Man Met, or Kemie ( Kemiehua), is a poorly classified Austroasiatic language spoken by about 1,000 people in Jinghong County, Xishuangbanna, China. It is classified as an Angkuic language by Paul Sidwell (2010). It may be or Mangic according to Li Yunbing (2005), or Palaungic. Like most other Austroasiatic languages, Kemie has subject–verb–object (SVO) word order.

Autonyms include (曼咪), (克蔑), and (克敏), or khaʔ33 min33.

Distribution Kemie is spoken in the following villages by just over 1,000 people. Jinghong Township (景洪镇) Xiaomanmi (小曼咪村, 58 households, 256 persons) Damanmi (大曼咪村, 53 households, 234 persons) Jiangtou Manmi (江头曼咪村, 33 households, 124 persons) Manmi (曼咪村, man13 met53) of Gadong Township (嘎东乡, 51 households, 228 persons) Sanjia (三家村) of Mengyang Township (勐养镇, 46 households, 200 persons)

Phonology The data for Man Met phonology was recorded by Chen (2005) from native speakers of the Xiao Mammi village (小曼咪村), Jinghong County, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.

Word structure Most lexemes are monosyllabic, though disyllabic compound words are pretty common. Stress falls on the final syllable in disyllables. The word structure can be described as (ʔa/m).ˈCiV(Cf)T.

Suprasegmentals (tones) Man Met features seven tones, though some one them have limited distributions.

Tone value Note Example 11 Predominantly found in Tai loans; has final /ʔ/ or creak. kʰɔn³¹ lɔ¹¹ "tadpole" 13 Infrequent, predominately with historically short /a, ɤ/ nuclei. aɕim¹³ "bird" 31 Predominates in historically long non-high nuclei. atɕɔh³¹ "ants" 33 Only two examples were attested. hɔt³³ "to end" 35 Predominates with historically approximant and palatal codas. sɤm³⁵ "to plant" 53 Restricted to checked and short syllables only. pɛʔ⁵³ "goat, sheep" 55 Infrequent, occurs with /i, u/ with nasal codas. Varies to 35~13 in connected speech. fa⁵⁵ "wide"

Consonants Onsets + Man Met onsets Labial Alveolar Alveopalatal VelarGlottalPlosiveplainaspiratedFricativevoicelessvoicedAffricateNasalLateral In uninterrupted speech, /t͡s/ may be confused with /t͡ɕ/, according to report by Chen (2005). /s/ tends to realize as [t͡sʰ] in Han loan words. The language has the following complex onsets: /pr pw pʰr pʰw (tr) kr kw kʰr kʰw/.

Codas +CodasBilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal Plosive Nasal Semivowel

Vowels +Man Met monophthongsFrontCentralBackCloseMidOpen,

References

Further reading

External links http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-93F9-9@view Man Met in RWAAI Digital Archive