Semai language
| Semai | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Peninsular Malaysia |
| Ethnicity | 42,000 Semai people (2008)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
sea |
| Glottolog |
sema1266[2] |
Semai is a Mon–Khmer language of Western Malaysia spoken by about 44,000 Semai people. It is perhaps the only Aslian language which is not endangered, and even has 2,000 monolingual speakers.
One notable aspect of Semai phonology is its highly irregular pattern of expressive reduplication, showing discontiguous copying from just the edges of the reduplicant's base, thus forming a minor syllable.
Examples of words in Semai language:-
| English | Malay language | Semai language |
|---|---|---|
| I | Saya | Eng |
| Eat | Makan | Cak |
| Drink | Minum | Ngaut |
| Bathe | Mandi | Mehmu |
| Clean | Bersih | Parlain |
| Good | Bagus | Bor |
| Chicken | Ayam | Bafung / Fung |
| Rice | Beras | Cengroy |
| Mushroom | Cendawan | Cenai |
| Why | Kenapa | Jalek |
| How | Bagaimana | Rahalook |
References
- ↑ Semai language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Semai". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Further reading
- Diffloth, Gerard. 1976a. Minor-Syllable Vocalism in Senoic Languages. In Philip N. Lenner, Laurence C. Thompson, and Stanley Starosta (eds.), Austroasiatic Studies, Part I, 229-247. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press.
- Diffloth, Gerard. 1976b. Expressives in Semai. In Philip N. Lenner, Laurence C. Thompson, and Stanley Starosta (eds.), Austroasiatic Studies, Part I, 249-264. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press.
- Hendricks, Sean. 2001. Bare-Consonant Reduplication Without Prosodic Templates: Expressive Reduplication in Semai. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10: 287-306.
External links
- http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
- http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-66BF-5@view Semai in RWAAI Digital Archive
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