Jahai (Jehai) is an aboriginal Mon–Khmer language spoken by the Jahai people living in the montane rainforests of northern Peninsular Malaysia and southernmost Thailand. It is the largest Northern Aslian language. Though spoken by only a little more than 1,000 people, Jahai does not appear to be in immediate danger of extinction due to the prevalence of Jahai parents passing on the language to their children as their mother tongue.[2]
| Jahai | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Malaysia, a few in Thailand |
| Ethnicity | 1,800 Jahai people (2008)[1] |
Native speakers | 1,000 in Malaysia (2006)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jhi |
| Glottolog | jeha1242 |
| ELP | Jahai |
Jahai has a unique vocabulary for describing odors.[3]
Phonology
editVowels
edit| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | ɨ ɨ̃ | u ũ |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛ̃ | ə ə̃ | ɔ ɔ̃ |
| Open | a ã |
Consonants
edit| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | s | h | |||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Rhotic | ɾ~r | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
Syllable structure
editOn the surface level, the maximal syllable in Jahai is represented as CV(C). The onset consonant is obligatorily required.[2]
Stress and tone
editThe position of stress always falls on the last syllable. Burenhult states there is no tonal distinction in Jahai language.[2]
Olfactory categories
editOdor terms in Jahai are based on abstract qualities rather than specific sources (which is more common cross-linguistically, particularly in European languages).[4]
| Odor terms | Approximate translation | Examples of sources | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| cŋəs | 'to smell edible, tasty' | cooked food, sweets | |
| crŋir | 'to smell roasted' | roasted food | |
| harɨm | 'to be fragrant' | various flowers, perfumes, soap | Malay loan; original Malay meaning 'fragrant' |
| ltpɨt | 'to be fragrant' | various flowers, perfumes, bearcat | |
| haʔɛ̃t | 'to stink' | feces, rotten meat, prawn paste | |
| pʔus | 'to be musty' | old dwellings, mushrooms, stale food | |
| cŋɛs | 'to have a stinging smell' | petrol, smoke, bat droppings | |
| sʔı̃ŋ | 'to have a smell of human urine' | human urine, village ground | |
| haɲcı̃ŋ | 'to have a urine-like smell' | urine | Malay loan; original Malay meaning 'foul odor, stench' |
| pʔih, plʔeŋ | 'to have a blood/fish/meat-like smell' | blood, raw fish, raw meat | |
| plʔɛŋ | 'to have a bloody smell which attracts tigers' | crushed head lice, squirrel blood |
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Jahai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b c Burenhult, Niclas (2005). A Grammar of Jahai (PDF). Pacific Linguistics 566. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/pl-566. hdl:1885/146729. ISBN 0-85883-554-1.
- ^ a b Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas (2014). "Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language". Cognition. 130 (2): 266–270. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.004. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0014-9D63-D. ISSN 0010-0277. PMID 24355816. S2CID 16257849.
- ^ Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas; Stensmyr, Marcus; de Valk, Josje; Hansson, Bill S. (2018). "Olfactory language and abstraction across cultures". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 373 (1752): 20170139. doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0139. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 6015838. PMID 29915007.
External links
edit- http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
- http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-6701-4@view Jahai in RWAAI Digital Archive
- Jahai DoReCo corpus compiled by Niclas Burenhult. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and - for some texts - time-aligned morphological annotations.