THE LAO-SPEAKING NYO Nyo and Yo but similar to Lao; 2) proto IN BANTEAY MEANCHEY Tai *əï,*eï,*oï become -aj in Lao Nyo, Lao and Yo but become -ə: in Nyo; 3) PROVINCE OF CAMBODIA proto Tai *kw,*khw,*xw,*ɣw become kw, khw, khw, khw in Yo but become k, kh, kh, 1 Thananan Trongdee kh in Nyo, Lao Nyo and Lao; and 4) the lexical items which are found only in Nyo Abstract cannot be found in Lao Nyo and Lao. Based on these four sets of evidence it can There are some researches indicating the be concluded that Lao Nyo in Banteay presence of Tai Yor or Lao Nyo or Nyo Meanchey is neither Nyo nor Yo but is speakers in the Aranyaprathet district, Sa instead a dialect of Lao. The explanation Keaw province of Thailand and in Banteay proposed to account for the identification Meanchey province of Cambodia. This is of this Lao dialect as Nyo or Lao Nyo is surprising because as it is generally that some tone shapes in Nyo and Lao Nyo understood the Nyo people are are very similar and some are even predominantly located in Tha Uthen identical to the tone shapes in Nyo. This is district, Nakhon Phanom province and in likely to explain why these Lao speakers the Kantharawichai district, Maha tend to identify themselves as Nyo or Lao Sarakham province. In order to investigate Nyo. this discrepancy in 2012 the Lao Nyo was studied by the author in Banteay Introduction Meanchey province and data were gathered on the phonological system and The suggestion that there are Nyo speakers basic words of the so called Lao Nyo in the southeastern part of Thailand and in dialect. The objectives of this paper are the northwestern part of Cambodia is first to prove that the Lao Nyo dialect in somewhat surprising. These places are Banteay Meanchey is neither Nyo nor Yo, very far from the Nyo’s homeland in and secondly to investigate some of the Khammouan village, in the Khamkeut reasons underlying the identification of district of Bolikhamxay province in Lao this Tai dialect as Lao Nyo. There are four PDR and quite far from their Nyo relatives sets of evidence presented here 1) a in Tha Uthen district of Nakhon Phanom comparison of the tone boxes between province and Nyo in the Kantharawichai Nyo, Yo, Lao Nyo and Lao; 2) a district of Maha Sarakham province in the comparison of the development of proto northeastern part of Thailand.2 The Nyo Tai *əï,*eï,*oï in these dialects; 3) a language in the southeastern part of comparison of the development of proto Thailand (i.e. in the Aranyaprathet district Tai *kw,*khw,*xw,*ɣw in these dialects; of Sa Keaw province) which is related to and 4) a comparison of the lexical items Nyo in Cambodia has been described by found only in Nyo. The results are 1) the Srivisithkul (1986) and Nilchinda (1989). tone box of Lao Nyo is different from both The Nyo in the Banteay Meanchey 1 Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Faculty of 2 The places where Nyo people live in Laos Humanities and Social Sciences, were indicated in Chamberlain (1984:75) and Mahasarakham University, Maha Sarakham, their locations in Nakhon Phanom were Thailand. indicated in Koowatthanasiri (1981:30). Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:26:38AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, Special Issue No 20, 2014 province, which is located in the (la:w33ɲɔ:44ʔ) or Nyo (ɲɔ:44ʔ) but based on northwestern part of Cambodia, was linguistic evidence they are in fact mentioned in Schliesinger (2011a). He speakers of a Lao dialect. For convenience stated, I will refer to them as Lao Nyo in this paper. The recently established new province of Banteay Meanchey of northwestern Cambodia, an area that Habitats of Lao Nyo in Cambodia was a part of Battambang province and Thailand for many centuries, is populated by at least five Tai groups: Phuan, Lao According to Schliesinger (2011b: 106) Vientiane, Tai Yor3, Khorat Thai and the Lao Nyo live in five villages, but, Lao-Thai Isan. They live in scattered during interviews for this paper, the villages in the fertile plains in the headman of Aunloung Svay Chas village western part of the province, and said that there are Lao Nyo in nine villages many work vast plots of rice paddy in the Ou Chrov district, the Banteay fields. During the nineteenth century, Meanchey province i.e. Koub Thom, Dong the ancestors of Phuan, Lao Vientiane Aranh, Aunloung Svay Chas, Aun Loung and Tai Yor were captured by the Svay Thwey, Koub Touch, Koub Cherng, Siamese army in their original habitat Koub Thboung, Khai Dorn and Sery of northern and central Laos, and Pheap and some live in the Srei Sophone were resettled in Battambang district i.e. Phnum Bak village in Tuek province which belonged to Siam at Thla commune and Ambel village in Ou that time. The Khorat Thai migrated Ambel communes, and there are Lao Nyo for economic reasons in the 19th and in five villages in the Bor Vil district, early 20th centuries to their present Battambang province i.e. Makreu, Salor habitat of Mongkol Borei district. Klaen, Phum Leau, Prey Kapos and Phum The few Lao-Thai Isan people are Koub. He also mentioned there are Lao newcomers who settled in recent Nyo in the Aranyaprathet district, Sa years in the area for reasons of Kaew province of Thailand. marriage or to establish new business. (2011a: 250) It was mentioned in Srivisithkul (1986: 47) that the Lao Nyo in the Aranyaprathet Schliesinger (2011a: 316) estimated that district live in Klongnamsai, Muangphai, there are 10,000-15,000 Lao Nyo speakers Phansuk, Thakham sub-districts and in in Banteay Meanchey province. Aranyaprathet municipality. The locations of the Aranyaprathet district of Thailand To eliminate my skepticism of the and the Banteay Meanchey province of presence of Tai Yor’s living in Cambodia, Cambodia are shown in Map 1. I conducted some fieldwork in Banteay Meanchey in 2012. I found that these people like to call themselves Lao Nyo 3 Schliesinger (2011a: 316) mentioned other names of Tai Yor as Tai Nyo, Nyo, Lao Yor etc. 70 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:26:38AM via free access Map 1 The Locations of Aranyaprathet of Thailand and the Banteay Meanchey province of Cambodia Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:26:38AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, Special Issue No 20, 2014 Objectives evidence to be compared: 1) – the developments of their tone boxes; 2) – the The objectives of this paper are first to vowels developed from proto Tai prove that the Lao Nyo speakers do not *əï,*eï,*oï ; 3) – the consonants developed speak either Nyo or Yo but in fact speak from proto Tai *kw, *khw, *xw *ɣw; and Lao and secondly to propose some 4) – the lexical items found in Nyo that explanations as to why these speakers tend cannot be found in Lao Nyo and Lao. to identify themselves as Nyo. Tone Boxes Gathering Data of Lao Nyo In order to assess whether that the tone To get the linguistic data of Lao Nyo in box of Lao Nyo is a Lao tone system, the Cambodia a tone checklist of 60 items criteria proposed by Chamberlain (1975: from Gedney (1972), a word list of 1,140 50) has been adopted. items from Li (1977), and a phoneme checklist complied by the researcher were Chamberlain used the changes of proto Tai used for eliciting data from a 70 year old consonants, tone split and tone merger as male speaker in Dong Aranh village, and a the criteria to classify Southwestern Tai 45 year old village headman from (SWT) dialects into 4 groups as shown in Aunloung Svay Chas village in the Ou Chart I. Chrov district of Banteay Meanchey province, Cambodia. The checklist for According to Chamberlain’s criteria the tones and the checklist for phoneme proto Tai voiced stops became voiceless inventory of consonants and vowels were unaspirated stops in the P group, and transcribed. The pitch of tones was became voiceless aspirated stops in PH recorded on a digital recorder. A Praat group. The split of *A in the PH group can program was used to analyze their acoustic be either 123-4, 1-234 or 1-23-4. The PH characteristics. The phoneme inventory of group is sub-divided depending on the Aunloung Svay Chas dialect is shown in splitting pattern of *BCD and the merger the Appendix. of the B and the DL column. The linguistic data of Lao Nyo in Another criterion pointed out in Klongnamsai village, Aranyaprathet Tingsabadh (1982: 485) has also been district, Sa Keaw province were gathered adopted. Tingsabadh mentioned that the from Srivisithkul (1986) and Nilchinda salient characteristics of tone merger in (1989). many Lao dialects is the merger of C1=DL123 and C234=DL4. Comparison of Nyo, Yo, Lao Nyo and Lao The tone box of Nyo in Tha Uthen village, Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom province is from my own field study for To prove that Lao Nyo is neither Nyo nor this paper as shown in Figure 1. Its tone Yo, the most salient features that occur in split in A is 1-234, in BCD is 123-4 and Nyo and Yo but which cannot be found in tone merger is B=DL. Therefore, it is Lao Nyo and Lao have been selected. classified in the same group as Siamese, There are four points of linguistic Phu Tai, Neau and Phuan.