Mah Meri, also known as Besisi, Cellate, Hmaʼ Btsisiʼ, Maʼ Betisek, and pejoratively as Orang Sabat,
is an
Austroasiatic language spoken in 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 ...
. Along with
Semaq Beri,
Semelai and
Temoq, Mah Meri belongs to the
Southern Aslian branch of the
Aslian languages.
Mah Meri is the only remaining
Aslian language spoken in a coastal area (on the coasts of
Negeri Sembilan
Negeri Sembilan (, Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Nogoghi Sombilan'', ''Nismilan''), historically spelled as Negri Sembilan, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia which lies on the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, wes ...
and
Selangor
Selangor ( ; ), also known by the Arabic language, Arabic honorific Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity", is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the e ...
) and its speaker population is 3,675 as recorded at the
Orang Asli Museum in
Gombak.
A dictionary of the Mah Meri language has been compiled by Nicole Kruspe.
[ Kruspe, N., & Zainal, A. (2010)]
A Dictionary of Mah Meri as Spoken at Bukit Bangkong
''Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications'', (36), Iii-410. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25822793
Phonology
Vowels
Source:
[ Kruspe, N., & Hajek, J. (2009)]
Mah Meri
''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'', 39(2), 241-248
doi:10.1017/S0025100309003946
/ref>
Voice register
Source:voice registers
A vocal register is a range of tones in the human voice produced by a particular vibratory pattern of the vocal folds. These registers include modal voice (or normal voice), vocal fry, falsetto, and the whistle register.
Registers originate in lar ...
in Mah Meri:
Register 1: Register 1 vowels have a clear tense voice quality, shorter duration and lower pitch. Register 1 vowels also have fewer phonotactic restrictions.
Register 2: Register 2 vowels are laxer, longer and higher in pitch. Register 2 vowels also have a slight breathy voicing.
Consonants
Source:
Grammar
Syntax
Source:modifiers
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
and demonstratives
Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
occur after the head as shown in examples (1) and (2) while prepositions
Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
occur before the head as shown in example (3).
For transitive clauses, Mah Meri generally follows an Agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...
-Verb
A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
-Object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an a ...
(AVO) order as shown in example (4), but a Verb-Agent-Object (VAO) order is more common during natural discourse as shown in example (5).
For intransitive clauses in Mah Meri, both Subject-Verb (SV) and Verb-Subject (VS) orders are possible as shown in examples (6) and (7) respectively.
Morphology
Source:
Semi-productive derivations
1. ''Detransitivizing N- 'DTR
::The prefix ''n-'' is attached to monosyllabic verbs and the vowel from the final syllable is reduplicated into the vowel position.
::Example: ''bɛ'' 'to do' → ''nɛ-bɛ'' 'doing, doer'
::For disyllabic verbs, the initial consonant is replaced by a homorganic
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from Latin and ) is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since they share the bilabial place of ...
nasal.
::Example: ''plɘt'' 'to extinguish' → ''m:ɘlɘt'' 'extinguishing'
2. ''Transitive focus ka- 'TR
::The prefix ''ka-'' only applies to indigenous monosyllabic verbs.
::Example: ''jɛt'' 'to follow' → ''ka-jɛt'' 'to follow someone or something', ''cɔʔ'' 'to go' → ''ka-cɔʔ'' 'to go to someone or a place'
3. ''Distributive < l > 'DISTR
::The infix ''< l >'' applies to disyllabic intransitive verbs of position or state and also some verbs of motion.
::The infix is inserted into the initial syllable and a schwa replaces to well to correct syllable structure.
::Example: ''kancɛw'' 'to be naked' → ''kɘlancɛw'' 'many naked (people)'.
::If the penultimate syllable CV is a palatal stop plus schwa, the ''< la >'' infix is applied instead.
::Example: ''jɘkɘʔ'' 'to sit motionless' → ''jɘ-la-kɘʔ'' 'many sitting motionless'
Regular productive derivations
=Iterative sɘ-RDP-root 'ITER'
=
The prefix is attached to the initial constituent of reduplicated bases to express iteration
Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration.
...
.
Example:
=Happenstance 'happ'
=
The prefix expresses:
*an inadvertent event
*ability or inability when used in a negated clause.
Example: 'happen to eat'
= Middle voice bɘ- 'MID'
=
The prefix is applied to either verbal or nominal roots to express an attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
or possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...
function.
Example: 'having a house'
Language endangerment and vitality
According to ''Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...
'',
References
External links
* http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
* http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-66E2-7@view Mah Meri in RWAAI Digital Archive
* ELAR archive o
Mah Meri (and Ceq Wong) language documentation materials
{{Austro-Asiatic languages
Languages of Malaysia
Aslian languages