Volume 3 Number 1, January-June 2015 Aspects of Language Change in Iu Mien and Their Implication for Language Maintenance: A Case Study of the Iu Mien Students’ Story Writing Workshop1 T. Daniel Arisawa The Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University, Thailand. ABSTRACT reveals their unfamiliarity with the This paper discusses some treatment of the tone sandhi, the low aspects of language change rise falling tone, and legitimate Thai happening in Iu Mien in Thailand. tone rules. Besides the phonology and The changes were found in the Iu orthography, the proofreading and Mien stories written by the students revision process of the book by seven of Chiang Rai Rajabhat University mature speakers of Iu Mien (in their 40‟ 70‟ and others who attended the Story s to s) has revealed that Writers Workshop organized by the language change is underway among Linguistics Institute, Payap Univer- the young generation through contact sity, Chiang Mai. Nine stories, with Standard Thai. The aspects of including legends and newly written shift include wrong lexical choice ones, were compiled into a 46 page due to lack of cultural knowledge, book. It was a significant phrase level word order change, achievement in that it was the first unnaturalness and wrong colloquia- attempt by the Iu Mien at the lism, unnecessary insertion of university level to document tradi- complement clause introducer k‟ tional legends and to write stories of (gorngv „spea ), lack/redundancy of their own creation. discourse particles, and distortion of As such, their use of Thai- narrative formulaic expression. The based Iu Mien orthography therein original and correct forms of these grammatical and usage changes are 1I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Makha Khittasangka for retrieving this old paper for reprinting providing me with an opportunity to make some corrections. New references could have been added since then but it was decided to keep the original ones. To re-state my obligation to many who helped me at the time of conducting the project, I would like to thank Dr Sornchai Mungthaisong, then the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, the present Vice President of Chiang Rai Rajabhat University, for encouraging the Iu Mien students who were working with me. Both students and I are grateful to the instructors at the Linguistics Institute, Payap University, in Chiang Mai. Many thanks go to those students who studied and had fun together. 44 Volume 3 Number 1, January-June 2015 culturally conditioned. The phenol- course of these activities, they begun menon, therefore, indicates the shift, to notice the way they wrote stories or even the potential loss, of cultural was strongly influenced by Thai. By knowledge, heritage, and environ- comparing the old literacy primers ment. produced some thirty years back, they The implications of such a realized their way of saying or situation are the need of systematic Iu writing Iu Mien had changed some Mien literacy program for Thai- from the original Iu Mien in terms of literate young Iu Mien as a basis for pronunciation, word order, discourse language documentation, teaching of level particles, collocation, and narrative art, and conservation of colloquialism. It is obvious that Iu community life as a milieu for Iu Mien is changing through contact Mien language vitality. In the light of with Standard Thai. the Royal Institute‟s present drafting Due to the nature of exercising work toward the new national the writing in the 1956 version of language policy of Thailand, it is Thai-based orthography (Callaway feasible and desirable that such a and Callaway 1976), many mistakes language maintenance program in using certain conventions should be inaugurated for their regarding consonant symbols which communities. are non-existent in Thai, confusion in the tone rules, and the use of diacritics are naturally found in the INTRODUCTION students‟ works. As some of these This story book was a result of aspects were already discussed in the Writers Workshop, which was a Arisawa (2010, 2010a, and 2011b)we part of the whole series of Mother will only selectively present the some Tongue-based Multilingual Education other aspects of language changes, (MT-based MLE) workshop run by mainly at the levels of phonology and the Linguistics Institute, Payap grammar as revealed through the ‟ University, Chiang Mai, from proof readers corrections, in the October 2007 to January 2009. following sections of 2 and 3. Subsequently, the Iu Mien students who attended these workshops continued their practices, by getting PHONOLOGICAL CHANGES together once a week as an extra In section 2, we will discuss curricula activity, in writing stories in phenomena in phonology including the Thai-based Iu Mien orthography, inadequate transcription of tone2 translating short stories written in sandhi, lack of consonant cluster, Thai to Iu Mien; sometimes inviting merger of tone 4 (low rise falling instructors from the Linguistics tone /˨˧˩/) with tone 5 (mid-low rising Institute of Payap University. In the 45 Volume 3 Number 1, January-June 2015 tone/˨˧/), hypercorrection of tone 5 to sandhi in the compound noun while tone 4, and treatment of glottal stop. the proof reader correctly inserted a hyphen5 which indicates both the 2.1 Tone Sandhi3 original tone indicated by májtrii()๊๊ The following two sets of and the result tone of mid-falling 4 ʨ ˧˩ examples, (1a-b) and (2a-b), are (/ au /)indicated by the hyphen somewhat opposite in nature. The according to the convention of the first set shows that the students‟ work Thai-based Iu Mien orthography (1a) does not represent the tone (Arisawa 2011b: 222-3) as in (1b). Lacking Explicit Mark of Tone Sandhi (1a) /ʨau˦˥˧ 6l̥ en˦ / (by students) 2Iu Mien has eight tones: 3To recapitulate what the tone sandhi (or “tone change” in Purnell‟s term) is, Purnell‟s description is drawn on here: “Tone change occurs on the first member of a compound expression and is phonetically regular: syllables with stop finals become the c tone [i.e. low], and all non-stopped syllables become the h tone [i.e. mid-falling]” (2002:304-5). 4In the following examples, (Xa) of each pair represents work by the students, which is a non-standard usage, and (Xb) is proofread and corrected by the mature speakers who know both Iu Mien and Thai well. 5Callway and Callaway (1976) do not mention tone Sandhi. Purnell (2002:304-5) discusses the hyphenated compound words under the title of “tone change” in the context of Romanized Iu Mien orthography or sometimes called “Unified Script”. An adaption of the use of hyphen into the Thai-based Iu Mien orthography is exemplified in Arisawa (2011b:222-3). 46 Volume 3 Number 1, January-June 2015 The comparison between (1a) ignore the tone sandhi in compounds; and (1b) shows that students are not even though they may write , conscious of expressing tone sandhi they still naturally pronounce in the compound word, while the [ʨau˧˩ l̥ en˦ ]. This phenomenon proof readers know the original tone can be demonstrated in (2a-b), where of each element and the result tone of the actual pronunciation as a result of the first element together with the tone sandhi is written phonetically in writing convention. However, this the orthography. does not mean that young speakers Phonetic Transcription of Tone Sandhi (2a) /pjau˧˩ l̥ en˦ / (2b) /pjau˧˩ l̥ en˦ / „beside the house‟ (proofread) As a compound word for „side The omission or simplification of the house‟ or „beside the house‟, to occurs both in actual speech and say [pjau˧˩ l̥ en˦ ] is correct as writing of young people, suggesting found in both the speech of young that the consonant cluster / / and old Iu Mien. But the student‟s psychologically might have been lost writing in (2a) does not from the mind of younger speakers. indicate the original tone 3 (high rise falling /˦˥˧/) in the first element of the compound, i.e. เปย๊า/pjau˦˥˧/ „house‟. In other words, though their transcription is phonetically correct, There is a word [ ] it is deficient in „to wash‟, but the context in the story terms of phonology and orthography. requires „wind‟, for which (3b) is correct. The loss of the consonant 2.2 Loss of Consonant Cluster cluster with regard to the palatal point of articulation causes a semantic In (3a) palatalized consonant, ambiguity. which should be expressed by C+ย, is absent. 6Traditionally, and presently by some older speakers, the word /cau˦˥˧ / „path, road‟ begins with a palatal stop. However, due to the purpose of presenting the young Iu Mien‟s variety with an post-alveolar stop /ʨ/, as in /ʨau˦˥˧ /, 47 Volume 3 Number 1, January-June 2015 In addition to [ ] „to markings. The only wash‟, another frequently mistaken adaptation required was the pronunciation /ʥaːu˨˧/ „to teach‟ can addition of the extra tone marker <>,๊์ which was be heard among the young people in substitution for / / „wind‟. chosen after experi- mentation with various 2.3 Merger of Tone 4 (Low rise other symbols. (Callaway & falling /˨˧˩/) with Tone5 (Mid-low Callaway 1976:234) rising /˨˧/) As their comment that the Iu Mien has six tones (eight if karaan <>๊์ is “the only adaptation two tones in checked syllable are required” suggests, it must be quite included) whereas Thai does five. easy for young Iu Mien who are One unique tone in Iu Mien is tone 4 educated in the Thai five tone system ˨˧˩ or low rise falling tone / /. This tone to make mistake in tone 4 in Iu Mien. is difficult for the Iu Mien who grew On the other hand, that they are over up in cities or in Iu Mine villages conscious in an attempt to pronounce where a contact with Thai or this unique tone aright might be the Northern Thai is frequent.