Kensiu (Kensiw) is an Austroasiatic language of the Jahaic (Northern Aslian) subbranch. It is spoken by a small community of 300 people in Yala Province in southern Thailand and also reportedly by a community of approximately 300 speakers in Western Malaysia in Perak and Kedah states. Speakers of this language are Negritos who are known as the Maniq people or Mani of Thailand. In Malaysia, they are counted among the Orang Asli.
History The Thai Maniq and the Malaysian Semang are reportedly the first modern humans to enter the Malay Peninsula. After the Negrito, the next wave of migrants to arrive were speakers of the Mon–Khmer languages, most likely from southwestern China. Over the millennia, the Negrito lost their original languages and adopted the Mon–Khmer languages of their neighbors, which they still speak today.
Geographic distribution The Maniq settle around the mountainous jungle areas in Southern Thailand and Northern Malaysia. They are considered the original inhabitants of Peninsular Malaysia.
In Thailand, they are commonly known as the Sakai, Khon Paa or Ngok Paa, the forest people.
The Maniq in Southern Thailand live in the border provinces of Narathiwat and Yala and in the Baantat Mountain Range of Satul, Trang and Phatthalung provinces.
In Malaysia, the Maniq are situated between Northern Kedah and the borders of Thailand. However, they have been settling into villages near Baling, Kedah since 1965. There were reports that stated that they are found in Southern Kedah. In 1969, a survey gave a figure of 98 Maniq in Kedah alone. There is a total of 200 Maniq in Thailand and around 2500 in Malaysia. This figure could not be ascertained due to the nomadic lifestyle that the Maniq adopted.
Alternate names Kensiu has also been referred to as Belubn, Kense, Kenseu, Kensieu, Kensiw, Maniq, Mawas, Mendi, Mengo, Meni, Menik, Moni, Monik, Moniq, Mos, Ngok Pa, Orang Bukit, Orang Liar, Sakai, and Tiong. Tea-de, a language variety belonging to the Maniq-Kensiw language cluster, is spoken in Waeng District, Narathiwat Province, Thailand.
Phonology Vowels There are 28 vowels in the Kensiu language: 14 oral monophthongs and 12 nasal monophthongs, as well as 1 oral and 1 nasal diphthong. Front, central and back vowels at a tongue height intermediate to the close-mid and open-mid positions (i.e. true-mid) are also present. The language does not seem to have any voice register distinction.
The following tables are in the transcription of the source rather than standard IPA.
+ Vowel Phonemes (Oral) Front Central Back Close Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Open Diphthongs
+ Vowel Phonemes (Nasal) Front Central Back Close Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Open Diphthongs
Nasality and tongue height It can be observed that there is a contrasting nasal monophthong for each oral monophthong except and . The frequency of the nasal vowels are also much less than the oral ones and they are often in a conditioned environment.
The vowels in Kensiu have five distinctive tongue heights for the front and central vowels and four for the back vowels. The close-mid vowels have a slightly higher tongue height than their mid counterparts .
Vowel description
The vowels listed below do not include nasalized vowels. Nasalized vowels are marked by a tilde, e.g. would be the nasalized equivalent of . They also differ from the description of cardinal vowels (CV) with the same symbol.
: Slightly lower and more backed than CV 1. : Lower and further back than CV 2. It does not occur in the environment of final voiced bilabial stops or liquids. : Lower and more backed than /e̝/. It is unmarked diacritically since it is closer to the position of rest for the tongue. : Slightly higher and more backed than CV 3. The distribution and frequency are similar to that of . : Significantly more fronted than CV 16 but not enough to compare with CV 17. It is also lower in tongue height compared to its comparable cardinal vowel. : A close-mid central unrounded vowel. It has a retroflexed quality, probably influenced by Malay contact. It is slightly higher than the schwa . It can occur in stressed syllables in limited environments but is mainly found in unstressed syllables. : A mid central unrounded vowel. The tongue height appears to be midway between the close-mid and open-mid positions as shown in the IPA chart. It rarely occurs in stressed syllables. : Tongue height is slightly higher than CV 14 but significantly more fronted. It is commonly found in unstressed syllables. It also frequently occurs in the closed syllable pattern, CVC. : An open central unrounded vowel. It is the vowel that occurs most frequently and can co-occur with every initial single consonant and final consonant. : Slightly lower and fronted than CV 8. : Slightly lower and more fronted than CV 7. : A mid back rounded vowel. : Slightly higher and more fronted than CV 6. : A close front unrounded lowering diphthong. It occurs only in stressed syllables, always with a final stop. It has an allophone, , before a final glottal stop.
Vowel contrasts The vowels do not occur in all environments. The central vowels do not occur in open syllables and do not occur with final approximants . The vowels seem to occur rarely with the final nasals . The incidence of final nasal consonants is very low, however, and it is not possible to conclusively state this as a restriction. With regard to approximants, only can occur with a final . do not occur with a final . The diphthong cannot combine with a final approximant and this is probably due to the vocalic nature of the approximants that would violate the syllable patterns.
Consonants +Consonant phonemes Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Stop voiceless aspirated () () () voiced Nasal Fricative Approximant Lateral
Consonant allophonic description and distribution Unvoiced stops are characteristically unaspirated, but three of the five are (though infrequently) realised as aspirated stops, apparently as a result of borrowings.
/p/ is normally realised as a voiceless unaspirated bilabial stop [p], but also has a rare aspirated allophone [pʰ] in initial position which appears to be the result of a Malay borrowing. /t/ is normally realised as an unaspirated alveolar stop syllable initial and final and has a rare aspirated allophone, [tʰ], which appears syllable initial in a Thai borrowing. /t/ has one other occasional allophone [t̪], a voiceless dental or fronted alveolar stop. No phonological conditioning has been recognised that would account for this allophone to date. /c/ is a voiceless palatal stop that occurs syllable initial and final, albeit infrequently. /k/ is realised phonetically as a voiceless unaspirated velar stop, [k], syllable initially and finally. /k/ has an infrequent aspirated realisation [kʰ] which appears to be in contrast with /kʰ/ in syllable initial position in a limited number of words, majority of which are Thai borrowings. /ʔ/ occurs syllable initially and finally on a very frequent basis. Its syllable final distribution seems to be restricted primarily to stressed syllables. /b, d, ɟ, ɡ/ are phonetically realised as voiced bilabial alveolar, palatal and velar stops, [b, d, ɟ, ɡ] respectively syllable initially, but as pre-oralized nasals morpheme final. The voiced stops have a word final allophone with a final nasal assimilating to the same point of articulation as the stop: /b/, [-bm], /d/, [-dn], [ɟ], [-ɟɲ], /ɡ/, [-ɡŋ]. /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/, nasal stops at the bilabial, alveolar, palatal and velar points of articulation, are relatively infrequent in comparison to the oral stops. The palatal nasal /ɲ/ is the least frequent and least widely distributed of all the nasals. All four nasals occur both syllable initial and final. /ɸ/ is a voiceless bilabial fricative which only occurs in syllable final position. /s/, a voiceless alveolar fricative, has a palatal allophone [ʃ] in both syllable initial and final positions which appears to be in free variation with [s]. Individual speakers seem to use one allophone consistently, although either realisation is deemed correct by all speakers. /h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative that occurs both syllable initial and final. /l/ is realised as a palatal allophone [ʎ] in syllable final position. Syllable initially, /l/ is realised as 'clear' lateral approximant [l]. /w/, a voiced labio-velar central approximant, occurs both syllable initially and finally. It can also occur in the second consonant position of a syllable initial consonant cluster in stressed syllables. /ɻ/ is normally realised as a voiced retroflexed central approximant in either syllable initial or final position. However, this phoneme is perceived as a flap [ɾ] when it is the second consonant of a syllable initial cluster. There is one additional occurrence of /ɻ/ which is phonetically realised as a trill [r].
Suprasegmentals Stress Kensiu has fixed non-contrastive primary stress which falls on the final syllable of the lexeme. In addition, minor syllables may be either completely unstressed or secondarily stressed, depending on the presence of reduplication. The normal, unmarked case, in which no reduplication has taken place, would be completely unstressed. The less frequent, marked case occurs when the final syllable is copied, producing an initial syllable that bears secondary stress. In any event, the application of stress is completely predictable and, while acoustically differing, stress is not contrastive in Kensiu.
Tone There are a very small number of pairs of lexemes that contrast only on the basis of a pitch difference. One member of each of these pairs has a normal (mid-level) pitch while the other member has a high level pitch. This pitch difference correlates with a change in meaning.
'language' 'head' 'to be stuck' 'to cut' 'to bite' 'deaf and mute'
In addition to these pairs, there are a couple of other lexemes that are spoken with the high pitch, but for which no contrasting mid-level pitch lexeme has yet been found.
Nasality Nasality is a suprasegmental feature of Kensiu vowels. There is a set of 13 nasal vowels.
Word and syllable structure Word and syllable patterns Typically, Mon–Khmer languages may have three types of syllables:
Major syllables with a full inventory of vowels and initial and final consonants. They may occur as monosyllabic words or as the final syllable of disyllabic words, i.e. 'CVC, 'CCVC, CV.'CVC, 'CV.CVC. Minor syllables with either a limited inventory of possible epenthetic vowels occurring medially in an initial consonant cluster or a broader inventory of vowels, but fixed final syllable stress, i.e. CV.'CVC or CV2.CV1C where V2 = [e, a, u, or ɪ] and V1 is essentially unrestricted. Minor syllables occur only as non-final syllables. In Kensiu, they can also have the pattern of CVC.'CV(C). Presyllables which have either an epenthetic schwa or a slightly larger inventory of vowels, e.g. [ə, u, i], disrupting an initial consonant cluster. Schwa [ə] presyllables vary with consonant clusters, CəCVC ~ CCVC, in some forms. Presyllables occur only as pre-final syllables in disyllabic words.
Kensiu appears to have all three of the above types of syllables, but with the added features of tri- and tetra-syllabic words and with fixed stress in multisyllabic words. In Kensiu, two, three and even four syllable words occur. However, the three and four syllable words appear to be largely Malay borrowings.
Reduplication Reduplication in Kensiu is a relatively productive process, and it impacts the syllable structure. Reduplicated lexemes generally have the syllable structure CVC.CVC. In addition, occasional initial consonant clusters may be found in the second syllable but not in the first, e.g. [pʌt.plit] pʌtplit 'to blink quickly, repeatedly'.
There are essentially 3 productive means of reduplication in Kensiu:
Identical consonants, changed vowel (V−α~Vα) CβV−αCα.CβVαCα