The Pacoh language is a member of the Katuic language group, a part of the Eastern http://www.uiowa.edu/~linguist/faculty/beckman/lotw01/languages/austro-asiatic.html Mon–Khmer linguistic branch. Most Pacoh speakers live in central Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

 and central Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

. Pacoh is undergoing substantial change, influenced by the Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

.

Pacoh is spoken by 10,000-15,000 people, therefore, approaching the level of an endangered language. About 70% of Pacoh

Pacoh

The Pacoh are a minority ethnic group living mostly in Laos in an extremely remote mountainous area near the Vietnam border. There are approximately 17,000 Pacoh in Laos, and approximately 35,000 Pacoh worldwide....

 are mono-lingual, meaning they only speak their own language.

Alternative names are: Paco, Pokoh, Bo River Van Kieu. Its dialects are Pahi (Ba-Hi).

Phonology

Vowels (Sidwell 2003):

Pacoh has six vowel qualities, all of which which occur long and short, in modal and creaky voice

Creaky voice

In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...

. Creaky vowels are lowered compared to modally voiced vowels. There are three diphthong

Diphthong

A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

s which also occur modal and creaky. Unlike other languages in the area, vowel phonation does not seem to have originated in the phonation of preceding consonants.

Monophthongs

	front	central	back
High modal	i iː	ɨ ɨː	u uː
Low modal	e eː	ə əː	o oː
High creaky	ḛ ḛː	ə̰ ə̰ː	o̰ o̰ː
Low creaky	ɛ̰ ɛ̰ː	a̰ a̰ː	ɔ̰ ɔ̰ː

Diphthongs

	front	central	back
Modal	iə	ɨə	uə
Creaky	ḛa	ə̰a	o̰a

Further reading

• Alves, M. J. (2006). A grammar of Pacoh: a Mon–Khmer language of the central highlands of Vietnam. Pacific linguistics, 580. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University. ISBN 0858835681

External links

• Pacoh Pronouns and Grammaticalization Clines
• A grammar of Pacoh: A Mon–Khmer language of the central highlands of Vietnam
• The language has these sounds