Koho language (original) (raw)

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Austroasiatic language spoken in Vietnam

Koho or K'Ho is a South Bahnaric language spoken by the Koho people and Mạ people, mainly in the Lâm Đồng Province of Vietnam. It is very close to the Mnong language.

The autonym of the Kơho people is kon cau (IPA: [kɔn.caw]) while Koho (IPA: [kəˈhɔ]) is a Cham exonym.[2]

Subgroups and dialects

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There are at least twelve Kơho dialect groups for the area: Chil (Cil, Til); Kalop (Tulop); Kơyon (Kodu, Co-Don); Làc (Làt, Lach); Mà (Mạ, Maa); Nồp (Nop, Xre Nop, Noup); Pru; Ryông Tô (Riồng, Rion); Sop, Sre (Chau Sơre, Xrê); Talà (To La); and Tring (Trinh). Although Mạ/Maa is a Koho dialect group, the Mạ people identify as a separate ethnic group.[3][2]

Data below are from Olsen (2015).[2]

| | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | - | - | | Stop | Voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ | | Aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | | | | Voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | | | | Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | | | | | | Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | | | | Fricative | | s | | | h | | | Rhotic | | r | | | | | | Approximant | w | l | j | | | |

• The phoneme /r/ is commonly a voiced alveolar trill [r] but also often reduces to a flap [ɾ] when it occurs as the second segment in a consonant cluster.

| | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | - | | Stop | p | t | c | k | ʔ | | Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | | | Fricative | | s | | | h | | Rhotic | | r | | | | | Approximant | w | l | j | | |

• Before the palatal finals /c/ and /ɲ/, there is an audible palatal offglide after the vowel [Vʲ], so that /pwac/ ‘flesh’ is pronounced as [pwaʲc] and /ʔaɲ/ ‘I (1st person singular)’ as [ʔaʲɲ].

| | Front | Central | Back | | | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------- | --- | | High | /i/ | /ɨ~ɯ/ | /u/ | | Close-mid | /e/ | /ǝ/ | /o/ | | Open-mid | /ɛ/ | | /ɔ/ | | Low | | /a/ | /ɑ/ |

• Vowels contrast in length.

Compounding is a common way of coining new words in Koho. Some examples:

• muh mat ‘face’ < muh ([muh]) ‘nose’ + mat ([mat]) ‘eye’
• phe mbar ‘sticky rice’ < phe ([phɛ]) ‘husked rice’ + mbar ([mbar]) ‘sticky’
• ôi ao ‘clothes’ < ôi ([ʔoːj]) ‘blanket’ + ao ([ʔaːw]) ‘shirt’

One of the more productive prefixes in Sre is the causative tơn- [tən-], converts intransitive verbs to causative verbs. If the prefixed verbs have a nasal initial, then the nasal cluster avoidance rule applied.

Cultural references

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• The Vietnamese acrobatic show _Teh Da_r by Lune Productions uses the Koho language.

1. ^ Kơho at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Maa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. ^ a b c Olsen, Neil H. (2015). "Kơho-Sre". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
3. ^ Le, Tan Duong (2003). A phonological comparison of Maa and Koho varieties (Master’s thesis). Payap University.

• Olsen, Neil H. (2014). A descriptive grammar of Kơho-Sre: a Mon-Khmer language (Ph.D. thesis). University of Utah.