Urak Lawoiʼ or Urak Lawoc (Urak Lawoiʼ: , ) is a Malayic language spoken in southern Thailand. The Orang (Suku) Laut who live between

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

and the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Tha ...

speak divergent Malayic lects, which bear some intriguing connections to various Sumatran Malay varieties.

Phonology and orthography

Vowels

* In

closed syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s, some vowels change their

quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory *Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...

: ** becomes ( 'space'). ** becomes ( 'return'). ** becomes ( 'stomach'). * Epenthetic and are added after

high vowel A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately as close as possible to ...

s respectively ( 'light', 'to throw away'). * Vowels are somewhat allophonically lengthened in stressed open syllables. * Vowels other than are slightly

nasalized In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation in British English) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . ...

after

nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majo ...

s. If the following syllable has as the onset, this onset is also nasalized ( 'to cry', 'body, self'). Notes: In the

Thai script The Thai script (, , ) is the abugida used to write Thai language, Thai, Southern Thai language, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai script itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols (, ), 16 vowel s ...

, the left column represents diacritics for open syllables, while the right one for closed syllables. For syllables with vowel ''ö'', before consonants ''k'', ''m'', ''n'', ''ng'', ''p'', and ''t'', the vowel is not written. Similarly, the diacritic for ''a'' is not used before ''q''. Any vowels with separate closed syllable diacritics have an inherent value of when not used with a succeeding consonant.

Consonants

* and allophones are influenced by Thai, whereas is influenced by Malay. * Aspirated consonants and only appear in loanwords (mostly from Thai). * Phonetically, and is pronounced , and (after back vowels and ) or (after front vowels), respectively, syllable-finally. * becomes after , otherwise in syllable-final positions ( 'space' vs. 'doctor'). * is compensatorily lengthened to phonetically long . In stressed positions, the vowel cluster fluctuates between . * The coda stop after a front vowel becomes ( 'sheep'). * Syllable-initial stops , with the same syllable containing a back vowel and coda , are labialized to and respectively ( 'to utter'). * and can be treated as a part of diphthongs or triphthongs. * only exists in the Phuket dialect.

Stress and intonation

Urak Lawoiʼ does not have tones, except in Thai loans. Words are usually stressed in penultimate syllable, except if the expected stress is placed on the pre-syllable (e.g. open syllables containing , but not ) the stress moves into the next syllable. Urak Lawoiʼ also has global intonation — for instance, interrogative sentences have rising intonation and negative sentences have lower-pitch intonation.

Phonology and orthography

Vowels

Consonants

Stress and intonation

References

Further reading