CALA 2019 - Paper 10-2 - Southeast Asia: Linguistic Perspectives (original) (raw)

2019, The CALA 2019 Proceedings

Abstract

Southeast Asia (SEA) is not only rich in multicultural areas but also rich in multilingual nations with the population of more than 624 million and more than 1,253 languages (Ethnologue 2015). With the cultural uniqueness of each country, this region also accords each national languages with language planning and political management. This strategy brings a challenges to SEA and can lead to conflicts among other ethnic groups, largely owing to leadership. The ethnic conflicts of SEA bring controversy between governments and minorities, such as the ethnic conflict in Aceh, Indonesia, the Muslim population of the south Thailand, and the Bangsa Moro of Mindanao, of the Philippines. The objective of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of the linguistic perspectives of SEA. This research examines two main problems. First, this paper investigates the linguistic area which refers to a geographical area in which genetically unrelated languages have come to share many linguistic features as a result of long mutual influence. The SEA has been called a linguistic area because languages share many features in common such as lexical tone, classifiers, serial verbs, verb-final items, prepositions, and noun-adjective order. SEA consists of five language families such as Austronesian, Mon-Khmer, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and Hmong-Mien. Second, this paper also examines why each nation of SEA takes one language to become the national language of the nation. The National language plays an important role in the educational system because some nations take the same languages as a national language—the Malay language in the case of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The research method of this paper is to apply comparative method to find out the linguistic features of the languages of SEA in terms of phonology, morphology, and grammar.

Figures (7)

Figure 1: Map of languages of Southeast Asia The organization of the paper is as follows: Section II provides the context of Southeast Asia as a linguistic area by describing the geographical areas of the region and the language families. In Section III, I describe the national languages in SEAn nations by examining how the language has been taken into account for each state. Finally, I conclude with SEA’s position to take the language of the region and to promote national language studies among the nations and to enhance Chinese language studies both locally and internationally.

Figure 1: Map of languages of Southeast Asia The organization of the paper is as follows: Section II provides the context of Southeast Asia as a linguistic area by describing the geographical areas of the region and the language families. In Section III, I describe the national languages in SEAn nations by examining how the language has been taken into account for each state. Finally, I conclude with SEA’s position to take the language of the region and to promote national language studies among the nations and to enhance Chinese language studies both locally and internationally.

Figure 2: Map of Austronesian Languages ¢ — _ > _ baal Austronesian languages are shared by the more conservative languages in all regions and were probably features of Proto-Austronesian. The phonemic systems of these ranges from average to extreme simplicity. Nasal + stop is the most widespread type, and lexical morphemes are typically bisyllabic. Morphological complexity is likewise average to low. Nouns are suffixed for pronominal possessors in almost all Austronesian languages, although in Oceanic languages this is restricted to one category of possession. Word order in Austronesian is predominantly verb-initial or verb-second and prepositional (Clark 2009, 786).

Figure 2: Map of Austronesian Languages ¢ — _ > _ baal Austronesian languages are shared by the more conservative languages in all regions and were probably features of Proto-Austronesian. The phonemic systems of these ranges from average to extreme simplicity. Nasal + stop is the most widespread type, and lexical morphemes are typically bisyllabic. Morphological complexity is likewise average to low. Nouns are suffixed for pronominal possessors in almost all Austronesian languages, although in Oceanic languages this is restricted to one category of possession. Word order in Austronesian is predominantly verb-initial or verb-second and prepositional (Clark 2009, 786).

Figure 3: Map of Mon-Khmer languages from Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati 2013 Plaunguic, and Khasian (Diffloth quoted in Sidwell 2010, 121). In contrast, Adams (1982) classified the Mon-Khmer subfamily into Khasi, Palaungic, Mon, Khmuic, Khmer, Bahnaric, Katuic, and Viet-Muong (143) while Peiros (1998) listed 14 languages in the Mon-Khmer and theses are Jeh, Bahnar, Chrau, Kui, Semai, Mon, Nyakur, Vietnamese, Ruc, Wa, Deang, Khmu, Ksinmul, and Khmer (1998, 112). The classification of Mon-Khmer languages are different from one scholar to another but these are still being investigated by linguists of Mon-Khmer. However, Vietnamese is still controversial in being classified into this group and even native scholars might not agree with this as Vietnamese has the tonal system (Steinbergs 2001, 374). Specifically, Dalby (2004) also argues that

Figure 3: Map of Mon-Khmer languages from Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati 2013 Plaunguic, and Khasian (Diffloth quoted in Sidwell 2010, 121). In contrast, Adams (1982) classified the Mon-Khmer subfamily into Khasi, Palaungic, Mon, Khmuic, Khmer, Bahnaric, Katuic, and Viet-Muong (143) while Peiros (1998) listed 14 languages in the Mon-Khmer and theses are Jeh, Bahnar, Chrau, Kui, Semai, Mon, Nyakur, Vietnamese, Ruc, Wa, Deang, Khmu, Ksinmul, and Khmer (1998, 112). The classification of Mon-Khmer languages are different from one scholar to another but these are still being investigated by linguists of Mon-Khmer. However, Vietnamese is still controversial in being classified into this group and even native scholars might not agree with this as Vietnamese has the tonal system (Steinbergs 2001, 374). Specifically, Dalby (2004) also argues that

There are two major sub-language families: Tibeto-Burman and Sinitic. The Tibeto-Burman includes Tibetan, Burmese, Yi, Sharpa while the Sinitic contains Mandarin in and around Bijin, Szechuan, and Nanking, Wu has dialects in Shanghai ad Suchow, Min (which includes Taiwanese, Amoy, Hokkian and Fukian), Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunan), Hakka, and Gan. In constrast, Hale (1982) listed the four sublanguage families, which are Bodic (Bodish, East Himalayan), Baric (Kamarupan and Kachinic), Burmic (Rung, Naxi and Lolo-Burmese), and Karenic (quoted in Delancey 2009, 695). The Sinitic languages share linguistic features such as the syntactic SVO languages and tone, and are predominantly isolating, having many monomorphemic words. In addition, Goddard describes the Sinitic language families from a morphology and syntax perspective, being agglutinating and verb-final. In SEA, however, this observation does not really apply, because many Tibeto-Burman languages in this region share areal features such as the tendency towards tone systems, classifiers and serial verbs constructions (2005, 33-35). Figure 4: Map of Sino-Tibetan Languages from Gutman and Avanzati 2013

There are two major sub-language families: Tibeto-Burman and Sinitic. The Tibeto-Burman includes Tibetan, Burmese, Yi, Sharpa while the Sinitic contains Mandarin in and around Bijin, Szechuan, and Nanking, Wu has dialects in Shanghai ad Suchow, Min (which includes Taiwanese, Amoy, Hokkian and Fukian), Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunan), Hakka, and Gan. In constrast, Hale (1982) listed the four sublanguage families, which are Bodic (Bodish, East Himalayan), Baric (Kamarupan and Kachinic), Burmic (Rung, Naxi and Lolo-Burmese), and Karenic (quoted in Delancey 2009, 695). The Sinitic languages share linguistic features such as the syntactic SVO languages and tone, and are predominantly isolating, having many monomorphemic words. In addition, Goddard describes the Sinitic language families from a morphology and syntax perspective, being agglutinating and verb-final. In SEA, however, this observation does not really apply, because many Tibeto-Burman languages in this region share areal features such as the tendency towards tone systems, classifiers and serial verbs constructions (2005, 33-35). Figure 4: Map of Sino-Tibetan Languages from Gutman and Avanzati 2013

Figure 5: Language of Tai-Kadai The Tai-Kadai language family contains 92 languages with more than 80 million of its speakers living in China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2016). The major languages of this family are Thai, a national language of Thailand, with about 67 million speakers, and Lao with more than 6 million. There are three subgroups in this family, including the Tai group, the Kam-Sui group (in mainland southern China), and the Kadai group (which includes Li and Be living on Hainan Island). Moreover, these languages has linguistic features in common, such as tone, SVO order, lack of inflection morphemes, compounding and reduplication, and classifier construction (Goddard 2005, 36; Steinbergs 2001, 374).

Figure 5: Language of Tai-Kadai The Tai-Kadai language family contains 92 languages with more than 80 million of its speakers living in China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2016). The major languages of this family are Thai, a national language of Thailand, with about 67 million speakers, and Lao with more than 6 million. There are three subgroups in this family, including the Tai group, the Kam-Sui group (in mainland southern China), and the Kadai group (which includes Li and Be living on Hainan Island). Moreover, these languages has linguistic features in common, such as tone, SVO order, lack of inflection morphemes, compounding and reduplication, and classifier construction (Goddard 2005, 36; Steinbergs 2001, 374).

Figure 6: Hmong Mien Languages from Britannica Dictionary Online, 2016 Figure 7: Hmong-Mien Languages from Gutman and Avanzati 2013

Figure 6: Hmong Mien Languages from Britannica Dictionary Online, 2016 Figure 7: Hmong-Mien Languages from Gutman and Avanzati 2013

When the Vietnam War occurred in the mid1970s, the thousand speakers of Hmong-Mien languages migrated from Laos to Australia, the USA, and France (Goddard 2005, 36; Gutman and Avanzati 2013; Ratliff 2016). This allowed linguists to easily gather data from the speakers. The linguistic features of these languages are shared with languages of Southeast Asia, and these elements include lack of inflection, no numbers, no case, no tense, mood, or aspect, presence of numeral classifiers, widespread ellipsis, serial verb constructions, and abundance of sentence particles. The words are monosyllabic and they have initial consonants.

When the Vietnam War occurred in the mid1970s, the thousand speakers of Hmong-Mien languages migrated from Laos to Australia, the USA, and France (Goddard 2005, 36; Gutman and Avanzati 2013; Ratliff 2016). This allowed linguists to easily gather data from the speakers. The linguistic features of these languages are shared with languages of Southeast Asia, and these elements include lack of inflection, no numbers, no case, no tense, mood, or aspect, presence of numeral classifiers, widespread ellipsis, serial verb constructions, and abundance of sentence particles. The words are monosyllabic and they have initial consonants.

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