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Pearic Languages

Pearic languages are a small sub-group of endangered languages spoken in Cambodia and Thailand, with only a few thousand total speakers. They were once more widely spoken in Cambodia but have been marginalized by the Cambodians. At least 8 Pearic languages are distinguished, though some are now extinct. Pearic is phonologically remarkable for its 4-way register system and is important for Proto-Mon-Khmer reconstruction as it retains lexical items and phonological features linking it more closely to northern Mon-Khmer languages. However, earlier documentation of Pearic languages lacked reliable distinction of the 4 registers. More recent fieldwork and documentation is needed to better understand and preserve these languages.

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153 views3 pages

Pearic Languages

Pearic languages are a small sub-group of endangered languages spoken in Cambodia and Thailand, with only a few thousand total speakers. They were once more widely spoken in Cambodia but have been marginalized by the Cambodians. At least 8 Pearic languages are distinguished, though some are now extinct. Pearic is phonologically remarkable for its 4-way register system and is important for Proto-Mon-Khmer reconstruction as it retains lexical items and phonological features linking it more closely to northern Mon-Khmer languages. However, earlier documentation of Pearic languages lacked reliable distinction of the 4 registers. More recent fieldwork and documentation is needed to better understand and preserve these languages.

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Pearic constitutes a small sub-group of endangered languages spoken in

scattered locations in Cambodia and a small pocket of Thailand. Numbers of


speakers are very low, no more than a few thousand in total, and some Pearic
languages recorded in the 1800s are now extinct or at least moribund. They were
once more widely spoken in Cambodia - in fact a 13th century Chinese source
describes individual Cambodians owning scores and even hundreds of slaves who
were from a distinct race, the Tchouang, which is the Pearic etymon for "people".
Unfortunately Pearic people have been actively marginalised and at times
exteminated by the Cambodians, who have had a very low regard for ethnic
minorities.
At least 8 Prearic languages are distinguished, although
probably not all are still spoken:

Chong

Chu-ng ~ Sa-och

Song

Su'ung (Souy)

Samre (extinct)

Western Pear (Samray ~ Samre)

Eastern Pear (Samre)

Pear of Kompong Thom

The term Samre is used by Cambodians to refer to Pearic


people - it is an infixed from of sre "field" and just means
"peasant". The term Pear is also a Cambodian designation,
ultimately from Sanskrit varna, refering to "caste", resumably
the slave caste. Chong and its variants reflect Proto-Pearic
*Juang "people" - this would be a better designation for the
family, but Pearic is the established term in the linguistic
literature.
Pearic was one of the first MK group to be documented, and for some of them the
best sources we have are the oldest. Phonologically the group is remarkable,
showing a 4-way register system that combines both breathy and creaky
phonation. This 4-way system is similar to the systems found among Vietic

languages, except that the creaky phonation is definitely realised as a glottal


restriction during the phonation of the vowel, rather than with the final consonant.
As in other phonologically innovative MK groups, proto-MK voiced stops are
devoiced, and the proto-implosive series is realised as plain. However, Pearic is
also conservative in some respects, preserving final stops that were lost in
Cambodian, Bahnaric, Katuic ettc., and retains various lexical items that have
cognates in MK languages much further north rather than in the Eastern MK area.
On balance Pearic is very important for the PMK reconstruction as there are strong
indications that it is more closely related to the Northern MK languages than those
of Cambodia and immediate surrounds.
It is also significant that the older sources were not collected by trained linguists,
and consequently are not phonetically reliable, and thus should only be used for
lexical studies. Only since Huffman (1985) and L-Thongkum (1991) do we find the
4 registers properly described and distinguished. Fortunately fieldwork is now
being done by experienced Thai researchers on the Pearic dialects spoken in
Thailand and with emigrs from Cambodian regions, but a comprehensive
program of field data collection and documentation remains an urgent priority.
Headley (1978b) resented a preliminary Proto-Pearic reconstruction and internal
genetic classification. Headley relied mostly upon the Baradat vocabulary of 1941
and a manuscript Chong vocabulary (still unpublished) provided by Franklin
Huffman. From the perspective of comparative phonology the reconstruction is
rather incomplete - unfortunately sources were not yet available that reliably
distinguished the 4 registers, and while Headley noted the phenomenon of
"prefinal" glottals (as he called them) decided to leave the question "to future
linguists". In respect of the consonants, Headley reconstructed voicesless stops
deriving from both *voiceless and *voiced stops, and additionally reconstructed a
second *voiceless series of an unknown phonation type that he writes with
capitals: *P, *T, *C, *K. These are not the PMK imploded series, which became
plain stops in Proto-Pearic, instead these are externally motivated, reflecting a
special correspondence between voiced stops in Old-Mon and voiced stops in
Khmer. The significance of this series is not clear to me, and I suspect that it is an
artifact.
Due to the preliminary nature of the reconstruction I will not go into further detail rather the time is right for another attempt at the problem. Headley's data includes
at least 410 sets of comparisons, so it provides an excellent starting point for new
comparative studies undertaken with the benefit of newer data.

References and further reading

Baradat, R. 1941. Les Samr ou Pear, population primitive de l'Ouest du


Cambodge. BEFEO Paris, 41:1-150.

Bastian, Adolf. 1868. Reise durch Kambodja nach Cochinchina. Die Voelker des
oestlichen Asien: Studien und Reisen von Dr. Adolf Bastian, Vierter Band. Jena,
Herman Costenoble, reprinted 1967 by Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur.

Headley, Robert K. Jr. 1977. A Pearic vocabulary. Mon-Khmer Studies 6:69-150.

Diffloth, Grard. 1989. Proto-Austroasiatic Creaky Voice. Mon-Khmer Studies


15:139-154.

Headley, Robert K. Jr. 1978a. An English-Pearic Vocabulary. Mon-Khmer Studies


7:61-94.

Headley, Robert K. Jr. 1978b. Proto-Pearic and the Classification of Pearic. In


Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies presented to Andr-G Haudricourt. Ratanakul,
Thmas and Premsirat eds., Bangkok, Mahidol University. pp. 355-88.

Huffman, Franklin E. 1985. The phonology of Chong. Southeast Asian Linguistic


Studies presented to Andr-G Haudricourt. Ratanakul, Thmas and Premsirat eds.,
Bangkok, Mahidol University. pp. 355-88.

Martin, Marie A. 1974. Esquisse phonologique du Somree. Asie du sud-est et


monde Insulindien, 5.1:97-106.

Martin, Marie A. 1975. Les dialectes Pears dans leurs rapports avec les langues
nationales. Journal of the Siam Society, 63.2:86-95.

Thongkum, Theraphan, Luang-. 1991. An instrumental study of Chong registers. In


Austroasiatic languages: essays in Honour of H.L. Shorto, edited by J.H.C.S.
Davidson, pp.141-160. London: SOAS.

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