LINGUIST List 2.777

Tue 12 Nov 1991

Qs: A Phonological Query

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Message 1: Query: SE Asian Languages

Date: Fri, 08 Nov 91 22:13:02 IST
From: David Gil <RHLE813HAIFAUVM.bitnet>
Subject: Query: SE Asian Languages
Following are two queries about mainland South-East Asian Languages: (1) A phonological query. From a casual inspection of grammar books written in Thailand, Vietnam, and China, and describing their respective native languages, I get the impression that indigenous grammatical traditions analyze the syllable into onset plus rhyme, but seem not to make any finer distinctions, eg. into segments. (a) Is this impression well founded? (If it is, can anybody direct me to relevant references?) (b) Whatever the answer to the previous question, is anybody familiar with any proposals within current phonological frameworks to distinguish between languages "with segments" (eg. English) and languages "with only onsets and rhymes" (eg. Thai)? The following anecdotal evidence may perhaps support such a typological distinction. Person in the street asks me what my name is; I answer "David"; person repeats my name. What do I hear the person say? In most languages, what I hear is reasonably close to the original, eg. /Defid/ in Egypt, /Debid/ in the Philippines, and so forth. However, in mainland South East Asia, what I hear is often totally unrecognizable by me as being phonetically related to "David"; perhaps the only constant feature is the number of syllables. Or another example: Egyptian: "Where are you from?"; me: "Israel"; Egyptian: "Australia?" -- reasonably close phonetically. But Thai: "Where are you from?"; me: "Israel"; Thai: "France?" -- miles away! Needless to say, we are both equally "to blame"; my interlocutor by fitting my utterance into his/her phonological categories, myself by fitting my interlocutor's utterance back into my own phonological categories. What these interactions seem to suggest, minimally, is that South East Asian phonologies are radically different from those of most other languages. (2) A phonological/historical/cultural query. As a frequent traveller to South and South East Asia, I am continually astounded and perplexed by massive differences in the relative ease or difficulty of communicating with the local populations. As a rule, as soon as you get off the beaten track, people don't speak a word of English, and you need 10-20 words in the local language in order to survive. Now my experience has been that after a week or two at a given place in, say, India or Indonesia, I have been able to communicate basic needs in the local language; conversely, even after weeks and months in Thailand, or among Chinese-speaking people in various countries, I still find it difficult and occasionally impossible to get a cup of tea from a stall that is offering nothing but tea. Other South East Asian languages such as Burmese, Lao, and Vietnamese, also seem difficult to communicate in, but somewhat less so than Thai and Chinese. Thus, the phenomenon appears to characterize the mainland South East Asian sprachbund plus China. In an informal poll of travellers and expatriates that I conducted, about half the people knew exactly what I was talking about and had similar experiences themselves, while the other half did not. So my query is: (a) Does anybody else on the LINGUIST network have similar experiences to report? (I'd be particularly interested in comments from Asians, with a possibly mirror-image perspective on these issues.) (b) Can anybody think of an explanation? Following are three rather speculative explanations, none totally convincing: (A) A phonological explanation. The peoples with whom communication is most difficult speak languages with radically different syllable structures; specifically--see the first query above--languages "without segments". Some counterevidence: in spite of their very close relationship and phonological structures, I have found it significantly easier to communicate in Lao than in Thai. (B) A historical explanation. The peoples with whom communication is most difficult are those that haven't been colonized, or those who have had the least contact with foreigners. Some counterevidence: (i) Bangkok: now teeming with tourists and business people, yet even in the tourist zone, communication is difficult. (ii) Malaysia. An illustrative anecdote: last year I was at a conference in Kuala Lumpur and had to take a taxi every morning to the university. Invariably, I was unable to communicate my destination to the Chinese taxi drivers and had to give up in despair; on the other hand, I had no problems whatsoever with the Indians and Malays. (iii) Indonesia: many of the more remote places never saw a Dutchman and hardly ever see any white men even now; yet with a smattering of Bahasa Indonesia there is little problem getting by. (C) A cultural explanation. The peoples with whom communication is most difficult wish to discourage foreigners from learning their languge and communicating with them. Their motivation for doing this is to "keep their culture to themselves" and protect it from western contamination. Or, as one expat put it to me, "xenophobia". Comments, short or long, solicited. David Gil Department of English University of Haifa Haifa, 31999, Israel rhle813haifauvm.bitnet