The Pacoh language is a member of the Katuic language group, a part of the Eastern Mon–Khmer linguistic branch. Most Pacoh speakers live in central Laos and central Vietnam. Pacoh is undergoing substantial change, influenced by the Vietnamese.
Alternative names are Paco, Pokoh, Bo River Van Kieu. Its dialects are Pahi (Ba-Hi). They are officially classified by the Vietnamese government as Ta'Oi (Tà Ôi) people.
Phonology Consonants LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosivevoicelessaspiratedvoicedFricativeTrillApproximantplainpostglottalwʔjʔ
Only /ɲ/, but not other nasals, occurs in presyllables before /c, ʃ, ɲ/.Alves (2006). p. 10 /w/ may be lenited as voiced dental fricative [v] in initial positions.Alves (2006). p. 11 Syllable finals /ŋ/ and /k/ are realized as labialized [ŋʷ], [kʷ] after [-RTR] back round vowels /o/ and /u/.Alves (2006). p. 12
Vowels Vowels (Sidwell 2003):
Pacoh has six vowel qualities, all of which occur long and short, in modal and creaky voice. Creaky vowels are lowered compared to modally voiced vowels. There are three diphthongs 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 frontcentralbackHigh modali iː ɨ ɨːu uːLow modale eːə əːo oːHigh creakyḛ ḛːə̰ ə̰ːo̰ o̰ːLow creakyɛ̰ ɛ̰ːa̰ a̰ːɔ̰ ɔ̰ː
+Diphthongs frontcentralbackModaliə ɨəuəCreakyḛaə̰ao̰a
Grammar +Pacoh Pronouns 1st person 2nd person 3rd person General kɨ: ɲaŋ dɔ: ʔmmaj ʔiɲa: ʔaɲa: hɛ: ʔipɛ: ʔapɛ:Genitive ʔɳkɨ: ʔɲɲaŋ ʔndɔ: ʔmmaj ʔndɔ:-ʔiɲa: ʔndɔ:-ʔaɲa: ʔŋhɛ: ʔndɔ:-ʔipɛ: ʔndɔ:-ʔapɛ:Dative ʔakɨ: ʔaɲaŋ ʔadɔ: ʔamaj ʔadɔ:-ʔiɲa: ʔadɔ:-ʔaɲa: ʔahɛ: ʔadɔ:-ʔipɛ: ʔadɔ:-ʔapɛ:
Pacoh is an analytic SVO language with six parts of speech—including verbs, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, and sentence particles, all variably depend on each other in syntactic relationship, and five important grammatical cases—nominative, accusative, dative, locative, predicative. There are no markers for the nominative and accusative cases, and word order is relied on to distinguish them instead.
The predicative case marks a noun dependent on noun, usually common nouns, extension relator nouns, and demonstrative nouns.
References
Further reading
External links Alves, Mark J. 2007. Pacoh Pronouns and Grammaticalization Clines. A grammar of Pacoh: A Mon–Khmer language of the central highlands of Vietnam The language has these sounds Pacoh-English-Vietnamese dictionary by SIL International