Preliminary notes on the phonology, orthography and vocabulary of Semnam (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula)

Summary, in English

This paper reports tentatively some features of Semnam, a Central Aslian language spoken by some 250 people in the Perak valley, Peninsular Malaysia. It outlines the unusually rich phonemic system of this hitherto undescribed language (e.g. a vowel system comprising 36 distinctive nuclei), and proposes a practical orthography for it. It also includes the c. 1,250- item wordlist on which the analysis is based, collected intermittently in the field 2006-2008.

• Author: Niclas Burenhult; Claudia Wegener
• Department/s: General Linguistics
• Publishing year: 2009
• Language: English
• Pages: 283-312
• Publication/Series: Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society
• Volume: 1
• Full text: - 932 kB; Download statistics
• Links: http://www.jseals.org/
• Document type: Journal article
• Topic: General Language Studies and Linguistics
• Status: Published