Minor Mlabri

The language described in this book is spoken by a legendary, small tribe of hunter-gatherers in northern Indochina called Mlabri. The tribe has attracted considerable attention since they were first approached by westerners in 1938. Still, the knowledge of their origin, language and culture is very limited.

The Mlabri language exibits a considerable difference between men´s and women´s speech and a dramatic difference between ethnic subgroups as far as lexicon are concerned. Mlabri thus reflects the important polarizations within the micro-cosmos in which it is spoken, and it is of a socio-linguistic and anthropological interest from this perspective.

Mlabri is an Austroasiatic language but with perculiar syntactial features which make it stand out typologically. Since Mlabri has preserved a great number of old loan words from Thai origin, it provides a key to the historical study of the Thai languages as well.

The monograph contains a description of the linguistic scenario, an extensive presentation of Mlabri phonology, morphology and syntax and a lexicon with illustrative examples of the use of the words.