Phonology
Varieties
According to Ethnologue, there are four distinct but mutually intelligible varieties, sometimes considered separate languages: Lave (Brao proper), Kru’ng (Kreung), and Kavet (Kravet), the latter spoken by only a couple thousand. Sidwell (2003) also lists four communities of speakers, three of which are in Cambodia. *Laveh (Lave, Rawe): spoken in Attapeu Province, Laos south of the capital city of Attapeu. Laveh is the official designation given by the Laotian government. *Krung (Krüng, "Krung 2"): spoken aroundDemographics
Sidwell (2003) suggests the possibility of a total of 50,000 speakers, while Bradley (1994:161) gives an estimate of 35,000. All estimates below are drawn from Sidwell (2003:30). *Laos: The 1995 Laotian census places the Laveh population at 17,544. *Cambodia: The Asian Development Bank gave an estimate of 29,500 speakers as of the early 2000s. *Vietnam: About 300 Brau live in Đắc Mế village, Bờ Y commune, Ngọc Hồi district, Kon Tum province (Đặng, et al. 2010:112).Đặng Nghiêm Vạn, Chu Thái Sơn, Lưu Hùng. 2010. ''Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam''. Hà Nội: Thế Giới Publishers. Parkin (1991:81) also estimates several hundred Brao in Vietnam. *Thailand: Parkin (1991:81) estimates a Brao population of 2,500 in Thailand.References
*Sidwell, Paul (2003). ''A Handbook of comparative Bahnaric, Vol. 1: West Bahnaric''. Pacific Linguistics, 551. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Further reading
*Keller, C. E. (1976). ''A grammatical sketch of Brao, a Mon–Khmer language''. Grand Forks, N.D.: Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session. OCLC: 2915938 Bahnaric languages Languages of Laos Languages of Cambodia {{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub