Sedang language

Sedang is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern Laos and Kon Tum Province in south central Vietnam. The Sedang language has the most speakers of any of the languages of the North Bahnaric language group, a group of languages known for their range of vowel phonations.

Sedang
Native to	Vietnam and Laos
Region	Kon Tum, Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Dak Lak(Vietnam)
Ethnicity	Sedang people
Native speakers	98,000 (2007)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Bahnaric North Bahnaric Sedang–Todrah Sedang
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sed
Glottolog	seda1262[2]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮdʑ	ᵑɡ
	unaspirated	p	t	tɕ	k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	tɕʰ	kʰ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s		x	h
	voiced	v	z		ɣ
Approximant		w	l	j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Upper Mid	e		o
Lower Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Diphthongs[3]

	Front Glide	Central Glide	Back Glide
/i/ Nucleus	iɛ̯, ḭɛ̯	iə̯, ḭə̯, ĩə̯̃, ḭ̃ə̯̃	io̯, ĩõ̯
/u/ Nucleus		uə̯, ṵə̯, ũə̯̃, ṵ̃ə̯̃	uo̯, ṵo̯
/e/ Nucleus		eə̯, ḛə̯, ẽə̯̃, ḛ̃ə̯̃	eo̯, ḛo̯, ḛ̃o̯
/o/ Nucleus	oɛ̯, o̰ɛ̯	oə̯, o̰ə̯, õə̯̃

Sedang itself has 24 pure vowels: 7 vowel qualities, all of which may be plain ([a]), nasalized ([ã]), and creaky ([a̰]) and three of which /i a o/ may be both nasal and creaky ([ã̰]). While it does not have the length distinctions of other North Bahnaric languages, it has more diphthongs, between 33 and 55 vowel sounds altogether. (The above set yields 50.) Sedang is thus sometimes claimed to have the largest vowel inventory in the world. However, other Bahnaric languages have more vowel qualities (Bahnar, for example, has 9) in addition to phonemic vowel length so the language with the record depends closely on how the languages are described and distinct vowels are defined.

References

1. Sedang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Sedang". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Smith, Kenneth D. (1975). Phonology and Syntax of Sedang, A Vietnam Mon-Khmer Language. University of Pennsylvania. pp. 62–64.

Further reading

• Smith, Kenneth D. (1967). "Sedang dialects". Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises. 42: 195–255.
• Smith, Kenneth D. (1968). "Laryngealization and de-laryngealization in Sedang phonemics". Linguistics. 6 (38): 52–69.
• Smith, Kenneth D. (1969). "Sedang ethnodialects". Anthropological Linguistics. 11 (5): 143–147. JSTOR 30029222.
• Smith, Kenneth D. (1973). "More on Sedang ethnodialects" (PDF). Mon–Khmer Studies. 4: 43–51.
• Smith, Kenneth D. (1979). Sedang Grammar: Phonological and Syntactic Structure. Pacific Linguistics Series B - No. 50. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/pl-b50. hdl:1885/145050. ISBN 978-0-85883-180-3.
• Lê Đông, Tạ Văn Thông (2008), Từ điển Việt - Xơ Đăng, Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản văn hóa thông tin

External links

• Sedang Dictionary with English, Vietnamese, and French glossaries
• Paul Sidwell's Mon–Khmer language information at the Australian National University.
• Sound sample showing the distinction between clear and creaky vowels, from the link above.
• Smith's dissertation