Pacoh language

The Pacoh language is a member of the Katuic language group, a part of the Eastern Mon–Khmer linguistic branch. Most Pacoh speakers live in central Laos and central Vietnam.^[2] Pacoh is undergoing substantial change, influenced by the Vietnamese.^[3]

Pacoh
Native to	Laos, Vietnam
Ethnicity	Pacoh
Native speakers	32,000 (2002–2005)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Katuic Pacoh
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pac
Glottolog	paco1243

Alternative names are Paco, Pokoh, Bo River Van Kieu. Its dialects are Pahi (Ba-Hi). They are officially classified by the Vietnamese government as Ta'Oi (Tà Ôi) people.

Phonology

Vowels (Sidwell 2003):

Pacoh has six vowel qualities, all of which occur long and short, in modal and creaky voice. Creaky vowels are lowered compared to modally voiced vowels. There are three diphthongs which also occur modal and creaky. Unlike other languages in the area, vowel phonation does not seem to have originated in the phonation of preceding consonants.

Monophthongs

	front	central	back
High modal	i iː	ɨ ɨː	u uː
Low modal	e eː	ə əː	o oː
High creaky	ḛ ḛː	ə̰ ə̰ː	o̰ o̰ː
Low creaky	ɛ̰ ɛ̰ː	a̰ a̰ː	ɔ̰ ɔ̰ː

Diphthongs

	front	central	back
Modal	iə	ɨə	uə
Creaky	ḛa	ə̰a	o̰a

Grammar

Pacoh Pronouns

	1st person			2nd person			3rd person
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
General	kɨ:	ɲaŋ	dɔ:	ʔmmaj	ʔiɲa:	ʔaɲa:	hɛ:	ʔipɛ:	ʔapɛ:
Genitive	ʔɳkɨ:	ʔɲɲaŋ	ʔndɔ:	ʔmmaj	ʔndɔ:-ʔiɲa:	ʔndɔ:-ʔaɲa:	ʔŋhɛ:	ʔndɔ:-ʔipɛ:	ʔndɔ:-ʔapɛ:
Dative	ʔakɨ:	ʔaɲaŋ	ʔadɔ:	ʔamaj	ʔadɔ:-ʔiɲa:	ʔadɔ:-ʔaɲa:	ʔahɛ:	ʔadɔ:-ʔipɛ:	ʔadɔ:-ʔapɛ:

Pacoh is an analytic SVO language with six parts of speech—including verbs, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, and sentence particles, all variably depend on each other in syntactic relationship, and five important grammatical cases—nominative, accusative, dative, locative, predicative. There are no markers for the nominative and accusative cases, and word order is relied on to distinguish them instead.

Jǫ:n

give

ʔakɨ:

DAT-1SG

ʃac

book

maj

2SG

Jǫ:n ʔakɨ: ʃac maj

give DAT-1SG book 2SG

"Give me your book."

dɔ:

NOM-1PL

pe:ŋ

shoot

ʔa-ceʔ

ACC-bird

daŋ

means

tumiəŋ

crossbow

dɔ: pe:ŋ ʔa-ceʔ daŋ tumiəŋ

NOM-1PL shoot ACC-bird means crossbow

"I shot the bird with crossbow."

The predicative case marks a noun dependent on noun, usually common nouns, extension relator nouns, and demonstrative nouns.

ʔnkǫ:ŋ

man

ʔən

that

ʔiəw

old

ʔnkoh

that-PRED

ʔnkǫ:ŋ ʔən ʔiəw ʔnkoh

man that old that-PRED

"That old man."