Manuscripts in the Yunnan Nationalities Museum - DSC03945

Palaung (), also known as De'ang (; ), is a

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...

spoken by over half a million people in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

(

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos ( L ...

) and neighboring countries. The

Palaung people The Palaung ( my, ပလောင် လူမျိုး ; Thai: ปะหล่อง, also written as Benglong Palong) or Ta'ang are a Mon–Khmer ethnic minority found in Shan State of Burma, Yunnan Province of China and Northern Thailand. ...

are divided into Palé, Rumai, and Shwe, and each of whom have their own language. The Riang languages are reported to be unintelligible or only understood with great difficulty by native speakers of the other Palaung languages. A total number of speakers is uncertain; there were 150,000 Shwe speakers in 1982, 272,000 Ruching (Palé) speakers in 2000, and 139,000 Rumai speakers at an unrecorded date. Palaung was classified as a "severely endangered" language in

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...

Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' is an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after ...

.''

Dialects

Yan and Zhou (2012)

Chinese linguists classify "De'ang 德昂" varieties (spoken mostly in Santaishan Ethnic De'ang Township 三台山德昂族乡,

Mangshi Mangshi (; tdd, ᥝᥥᥒᥰ ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ᥑᥩᥢᥴ; Jingpho: Mangshi Myu), former name Luxi (), is a county-level city and the seat of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, western Yunnan province, China. Mangshi has an area of , wit ...

and Junnong Township 军弄乡,

Zhenkang County Zhenkang County () is located in the west of Yunnan province, China, bordering Burma's Shan State to the west. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Lincang. Ethnic groups Ethnic Bulang are found in the following villag ...

) as follows (''De'angyu Jianzhi''). Names in

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioner ...

are from Yan & Zhou (2012:154–155) *Bulei 布雷 (') (representative datapoint: Yunqian 允欠,

): spoken in Luxi **Bulei 布雷 (') dialect **Raojin 饶进 (') dialect *Liang 梁 (') (representative datapoint: Xiaochanggou 硝厂沟): spoken in Longchuan and

Ruili Ruili (; tdd, ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ᥛᥣᥝᥰ; shn, မိူင်းမၢဝ်း; th, เมืองมาว; my, ရွှေလီ) is a county-level city of Dehong Prefecture, in the west of Yunnan province, People's Republic of China. It ...

*Rumai 汝买 (', ') (representative datapoint: Yechaqing 叶茶箐): spoken in Zhenkang and Baoshan The De'ang 德昂 variously refer themselves as ', ', ', and ', depending on the dialect (Yan & Zhou 2012:154–155). Another De'ang autonym is ', where ' means 'village'. The local Dai people refer to the De'ang as '. Liu (2006) documents three Palaungic lects, namely: *Guangka Village, Mengxiu Township, Ruili City (瑞丽市勐休乡广卡村); '; tonal *Mengdan Village, Santaishan Township (三台山勐丹村); '; non-tonal *Guanshuang Village, Mengman Township, Xishuangbanna (西双版纳州勐满乡关双村); '; tonal

Ostapirat (2009)

Weera Ostapirat (2009:74) classifies the Palaung languages as follows. Defining sound changes are given in parentheses. ;Palaung *''Ta-ang'' *Rumai-Darang (*-ɔŋ > -ɛŋ; *-uŋ > -ɨŋ) **''Rumai'' (*-r- > -j-) **Ra-ang-Darang (*b, *d, *ɟ, *g > p, t, c, k) ***''Ra-ang'' ***Darang (*-on > -uan; *-r > -n) ****''Na-ang'' ****''Darang'' ****''Da-ang'' ****''Dara-ang''

Shintani (2008)

Shintani (2008) recognizes two dialects of Palaung, namely Southern Palaung and Northern Palaung. Southern Palaung unvoiced stops correspond to Northern Palaung voiced stops, the latter which Shintani (2008) believes to be retentions from Proto-Palaungic. Southern Palaung dialects studied by Shintani (2008) are those of: *

Kengtung th , เชียงตุง , other_name = Kyaingtong , settlement_type = Town , imagesize = , image_caption = , pushpin_map = Myanmar , pushpin_label_position = left , ...

town *Waanpao village (near Kengtung) *Chengphong village (near Kengtung) *Loikhong village (near Mängpeng) *Mängküng *Yassaw * Kalaw

Deepadung et al. (2015)

Deepadung et al. (2015) classify the Palaung dialects as follows. ;Palaung *Ta-ang:

Namhsan Namhsan ( my, နမ့်ဆန်မြို့; Palaung: Om-yar; ), also spelt Namh San, Namsan, or Nam San, is the capital of Tawngpeng District in northern Shan State of Myanmar (Burma). The town is a popular starting point for trekking t ...

, Khun Hawt, Htan Hsan *(core Palaung) **Pule: Pang Kham, Man Loi, Meng Dan, Chu Dong Gua **Dara-ang: Pan Paw, Noe Lae, Nyaung Gone, Pong Nuea (?), Xiang Cai Tang 香菜塘 **Rumai: Nan Sang, Guang Ka, Mang Bang **? Cha Ye Qing 茶叶箐

Phonology

Chen, et al. (1986) lists the following consonants for Palaung: A final /r/ can be heard as a voiceless sound �̥ and following a /u/ it is heard as �̥ /ɤ/ can be heard in rapid speech as a central vowel � and is heard as �elsewhere. /a/ can be heard as fronted �before /k, ŋ/, and �before /n, t/. According to Shorto (1960), /ɤ/ does not occur alone in primary stressed syllable, but only in an unstressed syllable or as the second member of a diphthong. There are also a large number of diphthongs, including /eo/, /eɤ/, /aɤ/, /ɔɤ/, /oɤ/, /uɤ/, and /iɤ/. Although Milne (1921) includes the vowels /ü, ö, ɪ/ in her transcriptions, Shorto (1960) did not find these as vowel phonemes in his work. (Note that the words cited below in the Syntax section come from Milne (1921), so their phonetic representations may need revision.)

Syntax

The examples below are form Milne (1921).

Nouns and noun phrases

The order of elements in the noun phrase is N – (possessor) – (demonstrative). Consider the following examples:

Prepositions and prepositional phrases

Shwe Palaung has prepositions, as in the following example.

Sentences

Shwe Palaung clauses generally have subject–verb–object (SVO) word order.

Text sample

The following part of a story in Shwe Palaung is from Milne (1921:146–147).

References

Sources

External links

Palaung Thailand language site

Palaung Ruch language site
{{Austro-Asiatic languages Languages of Myanmar Languages of China Languages of Thailand Palaungic languages Palaung people