Lawa (La'wa, L'wa) is a
Mon–Khmer language
The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
of Thailand. There are two distinct varieties or dialects of Lawa, considered to be separate languages; their names in the ''Ethnologue'' are Eastern Lawa and Western Lawa. They are spoken in
Lawa villages in the provinces of
Mae Hong Son and
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai, sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the List of municipalities in Thailand#Largest cities by urban population, second largest city in Thailan ...
in
Northern Thailand
Northern Thailand, or more specifically Lanna, is a region of Thailand. It is geographically characterized by several mountain ranges, which continue from the Shan Hills in bordering Myanmar to Laos, and the river valleys that cut through them. ...
.
Linguistically, Lawa belongs to the
Palaungic branch of the
Mon-Khmer
The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
family of languages, which is part of the
Austro-Asiatic super-family.
Eastern Lawa is distinct from Western Lawa despite being highly cognate because the two languages are not mutually understandable based on consistent testimonies of Eastern and Western Lawa speakers and testing by SIL.
[Nahhas, Dr. Ramzi W. 2007]
Sociolinguistic survey of Lawa in Thailand
Chiang Mai: Payap University.
There are two distinct dialects spoken among the Eastern Lawa. These dialects have differences in pronunciation and some lexeme differences. The differences, however, do not present any difficulty in comprehension between speakers of these dialects, due to their close interaction. The main dialect is from ''Bo Luang'', (known locally as ''juang ra''), which is by far the largest Eastern Lawa village, with a population of approximately 3,000 people. ''Bo Luang'' is spoken in 16 villages of
Bo Luang and
Bo Sali subdistricts in
Hot District,
Chiang Mai Province
Chiang Mai is the largest Provinces of Thailand, province (''changwat'') of Thailand by area. It lies in Northern Thailand#Regional classification of northern Thailand, upper northern Thailand and has a population of 1.78 million people. It ...
. The other dialect is from ''Bo Sangae'', (known locally as ''juang tiang'').
Eastern Lawa has a high level of language vitality and is spoken in the home by all ages. Government education, village notices and official business are usually undertaken in
Central Thai. Most Eastern Lawa are bi-lingual with at least
Northern Thai, although there are some older people who will reply in Lawa when spoken to in Northern Thai. The younger generation tend to be fluent in Central Thai because of the education system and mostly fluent in Northern Thai due to the inter-marriages between Lawa and
Northern Thais.
See also
*
Wa language
Wa (Va) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Wa people of Myanmar and China. There are three distinct varieties, sometimes considered separate languages; their names in ''Ethnologue'' are Parauk, the majority and standard form; Vo ( Zhen ...
References
*Blok, Gregory Robert. 2013.
A Descriptive Grammar of Eastern Lawa'. Master’s thesis, Payap University.
*Munn, Elizabeth. (2017). A phonological reanalysis of Eastern Lawa. ''Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS), 10''(2), 23-65.
*Munn, Elizabeth. 2018.
A Phonological Comparison of Eastern Lawa Varieties in Hot District, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand'. Master’s thesis, Payap University.
External links
Palaungic languages
Wa people
{{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub