Ta'Oi (Ta'Oih, Ta Oi) is a Katuic dialect chain of Salavan and Sekong provinces in Laos, and in Thừa Thiên-Huế province in Vietnam (Sidwell 2005:12).

Ta'Oi
Ta Oi
Native toLaos, Vietnam
EthnicityTa Oi, Katang
Native speakers
(220,000 cited 1995–2005)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
tth – Upper Ta'Oi
irr – Ir (Hantong)
oog – Ong (= Ir)
tto – Lower Ta'Oi
ngt – Ngeq (Kriang)
Glottologtaoi1247
ELPChatong

Varieties

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Sidwell (2005) lists the following varieties of Ta'Oi, which is a name applied to speakers of various related dialects.

  • Ta'Oi proper
  • Ong/Ir/Talan
  • Chatong is spoken about 50 to 100 km northeast of Sekong. It has been recorded only by Theraphan L-Thongkum.
  • Kriang (Ngkriang, Ngeq) is spoken by up to 4,000 people living in villages between Tatheng and Sekong, such as Ban Chakamngai.
  • Kataang (Katang) is a dialect that has been documented by Michel Ferlus, Gerard Diffloth, and other linguists. It is not to be confused with the Bru dialect of Katang.[2]

Phonology

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Consonants

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Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t c k ʔ
voiced b d ɟ ɡ
Fricative s h
Rhotic r
Approximant w l j
  • There are also creaky syllable-final segments /mʔ, nʔ, ŋʔ, wʔ, lʔ, jʔ/, however; they are not noted as a distinct series.
  • /ɟ/ may also be heard as a preglottal sound [ʔj].[3]

Vowels

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Front Central Back
Close i ɨ ɨː u
Mid e ə əː o
Open ɛ ɛː a ɔ ɔː
Diphthongs
Front Central Back
Close ia ɨa ua

Morphosyntax

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Taoih, like other Katuic languages, are largely analytic with slightly inflectional characteristics.[4] Taoih has a large amounts of affixes which mark agreement for person and case and derive new lexicalized words. The specific cases that are marked differ by person. There are several grammatical cases in Taoih, including some important ones: nominative, accusative, locative, dative, and genitive. For example,

/hɛ̰/ "we" (1st singular) → /ʔŋ-hɛ̰/ "our" (1st plural) → /ʔŋ-ʔo/ "theirs" (3rd singular) gen

/ʔa-hɛ̰/ "to us" dat

References

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  1. ^ Upper Ta'Oi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Ir (Hantong) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Ong (= Ir) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Lower Ta'Oi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Ngeq (Kriang) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "Mon-Khmer Classification (draft)". SEAlang. 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
  3. ^ Sidwell, Paul (2005). pp. 12-15
  4. ^ Sidwell, Paul (2021). "Eastern Mon-Khmer languages". The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. De Gruyter. pp. 547–598. doi:10.1515/9783110558142-011.

Further reading

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