| Sedang | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Vietnam and Laos | |||
| Region | Kontum, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai (Vietnam) | |||
| Native speakers | 101,434 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Austro-Asiatic
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | sed | |||
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Sedang is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern Laos and the Kon Tum Province in south central Vietnam. The Sedang language is the most populous of the North Bahnaric language group, which are known for their range of vowel phonations.
Contents |
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Alveolo- Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | unaspirated | p | t | tɕ | k | ʔ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | |||
| prenasalized | mb | nd | ndʑ | ŋɡ | |||
| Fricative | voiced | f | s | x | h | ||
| voiceless | v | z | ɣ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Approximant | central | w | j | ||||
| lateral | l | ||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Upper Mid | e | o | |
| Lower Mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Low | a |
Sedang itself has 24 pure vowels: 7 vowel qualities, all of which may be plain (ex. [a]), nasalized ([ã]), and creaky ([a̰]), and three of which -- /i a o/ -- may be both nasal and creaky ([ã̰]). While it doesn't have the length distinctions of other North Bahnaric languages, it does have more diphthongs, for somewhere between 33 and 55 vowel sounds altogether. Because of this Sedang is sometimes claimed to have the largest vowel inventory in the world. Note however that other Bahnaric languages have larger numbers of vowel qualities (Bahnar, for example, has 9) in addition to phonemic vowel length, so the record holder depends closely on how the languages are described and distinct vowels are defined.