May phonology preserves many archaic features. Syllable structure is sesquisyllabic. Unique phonological characteristics in May include the coda
-ɽ
, derived from proto-Vietic *-s, which stands behind a consonant nucleus, in contrast to final
-l/-h/-i̯
found in most other Vietic languages.
[5]
Grammar
The basic word order of May is SVO. A grammar of May was published by Kirill Babaev and Irina Samarina in their 2018 Russian monograph, based on materials collected from the 2013 Russian–Vietnamese Linguistic Expedition, assisted by Dr. Ta Van Thong and Dr. Le Van Truong.
[6]
The expedition team also produced corpus databases developed by Alexander Yefimov and
Paul Sidwell
.
↑
Babaev, Kirill Vladimirovich [Бабаев, Кирилл Владимирович]; Samarina, Irina Vladimirovna [Самарина, Ирина Владимировна]. 2019. Язык май. Материалы Российско-вьетнамской лингвистической экспедиции /
Jazyk maj. Materialy Rossijsko-vetnamskoj lingvisticheskoj ekspeditsii
. Moscow:
Издательский Дом ЯСК
.
ISBN
978-5-907117-34-1
.
(in Russian)
. p.16.