Kensiu language

The Kensiu language is a special, ancient way of speaking used by a very small group of people. It belongs to the Austroasiatic family of languages and is part of the Jahaic subbranch.

Today, about 300 people in Yala Province in southern Thailand still speak Kensiu. There is also a similar group of about 300 speakers living in the states of Perak and Kedah in Western Malaysia. The people who speak Kensiu are part of the Maniq people, also known as the Mani of Thailand. In Malaysia, they are included among the Orang Asli, the original inhabitants of the land.

Because so few people still speak Kensiu, this language is very important for understanding the history and culture of these communities. It helps us learn about their traditions, stories, and connection to the land they have lived on for many generations.

History

The Thai Maniq and the Malaysian Semang are believed to be the first modern humans in the Malay Peninsula. After them, people speaking Mon–Khmer languages came from southwestern China. Over time, the Negrito people stopped using their old languages and started speaking the languages of their neighbors. They still use these languages today.

Geographic distribution

The Maniq people live in the mountains and jungles of Southern Thailand and Northern Malaysia. They are thought to be the original inhabitants of Peninsular Malaysia.

In Thailand, they are sometimes called the Sakai, Khon Paa, or Ngok Paa, which means "the forest people." They live near the border in Narathiwat and Yala provinces, and also in the Baantat Mountain Range in Satul, Trang, and Phatthalung provinces.

In Malaysia, the Maniq live between Northern Kedah and the border with Thailand. Some have lived in villages near Baling, Kedah, since 1965. There are about 200 Maniq in Thailand and around 2,500 in Malaysia, though the exact numbers are hard to know because they often move around.

Alternate names

The Kensiu language has many other names. Some of these names are Belubn, Kense, Kenseu, Kensieu, Kensiw, Maniq, Mawas, Mendi, Mengo, Meni, Menik, Moni, Monik, Moniq, Mos, Ngok Pa, Orang Bukit, Orang Liar, Sakai, and Tiong. There is also a related language called Tea-de. It is spoken in Waeng District and Narathiwat Province in Thailand.

Phonology

The Kensiu language has 28 vowels. These include 14 oral vowels and 12 nasal vowels, along with one oral and one nasal diphthong. The vowels can be at different heights in the mouth.

Nasality and tongue height

Each oral vowel has a nasal version, except for two vowels. Nasal vowels are less common and often appear in certain words.

The vowels in Kensiu have five different heights for front and central vowels, and four for back vowels. Some vowels are slightly higher in the mouth than others.

Vowel description

The vowels listed do not include nasalized vowels. Nasalized vowels are marked with a tilde, like /ĩ/, which is the nasalized version of /i/.

• /i/: Slightly lower and more backed than a standard vowel.
• /e̝/: Lower and further back than another standard vowel. It does not appear before certain sounds.
• /e/: Lower and more backed than /e̝/.
• /ɛ/: Slightly higher and more backed than a standard vowel.
• /ɯ/: More fronted than a standard vowel.
• /ɚ/: A central unrounded vowel with a retroflexed quality. It is slightly higher than a schwa. It appears mainly in unstressed syllables.
• /ə/: A central unrounded vowel appearing midway between high and low positions.
• /ʌ/: Slightly higher than a standard vowel. It is common in unstressed syllables.
• /a/: An open central unrounded vowel. It appears most often.
• /u/: Slightly lower and fronted than a standard vowel.
• /o̝/: Slightly lower and more fronted than a standard vowel.
• /o/: A mid back rounded vowel.
• /ɔ/: Slightly higher and more fronted than a standard vowel.
• /ie/: A close front unrounded lowering diphthong. It appears only in stressed syllables, always with a final stop. It has an allophone before a final glottal stop.

Vowel contrasts

The vowels do not appear in all word positions. Some central vowels do not appear in open syllables, and others do not appear with certain final sounds. Some vowels rarely appear with final nasal sounds. With regard to certain sounds, only specific vowels can appear with a final /w/. Two vowels do not appear with a final /j/. The diphthong cannot combine with a final approximant.

Consonant allophonic description and distribution

Unvoiced stops are usually unaspirated, but three of them can sometimes be aspirated, likely due to borrowings from other languages.

• /p/ is usually a voiceless unaspirated bilabial stop, but it can rarely be aspirated in certain borrowed words from Malay.
• /t/ is usually an unaspirated alveolar stop at the start and end of a syllable, but it can rarely be aspirated in borrowed words from Thai.
• /c/ is a voiceless palatal stop that appears at the start and end of a syllable, though not often.
• /k/ is a voiceless unaspirated velar stop at the start and end of a syllable. It can rarely be aspirated in certain borrowed words from Thai.
• /ʔ/ appears very often at the start and end of a syllable. At the end, it mainly appears in stressed syllables.
• /b, d, ɟ, ɡ/ are voiced stops at the start of a syllable, but they change at the end of a morpheme.
• /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/, nasal stops at different points of articulation, are less common than oral stops. All four appear at the start and end of syllables.
• /ɸ/ is a voiceless bilabial fricative that only appears at the end of a syllable.
• /s/, a voiceless alveolar fricative, can have a palatal sound in both positions.
• /h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative that appears at the start and end of a syllable.
• /l/ has a palatal sound at the end of a syllable. At the start, it is a clear lateral approximant.
• /w/, a voiced labio-velar central approximant, appears at the start and end of a syllable. It can also appear as the second consonant in a cluster at the start of a stressed syllable.
• /ɻ/ is usually a voiced retroflexed central approximant at the start or end of a syllable. However, it is heard as a flap when it is the second consonant in a syllable initial cluster.

In addition to these pairs, there are a couple of other words that are spoken with a high pitch.

Nasality is a feature of Kensiu vowels. There are 13 nasal vowels.

Word and syllable structure

Kensiu has three types of syllables, like other Mon-Khmer languages:

• Major syllables with many vowels and consonants at the start and end. They can be single-syllable words or the end syllable of two-syllable words.
• Minor syllables with fewer vowels or fixed stress at the end. They only appear as non-final syllables. In Kensiu, they can also have a specific pattern.
• Presyllables with an epenthetic schwa or a few vowels, breaking up a consonant cluster. They only appear as pre-final syllables in two-syllable words.

Kensiu has all three types but also has words with three or four syllables, mostly from Malay borrowings.

Reduplication

Reduplication in Kensiu is a common process that changes syllable structure. Reduplicated words usually have a specific syllable structure. There are also occasional consonant clusters in the second syllable.

There are three main ways of reduplication in Kensiu:

1. Identical consonants, changed vowel
2. Identical final consonant and vowel, changed initial consonant
3. Identical final consonant, changed initial consonant and vowel

All three methods copy the base word, with the first syllable as a new bound morpheme and the second as the base. The first method is the most common. The second copies the final consonant and vowel but changes the first consonant. The third copies only the final consonant and changes the first consonant and vowel. Reduplicated forms often include nasal vowels and a specific final sound.

Morphology and syntax

Kensiu is an SVO language. This means the order of words in a sentence is subject, verb, and then object. For example, describing words come after the main word.

The language has special words to show where things are, like inside or outside something. It also uses different words to show how far away something is.

Words

Kensiu does not use many single-syllable words. Most words have a main part, a smaller part, and sometimes an extra beginning part.

Vocabulary

Kensiu uses many words borrowed from Malay. It also shares some words with other languages in the Austroasiatic family.

Terms of reference and address

The Kensiu language has special ways to talk about family members, similar to the Hawaiian kinship system but with some differences. For example, cousins and siblings are told apart by who is older, not by gender. There are also special ways to talk about aunts, uncles, grandparents, and younger relatives.

Orthography

Writing system

The Kensiu language uses the Thai script for writing. The symbols are like those used in Thai, which makes them easier to learn for people who know Thai. This also helps people read both languages.

Vowels

Kensiu has more vowel sounds than Thai, including extra heights and nasal sounds. Special marks were added to Thai symbols to show these differences. A Pali dot helps show different vowel heights. A special Thai symbol marks nasal sounds because Thai does not have these sounds.

Consonants

For consonants that are the same in Kensiu and Thai, the Thai symbols are used. For new sounds in Kensiu, similar Thai symbols were chosen based on how they are pronounced. This includes sounds like voiced plosives, a nasal sound, fricatives, and special nasal sounds.

Consonant clusters

Kensiu uses the same way as Thai to write consonant clusters, but it has a few more clusters ending in /w/.

Tone

Kensiu is not a tonal language, but some words have a high tone. This high tone is marked with a special symbol called a maitree.

Relationship with other languages

Kensiu is related to many languages spoken in Southern Thailand. For example, Kensiu and Kintaq Bong, a Northern Aslian language, are actually dialects of the same language. Kensiu also shares words with other languages such as Mendriq, Mintil, Bateg Nong, Jehai, and Che Wong. Che Wong, spoken far away, seems closer to Kensiu than some languages that are nearer, like Mintil.

Endangerment

The Kensiu language is in danger because only a small group of people speak it. Sometimes they feel shy to use it. Many people around them speak Thai or Malay, so Kensiu speakers are switching to these languages. There also aren’t many books in Kensiu, and government rules sometimes make it hard for the Kensiu community to live in their traditional areas. This makes it hard to keep the Kensiu language alive.