Jru' () is a
Mon–Khmer language of the
Bahnaric
The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 700,000 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Paul Sidwell notes that Austroasiatic/Mon–Khmer languages are lexically more similar to Bahnaric and Katui ...
branch spoken in southern Laos.
It is also known as "Loven", "Laven" or "Boloven" from the
Laotian exonym ''Laven'' or ''Loven'', which is derived from the
Khmer name for the
Boloven Plateau. The Jru' people engage in coffee and
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are r ...
cultivation, as well as other agricultural activities.
Classification
Jru' is a variety of
Laven which belongs to the Western branch of the Bahnaric languages which also includes such languages as
Brao.
Geographical distribution
Jru' is the native language of the Jru' people, a
hill tribe
Hill people, also referred to as mountain people, is a general term for people who live in the hills and mountains.
This includes all rugged land above and all land (including plateaus) above elevation.
The climate is generally harsh, with s ...
indigenous to the isolated mountains in
Champasak,
Sekong and
Attapeu Provinces in the central part of extreme southern Laos.
[ The variety described here is the most-studied variety that is spoken in Paksong District, Champasak in the towns of Paksong, Houeikong, Tateng, and various nearby villages.
]
Phonology
The sounds and syllable structure of Jru' are typical of the West Bahnaric languages in general. Words are mostly monosyllabic although a few words have minor pre-syllables, retaining the classic Mon-Khmer sesquisyllabic structure. The register contrast seen in other Mon-Khmer languages has not been found in Jru' and, in contrast to the surrounding prestige language
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
, Lao, Jru' has not developed phonemic tones.[
]
Consonants
Similar to the other Mon-Khmer languages of the region, Jru' distinguishes five places of articulation in its consonant inventory and the stops can be either voiced, unvoiced or (unvoiced) aspirated. The consonants are given below in IPA as laid out by Jacq.[
]
Vowels
The vowels of Jru' inherited from Proto-Mon-Khmer show three vowel heights and three tongue positions, or amount of "backness". An innovation in which Jru' developed a rounding contrast in the open-mid back vowels, results in ten vowel positions. All ten also show a length contrast, giving a total of 20 monophthongs. Unlike other languages in the Southeast Asian sprachbund
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lan ...
, the length contrast is not between short and long, but between "regular" and "extra short".[
Jru' additionally has three diphthongs , , and . The diphthongs and are also found in certain environments as allophones of and , respectively.][Jacq, Pacale. ''A Description of Jruq (Loven): a Mon-Khmer language of the Lao PDR''. Doctoral Dissertation. Australian National University.]
Syllable structure
The maximal monosyllable is represented as (C1)C2(R)V(C3) where C1 is any voiceless consonant, C2 is any consonant except one identical to C1 (or R if present), R is or , V is any vowel or diphthong and C3 is any consonant except a voiced or aspirated stop. The components in parentheses are not present in all words.[
The maximal sesquisyllabic word structure is represented C1əC2(R)V(C3) where C1 is , or , C2 is , or , V is any vowel or diphthong and C3 is any consonant except a voiced or aspirated stop.][
]
Writing system
As is the situation with most of the Mon-Khmer languages, Jru' has no indigenous writing system. However, at different points in history, various existing scripts including Quốc ngữ
The Vietnamese alphabet ( vi, chữ Quốc ngữ, lit=script of the National language) is the modern Latin writing script or writing system for Vietnamese. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages originally developed by Portuguese m ...
and Lao have been used or modified to transcribe the sounds of the language for study.[ During the Ong Keo Rebellion of the early 1900s, in which the Mon-Khmer hill tribes of the region joined together to resist French and Lao rule, Ong Kommandam, a speaker of the closely related ]Alak language
Alak is a language spoken by some 4,000 people in southern Laos, especially in the Provinces of Salavan and Sekong (where the Alak people
The Alak or Hrlak are an Austroasiatic ethnic group of southern Laos, living mainly in Salavan Provin ...
, invented a complicated script called ''Khom
Administrative divisions of Cambodia have several levels. Cambodia is divided into 24 provinces (''Khaet''; km, ខេត្ត, ) and the special administrative unit Phnom Penh. Though a different administrative unit, Phnom Penh is at provi ...
'' that was used for a time to write Jru'.[Sidwell, P 2008, 'The Khom script of the Kommodam Rebellion', International Journal of the sociology of language, vol. 2008, no. 192, pp. 15-25.]
Recently, linguist Pascale Jacq, with the help of native speakers, has devised an orthography based on the Lao script in an attempt to provide Jru' speakers a standardized method with which to write their language.[ Jacq's orthography is currently being used to compile a Jru'-Lao-English-French dictionary.
]
References
External links
*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.
*http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
* http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-9043-C@view Jru' in RWAAI Digital Archive
Consonant Ear Training
{{Austro-Asiatic languages
Bahnaric languages
Languages of Laos