Koho or K'Ho is a South Bahnaric language spoken by the Koho people and Mạ people, mainly in the Lâm Đồng Province of Vietnam. It is very close to the Mnong language.
| Sre | |
|---|---|
| Kơho | |
| Native to | Vietnam |
Native speakers | 200,000 (2019 census)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:kpm – Kơhocma – Maa |
| Glottolog | koho1243 |
The autonym of the Kơho people is kon cau (IPA [kɔn.caw]) while Koho (IPA [kəˈhɔ]) is a Cham exonym.[2]
Subgroups and dialects
There are at least twelve Kơho dialect groups for the area: Chil (Cil, Til); Kalop (Tulop); Kơyon (Kodu, Co-Don); Làc (Làt, Lach); Mà (Mạ, Maa); Nồp (Nop, Xre Nop, Noup); Pru; Ryông Tô (Riồng, Rion); Sop, Sre (Chau Sơre, Xrê); Talà (To La); and Tring (Trinh). Although Mạ/Maa is a Koho dialect group, the Mạ people identify as a separate ethnic group.[3][2]
Phonology
Data below are from Olsen (2015).[2]
Consonants
Initial consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| Aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | ||
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | ||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
- The phoneme /r/ is commonly a voiced alveolar trill [r] but also often reduces to a flap [ɾ] when it occurs as the second segment in a consonant cluster.
Final consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t | c | k | ʔ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
- Before the palatal finals /c/ and /ɲ/, there is an audible palatal offglide after the vowel [Vʲ], so that /pwac/ ‘flesh’ is pronounced as [pwaʲc] and /ʔaɲ/ ‘I (1st person singular)’ as [ʔaʲɲ].
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | /i/ | /ɨ~ɯ/ | /u/ |
| Close-mid | /e/ | /ǝ/ | /o/ |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ | /ɔ/ | |
| Low | /a/ | /ɑ/ |
- Vowels contrast in length.
Morphology
Compounding
Compounding is a common way of coining new words in Koho. Some examples:
- muh mat ‘face’ < muh ([muh]) ‘nose’ + mat ([mat]) ‘eye’
- phe mbar ‘sticky rice’ < phe ([phɛ]) ‘husked rice’ + mbar ([mbar]) ‘sticky’
- ôi ao ‘clothes’ < ôi ([ʔoːj]) ‘blanket’ + ao ([ʔaːw]) ‘shirt’
Affixing
One of the more productive prefixes in Sre is the causative tơn- [tən-], converts intransitiveverbs to causative verbs. If the prefixed verbs have a nasal initial, then the nasal cluster avoidance rule applied.
| Word | Meaning | Prefixed form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| duh [duh] | to be hot | tơnduh [tənduh] | to make hot |
| chơt [cʰət] | to die | tơnchơt [təncʰət] | to kill |
| ring [riŋ] | to be flat, level, equal | tơnring [tənriŋ] | to equalize, make right |
| mut [mut] | to enter | tơmut [təmut] | to make enter |
| muu [muː] | to descend, go down | tơmuu [təmuː] | to make descend, to lower |
Cultural References
- The Vietnamese acrobatic show Teh Dar by Lune Productions uses the Koho language.
References
Sources
- Olsen, Neil H. (2014). A descriptive grammar of Kơho-Sre: a Mon-Khmer language (Ph.D. thesis). University of Utah.