Proto-Karenic or Proto-Karen is the reconstructed ancestor of the

Karenic languages The Karen () or Karenic languages are tonal languages spoken by some 4.5 million Karen people. They are of unclear affiliation within the Sino-Tibetan languages. The Karen languages are written using the Karen script. The three main branches a ...

Reconstruction

The foundation of the reconstruction of Proto-Karen was laid by André-Georges Haudricourt in 1946, with revisions in 1953 and 1975. Haudricourt applied the

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...

to forms from two Karen languages, Pwo and Sgaw, from ''A Comparative Dictionary of the Pwo-Karen Dialect'' (1922) by W. C. B. Purser and Saya Tun Aung. Each of these languages has six

tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...

s, four in open syllables and two in checked syllables (those ending in a glottal stop). By comparing the lexical incidence of these tones, Haudricourt established eight correspondence sets, later labelled I to VIII by

Gordon Luce Gordon Hannington Luce (20 January 1889 – 3 May 1979) was a colonial scholar in Burma. His outstanding library containing books, manuscripts, maps and photographs – The Luce Collection – was acquired by the National Library of Australia ...

, six in open syllables and two in checked syllables. The two languages had similar inventories of initial consonants, distinguishing aspirated, unaspirated and

implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additi ...

stops and having only voiced sonorants. Implosives and sonorants were aligned between the two languages, but aspirated and unaspirated stops yielded three correspondence sets. Moreover, the initial correspondence sets occurred only with certain tone correspondence sets, as follows: This fits a common pattern in languages of the

Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighb ...

, including

Tai languages The Tai, Zhuang–Tai, or Daic languages (Ahom language, Ahom: 𑜁𑜪𑜨 𑜄𑜩 or 𑜁𑜨𑜉𑜫 𑜄𑜩 ; ; or , ; , ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai languages, Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spo ...

, Hmong-Mien languages,

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

and

varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...

, in which a four-tone system, reflecting earlier final segments, develops a register distinction conditioned by the manner of the initial, leading to a tone split. The varying treatment of the first tone is also found in Tai and Chinese languages. Haudricourt's reconstruction was further supported by subsequent reporting that voiced stops and voiceless nasals are retained by other Karen languages, such as Geba. Manson gave a sample of diagnostic words for use during field elicitation to classify Karenic languages: Haudricourt originally viewed the correspondence set V as irregular, and so reconstructed included only the three proto-tones *A, *B and *D. He added the proto-tone *B' in his 1975 revision. Haudricourt's *B' class has been accepted by most modern workers on Karen, but is not included by Luangthongkum. This class is not distinguished after originally voiced initials, but a similar merger is common in Chinese varieties. Correspondence class V is not reflected as a distinct class in any modern Karen language, being merged with *A in Sgaw and Pa'O, with *B in Pwo, with *D in Kayan, Kayaw and Kaya, and with both B* and D* in Bwe-Gaba. Luangthongkum has suggested that the words in class V might reflect an earlier final segment, a view that Haudricourt had also expressed.

Phonology

The phonology of Proto-Karen according to Theraphan Luangthongkum (2019):

Onsets

In comparison with Haudricourt's original reconstruction, Luangthongkum has dropped *x and *ɣ, and added *ʔn, *ʔw, *ʔl, *ʔj and *hr.

Rhymes

Only Pa'O has a full set of nasal and stop codas, though many occurrences of -p, -t or -k are found in loans from Shan or

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

. Other Karen languages may have nasalized vowels instead of nasal codas, and only glottal stop codas. Some have only open rhymes. Here *-N represents an indeterminate nasal (*-m, *-n or *-ŋ).

Tones

Most linguists accept Haudricourt's revised reconstruction with three proto-tones *A (modal), *B and *B' in open syllables, with checked syllables forming a separate category *D. However, Luangthongkum accepts only *A, *B and *D.

Sound changes and reflexes

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman to Proto-Karenic

Theraphan Luangthongkum (2014) lists the following

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s that had taken place during the transition from Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB;

James Matisoff James Alan Matisoff ( zh, , t=馬蒂索夫, s=马蒂索夫, p=Mǎdìsuǒfū or zh, , t=馬提索夫, s=马提索夫, p=Mǎtísuǒfū; born July 14, 1937) is an American linguist. He is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Cal ...

's reconstruction) t
Proto-Karenic
(PK; Luangthongkum's own reconstruction). *Retention of the PTB low central vowel *a in PK *Retention of the PTB final nasals *-m, *-n, *-ŋ in PK *PTB *voiced onsets > PK *voiceless or *glottalised onsets *PTB prefix *s- followed by a stem with *voiced sonorant > PK *voiceless initials *PTB *voiceless unaspirated stop initials > PK *voiceless aspirated stop initials *PTB voiced rhotic *-r > PK *-Ø *PTB *voiceless alveolar fricative *-s > PK *voiceless alveolar stop *-t *PTB *voiceless stop finals have remained *voiceless stop or have become glottal stop *-ʔ in PK *PTB high back vowel *u > PK mid back vowel *o (vowel lowering) *PTB off-gliding rhyme *-iy > PK monophthong *-i *PTB off-gliding rhyme *-ey > PK monophthong *-e *PTB off-gliding rhymes *-ay and *-a꞉y > PK monophthong *-e *PTB off-gliding rhyme *-əy > PK off-gliding rhyme *-ej(ey) *PTB *prefix-stem and/or *-infix-stem > PK *CC-

From Proto-Karenic to modern languages

Manson (2011) lists phonological innovations for each of his four primary subgroups of the Karen language branch as follows. ;Karen *Peripheral: proto-voiceless stop initials appearing as aspirated stops (e.g. *p > pʰ) *Northern: merger of nasal finals (e.g. *am, *an > aɴ), merger of stop-final rhymes with the open counterpart (e.g. *aʔ, *a > a) *Central: vowel raising (e.g. *a > ɛ) *Southern: merger of nasal-final rhymes, with the rhyme subsequently raised (e.g. *am, *aŋ > ɔ)

Notes

References

Works cited * * * * * * * *