Jahai language

Jahai
Jahai
Native to	Malaysia, a few in Thailand
Ethnicity	1,800 Jahai people (2008)
Native speakers	1,000 in Malaysia (2006)
Language family	Austroasiatic Aslian Jahaic Eastern Jahai; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jhi
Glottolog	jeha1242
ELP	Jahai

Jahai (Jehai) is an aboriginal Mon–Khmer language spoken by the Jahai people living in the montane rainforests of northern Peninsular Malaysia and southernmost Thailand. It is the largest Northern Aslian language. Though spoken by only a little more than 1,000 people, Jahai does not appear to be in immediate danger of extinction due to the prevalence of Jahai parents passing on the language to their children as their mother tongue.^[2]

Jahai has a unique vocabulary for describing odors.^[3]

Phonology

Vowels

Jahai vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ	ɨ ɨ̃	u ũ
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ ɛ̃	ə ə̃	ɔ ɔ̃
Open		a ã

Consonants

Jahai consonants
		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c	k	ʔ
Plosive	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ	ʔ
Fricative		ɸ		s		h
Lateral			l
Rhotic			ɾ~r
Approximant		w		j

Syllable structure

On the surface level, the maximal syllable in Jahai is represented as CV(C). The onset consonant is obligatorily required.^[2]

Stress and tone

The position of stress always falls on the last syllable. Burenhult states there is no tonal distinction in Jahai language.^[2]

Olfactory categories

Odor terms in Jahai are based on abstract qualities rather than specific sources (which is more common cross-linguistically, particularly in European languages).^[4]

Odor terms^[3]
Odor terms	Approximate translation	Examples of sources	Notes
cŋəs	'to smell edible, tasty'	cooked food, sweets
crŋir	'to smell roasted'	roasted food
harɨm	'to be fragrant'	various flowers, perfumes, soap	Malay loan; original Malay meaning 'fragrant'
ltpɨt	'to be fragrant'	various flowers, perfumes, bearcat
haʔɛ̃t	'to stink'	feces, rotten meat, prawn paste
pʔus	'to be musty'	old dwellings, mushrooms, stale food
cŋɛs	'to have a stinging smell'	petrol, smoke, bat droppings
sʔı̃ŋ	'to have a smell of human urine'	human urine, village ground
haɲcı̃ŋ	'to have a urine-like smell'	urine	Malay loan; original Malay meaning 'foul odor, stench'
pʔih, plʔeŋ	'to have a blood/fish/meat-like smell'	blood, raw fish, raw meat
plʔɛŋ	'to have a bloody smell which attracts tigers'	crushed head lice, squirrel blood

References

^ ^a ^b Jahai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c Burenhult, Niclas (2005). A Grammar of Jahai (PDF). Pacific Linguistics 566. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/pl-566. hdl:1885/146729. ISBN 0-85883-554-1.
^ ^a ^b Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas (2014). "Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language". Cognition. 130 (2): 266–270. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.004. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0014-9D63-D. ISSN 0010-0277. PMID 24355816. S2CID 16257849.
^ Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas; Stensmyr, Marcus; de Valk, Josje; Hansson, Bill S. (2018). "Olfactory language and abstraction across cultures". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 373 (1752): 20170139. doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0139. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 6015838. PMID 29915007.

External links

http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-6701-4@view Jahai in RWAAI Digital Archive
Jahai DoReCo corpus compiled by Niclas Burenhult. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and - for some texts - time-aligned morphological annotations.

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[e18-1] Jahai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[Burenhult-2] Burenhult, Niclas (2005). A Grammar of Jahai (PDF). Pacific Linguistics 566. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/pl-566. hdl:1885/146729. ISBN 0-85883-554-1.

[:0-3] Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas (2014). "Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language". Cognition. 130 (2): 266–270. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.004. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0014-9D63-D. ISSN 0010-0277. PMID 24355816. S2CID 16257849.

[4] Majid, Asifa; Burenhult, Niclas; Stensmyr, Marcus; de Valk, Josje; Hansson, Bill S. (2018). "Olfactory language and abstraction across cultures". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 373 (1752): 20170139. doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0139. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 6015838. PMID 29915007.

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