Sa'och
(
Khmer pronunciation:
[sa ʔoc]
, also, "Sauch") is an endangered, nearly extinct
Pearic language
of
Cambodia
and
Thailand
spoken only occasionally by a decreasing number of older adults. There are two dialects, one spoken in Veal Renh Village,
Prey Nob District
,
Sihanoukville Province
(formerly known as Kampong Som Province), Cambodia and the other in
Kanchanaburi Province
, Thailand. "Sa'och" is the Khmer
exonym
for the people and the language. The Sa'och, however, consider this label, which means "
scarlet fever
" or "pimply" in Khmer,
[2]
pejorative and use the
autonym
"
Chung
" (
Sa'och:
[t͡ɕʰṳˀŋ]
) to refer to themselves and their language.
[3]
Classification
Sa'och is an
Austroasiatic
language. Within the Austroasiatic family, Sa'och is a member of the Pearic languages, a subgroup consisting of a handful of
dying languages
, including
Suoy
,
Pear
,
Chong
and
Samre
, spoken by small numbers of ethnic minorities living mostly in far western Cambodia and adjacent areas of Thailand. In traditional classifications, the Pearic languages are most closely related to
Khmer
dialects,
[4]
but more conservative schemes place the Pearic subfamily on a level equally distant from all the branches of Austroasiatic.
[5]
History and geographical range
After the
breakup
of the
Khmer Empire
, the Cambodian central government was weak and neighboring Thailand and Vietnam vied for Cambodian territory. During this time, the Sa'och maintained a semi-autonomous territory centered on Veal Renh in Kampong Saom (modern-day Sihanoukville). According to Sa'och oral history, they prospered along the coast protected by their fortified settlement of Banteay Prey.
[6]
However, in the 1830s, during the
Siamese-Vietnamese War
for Cambodia, the Thai army defeated the Sa'och and took many prisoners of war back to Thailand where they were forced to resettle in
Kanchanaburi Province
along the Thai-Burmese border. This resulted in two disparate communities of Sa'och speakers separated by some 800
km.
The defeat and dispersal of the Sa'och led to a drastic decline in the use of the language. The Sa'och in Cambodia remained along the coast of Kampong Saom, living in their own villages such as Long Leh. The dialect that continued to evolve in Cambodia survived because the Sa'och were able to stay isolated from Cambodians, even through the
colonial era
, until the
Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia
when the vast majority were either killed or relocated and forced to live among
Khmers
.
[6]
The Sa'och in Thailand were first resettled in the
Si Sawat District
of Kanchanaburi Province in their own villages along the
Khwae Yai River
. Their dialect evolved in relative isolation in the fertile valley for almost 140 years until construction of the
Si Nakharin Dam
which, completed in 1980, permanently inundated the valley. In making preparations for the dam, the Thai government again forced the Sa'och to relocate, this time to the
gravelly
hills above the new reservoir. In their new villages, which were now mixed with
Karen
,
Khmu
and
Thai
, the Sa'och suddenly became minorities resulting in declining language use in favor of Thai. Additionally, young Sa'och are leaving the relatively barren isolated region to find work, causing an additional decline in language use. A paper published in 2009 reported that use of the Chung language in Thailand was only found among older generations remaining in the village and a few small children left in their care.
[7]
Both groups of Sa'och call their language simply
chung
. To differentiate the two dialects, researches have arbitrarily designated the dialect found in Cambodia "Chung Yul" and that of Thailand "Chung Yuy",
yul
and
yuy
being their respective words for "sky".
[8]
Phonology
Sa'och employs a phonemic inventory typical of modern Mon-Khmer languages and, along with the other Pearic languages, shows some phonological influences from the late
Middle Khmer
of the 17th century.
[9]
Like most of the other Austroasiatic languages (outside of
Viet-Muong
) Sa'och is not a tonal language. However, also similar to the other Pearic languages, Sa'och is marked by an unusual four-way contrast of vocal
register
, or phonation, in its vowel system.
[10]
[11]
Consonants
Sa'och has 21 consonant phonemes. They are listed in table form below.
[12]
Sa'och contrasts nine vowel qualities which can be either short or long, yielding a total of 18 vowel phonemes. Diphthongs do not occur in native Sa'och words, but the diphthongs
/iə/
,
/ɯə/
, and
/uə/
may be found in loan words from Thai and Khmer. The vowels of Sa'och are:
[12]
Similar to other modern and historical Austroasiatic languages such as
Middle Khmer
, western dialects of
Khmu
, and the
Monic
and
Katuic languages
,
[14]
Sa'och employs a system of phonemic
register
in which words contrast according to their
phonation
, or voice quality. However, unlike these languages, which mostly display a two-way contrast (e.g. between
clear
and
breathy voice
), Sa'och and other Pearic languages contrast four different voice qualities.
[15]
In a tonal language, an entire syllable carries the tone but in "register" languages, phonation is manifested only on the vowels. The four voice qualities in Sa'och and their transcriptions, using the base vowel /aː/ as an example, are clear voice (/a/),
creaky voice
(/aːˀ/), breathy voice (/a̤ː/) and breathy-creaky voice (a̤ːˀ).
[16]
Headley, R.K. Jr. (1985). Ratanakul, S (ed.). "Proto-Pearic and the classification of Pearic".
Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies Presented to André-G. Haudricourt
. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
Huffman, Franklin (1985). Ratanakul, S (ed.). "The phonology of Chong".
Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies Presented to André-G. Haudricourt
. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.