Language Ecology of Urak Lawoi'

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Urak Lawoi: Language Ecology and Contact Effects Stephen W. Pattemore Urak Lawoi is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by about 4000 people on a number of islands on the Andaman Sea coast of southern Thailand, from Phuket Island southwards to Adang Island near the border of Malaysia. 1 This essay attempts to describe the language ecology of Urak Lawoi using the framework proposed by Haugen (1972) and to evaluate the principal contact-induced changes which are evident in the language. 1. Language Ecology of Urak Lawoi Haugens seminal paper on language ecology developed an extended biological metaphor for the situation of a language within the world of languages. Towards the end (Haugen 1972: 336-37) he proposed ten questions, the answers to which should lead to a comprehensive description of how a particular language is situated in relation to other languages in its environment. These questions provide a particularly useful framework with which to describe the language contact sit uation of Urak Lawoi, though they will at times need to be supplemented and extended in order to give a more comprehensive description. The answers to these questions will allow us tentatively to locate Urak Lawoi within the typology of language contact effects proposed by Thomason (2001). In the following section we will examine the actual contact-induced changes which can be observed in the language and use this to re-evaluate this location and make some predictions. 1.1 What is its classification in relation to other languages?

Comparative (Makboon 1981) and historical (Leerabhandh 1984) studies lead to the conclusion that Urak Lawoi is essentially a dialect of Malay, or at the least a member of the Malayan sub-family of Dyens Malayic Hesion (Hogan 1978: 16; 1988:2 -3). Only 9% The principal published sources of linguistic and anthropological data on this language and people are by David W. Hogan (Hogan 1972; 1976; 1978; 1999; Hogan and Pattemore 1988)). Further socio-cultural information can be found in (Pattemore and Pattemore 1995; Pattemore and Hogan 1989). Other sources will be mentioned as the need arises. The data on which this essay is based includes also the corpus of material on which Hogan did his work, plus further material I have gathered in recordings, personal notebooks and through personal experience in living and working among the Urak L awoi from 1984 to 1994 and in subsequent visits. 1

2 of words on the Swadesh 200-word list have no cognate in Malay, though for some 22% it is not the most common conversational equivalent (Hogan 1978: 16; cf. Makboon 1981 who gives a roughly 82-89% cognate ratio.) Hogans earlier assertion (1978:16) that practically none of modern Malays words of Arabic, English, Dutch or Portuguese origin are found in Urak Lawoi must be modified at least with regard to the Arabic. We have since found at least 30 such words, though very few of a distinctively Islamic character (Pattemore and Hogan 1989: 76-77). This extremely close genetic relationship of Urak Lawoi with Malay contrasts with its lack of relationship to most of the other languages of contact. Of the others only Moken/Moklen (46-50% cognate, Makboon 1981:47) shows a genetic relationship and this is probably the least significant contact language. The contact langauges with significant impact are either from the Sino-Tibetan (Standard Thai, Southern Thai, Chinese) or Indo-European (English) families. 1.2 Who are its users?

The speakers of Urak Lawoi are strand-dwellers of principally Malay ethnic origins. They include the people of Rawai, Laem Tukkae (UL: Yuban), Sapam (UL:Sepap) villages on Phuket Island, plus some residents of Phi phi (Bibri), Cam (Cap), Lanta (Satak), Bulon (Bulot) and Lipae (Nipih) and Adang (Hadak) islands. The two large villages on Phuket Island, Rawai and Yuban, together comprise more than half of the toal UL population. The view promoted by some researchers among the neighbouring Moken (Ivanoff 1986; White 1922) that the Urak Lawoi are the result of intermarriage of Malay and Moken, or Moken who adopted the Malay language, is almost certainly to be rejected (Pattemore and Hogan 1989). There has indeed been some assimilation of Moken/Moklen speakers into Urak Lawoi culture and language in both distant and recent past, but there is no evidence of language change characteristic of imperfect learning by outsiders undergoing language shift (cf. Thomason 2001:74-76). In contrast to the Moken of the Mergui archipelago, who are true sea-nomads (or have been until recently), the Urak Lawoi appear to have always been more settled, wit h villages along the edges of the beaches. Until around 30 years ago the villages, comprised of thatched houses, were relatively movable, depending on seasons, fish populations, availability of water, and even the activity of spirits. Now, however, most Urak Lawoi live permanently in houses of wood, corrugated iron and cement. Those on

3 Phuket Island have no land ownership rights, despite connections with their locations going back decades, or in the case of Rawai, at least to the late 19th century. Urak Lawoi living on Lanta Island do own some land and this affects their livelihood to a limited extent. The majority of Urak Lawoi are fishermen and divers, and the sea is their only source of income. The Lanta Island residents just mentioned supplement this with some vegetable gardening. In the past, residents of Yuban village (Phuket) found employment as divers on tin-dredges, but this has ceased completely. Some now are employed as labourers at the Phuket fishing port, or in canning factories. The Urak Lawoi generally occupy a very low socio -economic status. Their fishing businesses are largely run by Thai-Chinese middle-men, although a few prominent Urak Lawoi now act in this role as well. The Urak Lawoi are looked down on by the majority Th ai community. In terms of religion, the Urak Lawoi are mostly animistic. Bi -annual spiritfestivals ensure the safety and well-being of the villages and in-between they will often go to the local shaman to counter problems of health, relationship or finance. Some, particularly the more well-to-do, have adopted a number of forms of Buddhism, to a limited extent. It is reported that the Urak Lawoi residents of Bulon Island all converted to Islam and merged with the Malay population there, but apart from this there is little evidence of Islam as a significant element of their culture or language (see Pattemore and Hogan 1989). There are about 30-35 Christians, mostly in Rawai village with a few in Yuban and on Lanta Island. Age profiles of Urak Lawoi speakers vary between villages. In Rawai, where the Urak Lawoi are under the greatest external pressure from the majority Thai population, few people under 25 speak Urak Lawoi as their language of choice (with males even less likely to speak it than females). However there is a tendency for young people who have grown up speaking only Thai (mostly Southern Thai) to become quite competent in Urak Lawoi and to use it more extensively from their mid 20s.2 By contrast in Yuban, physically closer to Phuket city but more isolated in terms of settlement patterns, Urak Lawoi is used by all ages with apparently equal facility. Less is known about the 2

This feature is discussed further under later sections. See sections 1.3, 1.4 and 1.9.

4 patterns of language use in other islands, but it is probable that PhiPhi and Lanta Islands resemble Rawai and Adang and Nipih Islands resemble Yuban. Educational profiles are also changing. In the early 1980s few speakers of Urak Lawoi had more than 2-3 years of primary education. Now there are a significant number of users of the language who finish primary school, and a few who continue through secondary schooling. I know of one Urak Lawoi university graduate. 1.3 What are its domains of use?

Urak Lawoi is somewhat restricted in its domains of use. The primary domains are domestic, occupational and religious. Urak Lawoi is used for everyday conversation within the home and village and in the activities that take place in those contexts. In these domains women use it more and with greater fluency than men. It is used on fishing expeditions, especially by older men. It is also the primary language in which traditional religious practices are conducted (though there are sometimes elements of Standard Malay as well) and also the primary language of Christian worship and practice (although Thai is also used to a lesser extent). Urak Lawoi is used in interaction with people from other Urak Lawoi villages, and here even those Rawai residents who normally prefer to use Southern Thai will use Urak Lawoi with people from villages where the language is more strongly retained. There is no possibility of use of Urak Lawoi in commercial, governmental, educational or wider social or occupatinal domains. 1.4 What concurrent languages are employed by its users?

Historically a number of other languages have been used, or at least interacted with, by Urak Lawoi speakers. These include Malay, English, Chinese, Moken and Thai. There are no longer any native speakers of Malay in close proximity to Urak Lawoi villages on Phuket, Phiphi or Lanta Islands. However it is only one generation since there was a Malay speaking community near Rawai village and considerable interaction and intermarriage took place. Some Urak Lawoi now in their 70s and 80s (and some of their children) speak a variety of basic Malay. Before transport links to Bangkok were improved, Phuket as a whole related strongly to Penang and there were movements and relationships between Urak Lawoi people and the Melayu Pulau

5 Pinang. The Urak Lawoi on the Adang Island group continue to have commercial relationships across the border to Langkawi Island. Malay has become a much less important langauge of contact in the past 30-40 years and in addition there is the problem of distinguishing genetic links from diffusional influences, which is almost intractible. English also had a historical influence due largely to the employment of residents of Yuban (earlier Terbak) village on tin dredges which often had English speaking officers, and perhaps by contacts across the border into British Malaya. This has completely stopped now and the influence is diluting. The current boom in tourism on Phuket Island has only just begun to increase the use of English by Urak Lawoi speakers. This may yet be a significant influence in the future. Moken and Moklen (see Hogan 1972; Ivanoff 1986; Larrish 1992) are related languages or dialects spoken to the north of the range of Urak Lawoi and up into Southern Myanmar. They are more distantly related to Malay and Urak Lawoi (see above) with no possibility of mutual-intelligibility. However there have been significant numbers of Moken (and a few Moklen) who have settled among and married with the Urak Lawoi and these provide a pool of second-language Urak Lawoi speakers. Close members of Urak Lawoi families who have a Moken relation may speak some Moken. However in the areas of overlap, the Moken are lower on the scale of status than the Urak Lawoi and the influences of Moken on the language are negligible. Chinese (probably Taw Chiew, perhaps some Hokkien and Mandarin) has had a slight influence historically with a large number of Chinese tin miners and traders in the area. Some of the traders have had close (dominant) economic relations with the Urak Lawoi and there is a small residual influence to be found in the language. However all contemporary contacts with ethnic Chinese are in the Thai language (Standard or Southern) and there is no on-going influence of Chinese. By far the most important contact languages spoken and interacted with by Urak Lawoi are the two dialects of Thai Standard and Southern. Standard Thai is the language of government, education, media and social welfare services, and of all written materials in Thai. Southern Thai is the dominant language of daily use in the wider community of the provinces of Phuket, Phangnga, Krabi and Trang (and increasingly in

6 Satun which traditionally had a strong Malay-speaking population).3 Almost 100% of Urak Lawoi speakers are bi-lingual in Southern Thai, or at least in a subset of it which they use in their daily interactions with their non-UL neighbours, at market and in almost all commercial relationships. Competence in Standard Thai is much more limited and age-related. Thiry years ago there were few speakers of Standard Thai chiefly those who had managed to get 3-4 years of primary schooling. Today most people under 30 can conduct at least a basic conversation in the national language. This has come about under several infuences. Standard Thai is the only language of education, and lack of ability in it is a stigma when seeking services from government agencies, including health and welfare, whose officers are often from another part of Thailand. But perhaps the greatest influence has been that of the mass media. While there are a few local radio stations which broadcast in Southern Thai, by far the majority use Standard Thai. Since the mid-1980s television has become a part of almost every UL home and broadcasting is entirely in Standard Thai mostly of a rather upper-class Bangkok variety. Entertainment and information therefore comes largely in Standard Thai, the language of primary status. Southern Thai retains very high use as the language of solidarity with the wider community and in addition has a higher status value than UL. 1.5 What internal varieties does the language show?

Hogan (1988:1; 1999:1) identifies three dialects of Urak Lawoi, namely the Phuket Old Peoples (POP), Phuket Young Peoples (PYP) and Adang (AD) dialects. The differences between POP and PYP are both phonological and syntactic. POP has a larger inventory of phones (specifically the blade-palatal syllable-final allophone of /l/ has disappeared in PYP, and the initial /j/ may be in the process of being replaced by /y/ - see Hogan 1999:2) and a more complex and marked syntax. Whether it is in fact more similar to Malay syntax is yet to be shown. POP is only spoken by people over the age of 40-50 and there is no indication that younger people are adopting it as they get older. AD is spoken by residents of Lanta Island and the Adang group and has a few phonological

Strictly, each of these provinces, and indeed districts within these provinces, speak their own dialect of Southern Thai, with significant differences of vocabulary, syntax, and phonemic tone. Thus it is an over-simplification to speak of Southern Thai as a single language influence. However, in socio linguistic terms, the simplification is justifiable as most of the same factors apply to all dialects.

3

7 distinctions from POP.4 Its closer physical and social proximity to Malaysia may mean that there is greater diffusional influence of Malay in the dialect, although this has not been demonstrated.5 There are significant differences in usage between Rawai and Yuban villages, in part due to the greater retention of the language at Yuban. Yuban speakers speak much faster than Rawai speakers and are less tolerant of Thai intrusions, at least in semi-formal contexts. There are also differences in attitudes to the connotational component (and hence acceptibility) of certain indigenous words. 1.6 What is the nature of its written tradition?

Historically there is no written tradition. However, beginning in the late 1960s David and Doreen Hogan devised an orthography using the Thai alphabet and used this to produce primers and other helps to literacy and reading (see Hogan 1976). This orthography has undergone several changes since then, prompted by experience in use and specific requests from the UL people, but has been relatively stable for some time (Pattemore and Pattemore 1995). Thai government attempts at promoting adult literacy in Thai have been of limited success and one of their chief results was to squash interest in vernacular literacy. There is a degree of initial reluctance among UL speakers towards learning to read the language. It described as harder to read than Thai, despite the fact that it uses only 22 consonants (instead of 44), many fewer vowel combinations and no tone markers. This is largely due to the borrowing of certain Thai letters to represent sounds not present in Thai. Renewed efforts in the early 1990s saw publication of new literacy aids, for both children and adults, including a transition primer aimed at helping a reasonably competant Thai reader to become a fluent UL reader. The primary domain of written material in UL is the Christian church, which has had New Testament portions progressively as they have been translated, study materials written in UL, and an UL hymn book. The entire New Testament was published in 1998 and was enthusiastically received by the Christian community. One of the leaders of the Christians has also been involved in translating government health advice into Urak Lawoi and has himself

4 5

The phonology of this dialect is more fully described in (Saengmani 1979).

Saengmani (1979) describes only the phonology. Her Swadesh 100-word list comparison between AD and Malay shows exactly the same relationship as POP or PYP would, the only differences being phonological.

8 produced a Thai-UL dictionary based on semantic domains.6 Another Christian, who is involved in the translation process, is daily using a computer to input written Urak Lawoi text with a high degree of accuracy. But, appart from a few personal letters, there is as yet no sign of significant spontaneous use of written UL. 1.7 To what degree has its written form been standardized?

Standardization has been proceeding gradually over the past 30 years, through several changes in orthography. The final changes were made in around 1991 and were in response to feedback solicited from UL users and potential users of the written material. The major change involved was a reflection of the UL lack of phonemic distinction with respect to vowel length, in particular because of the perceived postvocalic glottalization associated with Thai short vowels. Since then all printed material, including the New Testament, has reflected a single standard. The dictionary has been entirely revised and given Thai glosses and a UL-Thai Thai-UL version printed.7 Yet this standard is only of marginal significance because of the limited domain of use of written UL material. Occasional government or education authority attempts to represent UL in written form invariably differ from the standard. 1.8 What kind of institutional support has it won?

There is almost no institutional support for the maintenance of the Urak Lawoi language from any external source within the Thai social or governmental structures or in the media. The exception would be the linguistics departments of some of the major Thai universities, notably Mahidol and Chulalongkorn universities, both of which have promoted research by graduate students on Urak Lawoi, Moken and Moklen. The programmes at Mahidol University have been largely at the instigation of members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics who have held lecturing positions there. The broader picture reflects a general reluctance by Thai authorities to promote minority languages. Education in particular takes no account even of the regional Thai dialects, less still of minority languages. The only institutional support is from internal informal

6 7

(Hardsaithong 1994) (Hardsaithong, Pattemore, and Hogan 1996)

9 institutions, such as the animistic religious practices and the Christian church (see sections 1.6 and 1.7). 1.9 What are the attitudes of its users towards the language?

In 1992 Raewyn Pattemore surveyed attitudes in the two major villages on Phuket Island Rawai and Yuban - and the results of this are summarized in Pattemore and Pattemore (1995:436). Evidence from before that time and since that time is anecdotal and reflects personal experience but there are some overall synchronic and diachronic patterns evident. At the time we first settled in Rawai (early 1985) very few Rawai adults spoke to their children in UL, choosing rather to use Southern Thai as the main means of communication. Young women generally used UL more than young men. But children were growing up with Southern Thai as their first langauge, with a degree of passive bilingualism in UL, evident by their correct responses in Thai to questions asked in UL. This reflected a general low regard of the Rawai people towards their historical language. They were embarassed to use it amongst themselves or to us when in town. In total contrast Yuban families used almost exclusively UL in their village setting. Children coming home from school switched immediately to UL when they reentered the village. Yuban people were quite proud to display their language in public in the Phuket market place or street corner. At the time of the survey in 1992 there was no change in the Yuban attitude but some slight indications of a change to a more positive attitude in Rawai. People who had never spoken UL as children were showing some ability in its use. Ahlin Hardsaithong was working on his dictionary and was a strong advocate for the use of the language. And a new niche had been discovered. Increasing pressure by government authorities, especially the fisheries department, was restricting the UL traditional fishing practices and decreasing their income. We observed some examples of young men using UL to discuss issues among themselves in a meeting with government officials, precisely because it was not understood by the officials and gave them a degree of privacy. In other casual settings Rawai people could take pride in talking to us in UL in the presence of Thai people who were totally at a loss as to what was going on. In other words, under strong socio-economic pressures there seemed to be the beginnings of a reversal of the negative attitudes to UL, since use of the language gave a degree of selfdefinition and self-defence. More recent observations (1999-2001) show this trend to be

10 continuing slowly. More of the young men who previously chose to use Southern Thai almost exclusively are now conversing among themselves in UL. At Yuban while there has been no significant decrease in use of UL, there is an increase of Thai heard within the village, usually in the context of business dealings with Thai people or government relations. 1.10 Summary: The status of Urak Lawoi in a typology of ecological classification

Urak Lawoi has a rather ambiguous status within most typologies, not least because of the different attitudes to the language in the two major villages. It could be said to be a language of intimacy or solidarity within the whole community at Yuban, and among adults over 25 years of age at Rawai. It also retains solidarity value for younger people at Rawai in the context of confrontation with Thai, though not necessarily in their daily lives. Urak Lawoi registers negatively for status in the context of wider Thai society. Within Stewarts typology (Haugen 1971:333-34) it ranks as a vernacular since it does posses vitality. At Yuban (and probably therefore also on the Adang group) Urak Lawoi is in a state of stable bilingualism with Southern Thai. At Rawai there has been for most of the past 30 years a situation of replacive bilingualism, which may be edging back towards a stable state. However, we now turn to examine some of the principal results of language contact on Urak Lawoi in the hope that this will clarify the situation. 2. Effects of Language Contact on Urak Lawoi Although Urak Lawoi exhibits a wide range of effects of contact with other languages, it will be seen that these are perhaps not as deep as might be expected from a language in such a relatively perilous position. Criteria for establishing that a contactinduced change has taken place are relatively straightforward with respect to English, Thai or Chinese and correpondingly difficult with respect to Malay. For the effect of languages from another family, we can accept that an original native term or structural form would be one that corresponds more to a Malay term or form and that a departure from this in the direction of an English or Thai expression represents contact-induced change. For diffusional effects of Malay, on the other hand, we are limited to observations of words which have not undergone the normal phonological changes, plus

11 items which are reckoned as Malay and consequently not Urak Lawoi by native speakers and items which are distinct in terms of their cultural or sociologically niche, such as Islamic religious terms. I will not consider the diffusional impact of Malay further in this essay, although it presents some very interesting features, particularly the religious terms and other words of Arabic origin, as they have implications for the history of the Urak Lawoi people as a whole (see Pattemore and Hogan 1989). Although the lexicon is part of the language structure, it will be convenient to consider lexical influences separately first, because they are relatively more straighforward and affect the structure of the language in a more predictable way. (See Thomason 2001: 70-71, for a similar division). Structural influences will then include the range of phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic intereferences. We will conclude with some observations on attrition and simplification. Transference of lexical items into Urak Lawoi can be observed for words of Thai, English and Chinese origin. The transfers from Thai can be divided between those which show complete nativisation or morphological assimilation and those which show no or incomplete nativisation. The transfers from English and Chinese are only of the latter type, which in particular means that the standard morphophonemic shifts evident between Malay and Urak Lawoi have not been applied. This in turn suggests that these shifts were the result of constraints limited to an earlier time period. 2.1 Lexical interference from Thai

Several features further complicate the picture of lexical interference from Thai. Firstly, some Thai words occuring in Urak Lawoi involve aspirated stops, not originally native to Malay/Urak Lawoi. Contact with Thai is a possible contributary factor to the emergence of Urak Lawoi aspirated stops (see below) but it is unclear therefore whether the presence of an aspirated stop indicates complete or incomplete nativisation. Secondly, Urak Lawoi recorded texts include numerous words, which may or not show full nativisation, which are nevertheless not regarded by informants as genuine Urak Lawoi words. They are consistently referred to as Thai words. This suggests that there is an intrinsic sense of when code-switching is taking place, as opposed to using words which have been genuinely integtrated into the Urak Lawoi lexicon. On the basis

12 of native-speaker acceptance, then, the words in the lists below have been divided between transferred and disputed. The use of another criterion (eg. frequency of use) would result in a slightly different distribution (see Poplack and Sankoff 1984:101-103). The words from the transferred lists marked * would not be included in the Urak Lawoi lexicon, while those from the disputed lists marked ** would be. Finally, there are a number of words which are ultimately of Thai, Chinese, or English origin which may have entered Urak Lawoi directly from the source language, or via one of the other contact languages. This is especially true of English and Chinese words coming via Thai. If a similar lexical borrowing occurs in Thai, and if the phonology of the Urak Lawoi version supports the case, we will assume that Thai is the immediate source. In order to note the sound changes involved in nativisation it will be convenient to summarize here a number of rules in Urak Lawoi. Rules 1 to 3 represent the phonological shifts which have taken place between Malay and Urak Lawoi. Rules 4 -6 simply state normal Urak Lawoi phonology on vowel length, stress and tone. Rule 1: syllable final [-] > [-] after back vowels8 > [-] after front vowels Rule 2: syllable final ] > ] Rule 3: word final [N] > homorganic stop, unless syllable-initial nasal present Rule 4: Vowels are short in closed syllables and long in open main syllables. In (open) pre-syllables it is a phonemically undifferentiated . Rule 5. Stress is generally on the penultimate syllable (unless it is a pre-syllable). Rule 6. Tone is not phonemic. Transferred Thai words showing full nativisation

Thai [9 8

Urak Lawoi > [

Gloss

Rules applied or comments To park(vehicle or boat) 1, 4, 6

In the following data, [is used to symbolize a pre-palatalized glottal stop, written by Hogan

as [] or phonemically /c/. This is an question of interpretation. Hogan treats this sound as a syllablefinal allomorph of [c], with the simple glottal stop merged with the product of Rule 2. As there are no other examples of final palatal stops in the language, I prefer to regard this as a separate (phonetically complex) phoneme, with an allomorph [] after front vowels. An analagous situation exists with words which end in /s/ in Malay. The /s/ becomes a pre-pallatalised glottal fricative [] after back vowels and [-] after front vowels. Hogan interprets the pre-pallatalised fricative as the syllable-final allomorph of [s] but [-] simply as the same as original Malay final [-h]. This change does not affect any of the words in the following lists. 9

I will indicate Standard Thai tones, because Southern Thai is less stable and less well documented.

13 [ ] ] ] [] > [ > [ > [] > [] > [] > [] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Buddhist temple Baht (monetary unit) glass (drinking vessel) headman 1, 6 1, 4, 6 2, 4, 6

5, 6 + Thai implicit nasalisation fully expressed (See Hogan 1988:pp.27-28) official, government 3, 6 to insult, look down on 2, 5, 7 4 5, 6 2,6 5 + UL verbal prefix 4 2, 5, 6 5 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 6 3, 6 5 5, 6 4 Rules in tension 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Rules applied or comments 4, 5, 6 4, 5 6

enemy shelter surprising * to turn, diverge boss, master diving mask health, health clinic bridegroom bride * captain (of boat) schoolteacher bag, pocket district middle-man to test, try out Gloss law-court school hospital money soldier feast, treat tambon headman Gloss to reap lawyer period, era

Transferred Thai words showing no or partial nativisation

Thai Urak Lawoi > > > > > > > * Disputed Thai words showing full nativisation

Thai

Urak Lawoi

14 > > ** > ** > > Thai Urak Lawoi ** in vain 5, 6 + UL reduplication rule table 6 to lead in procession 6 business 4, 5, 6 draw-line of fish net 3, 4, 5, 6 Gloss register meeting ancient city governor Rules in tension 3 3 3 3 + diphthong

Disputed Thai words showing no or partial nativisation

Place names and days of the week

Karon beach > Racha Island > Tongka (archaic name for Phuket) Orthorgraphical clues from the Thai spellings of some place names suggest that in these names we have some of the few evidences of Urak Lawoi or Malay influence on Thai. Siray Island < M/UL betel vine/ leaf Phuket < M bukit UL hill Sakhu village< M/UL sago palm (and even perhaps though its Malay/UL source is unclear. This is also the place to mention the UL adoption of Thai names of the week. UL only possesses a native word for Sunday (but adopts the Thai day names complete with their attached = day. Often the UL word for day is prefixed to the complete transferred phrase10 : > Monday >Thursday Discussion

There are a number of notable features about these lists. First, none of the words are from core vocabulary, most of them relating to situations and life outside of the Urak 10

Compare Weinreichs hybrid borrowing example, cannabuldogga, (Weinreich 1953:52).

15 Lawoi villages themselves. Second, the maj ority of words on all the lists are nominals. One of the very few of these which appears to have potential to replace a native term is and this is hardly ever used in Urak Lawoi conversation, the equivalent being a standard Malay-derived term . The few active verbs in the lists show some interesting features. Of those that are in common use, [ ] seems to fill a slot in the lexicon which no native Malay-derived word quite fits (and, perhaps not accidentally, describes a typical Thai attitude to the Urak Lawoi); [is exclusively used for parking a vehicle (unknown earlier in UL history), but with respect to the more familiar boats is in competition with to beach, and to anchor. is unique in that the two components of the compound Thai verb have been treated differently, the first transferred and the second translated. is exclusively used for the Urak Lawoi cultural -religious practice of parading their spirit boat around the village in the bi-annual cleansing ceremony (see Hogan 1972:216-17), having displaced any general or specific Malay terms. and are rarely if ever used, though the former is the only loan-word to have had an UL morphological prefix attached to it. These lists are reasonably comprehensive as far as the recorded texts are concerned, but there are many more instances of Thai words being used within normal UL conversation, including, but not limited to, technological words like for television, radio, refrigerator and so on. Since the UL population is almost completely bilingual, these instances, most of which show minimal nativisation (even tone sometimes still being reflected), are most likely to be regarded as code-switching or nonce-borrowing (Weinreich 1953:11). Whereas most of the words listed above would be examples of necessary borrowing (Clark 1982), the frequent code-switching would often be unnecessary.

16 A final observation is that, of the words which have been significantly integrated into the UL lexicon, the phonological rule most often broken is the one that turns a wordfinal nasal into its homorganic stop. It seems likely that this change is no longer active. 2.2 Lexical interference from English and Chinese

English represents the second most important un-related language of contact, but its influence has so far been limited to one particular historical period (probably the 1950s and 1960s though I have no concrete information on this) when significant numbers of Urak Lawoi found employment on tin dredges with English -speaking crew or officers. Most of these words have to do with objects or activities relating to the work of tindredging. Some have entered the language permanently and are in relatively common use. Others are disappearing with the generation which introduced them. Some of the words introduce phonological distinctions which are missing or rare in UL. These are marked by * or ** and will be discussed in relation to phonology below. In the following lists no attempt is made to give a phonetic basis for the English source word as this would depend very significantly on dialect. English words in common use UL Gloss ** hammer number to bomb fish corrugated-iron * dock engine * to start an engine to shout, treat gear English < hammer < number < bomb < iron < dock < engine < start < cheer < gear

A number of these should probably be added to the list of English (or in one case Japanese!) words which have come not directly but via Thai, such as for tape (and tape-recorder), Honda (generator), spring (mechanical), cement and Christian. English words rarely used or archaic motorboat < motorboat to weld < welding gunny-sacking < jute

17 ticket lorry to drill (for ore) pontoon sock, stocking Chinese words There are very few of these, and the first has probably come through Thai. Only the third of these in common use (and that daily, having replaced any native term). < ? Thai steersman upper storey of a building ice 2.3 Phonological interference

< ticket < lorry < boring < pontoon < stocking

The phonological influence of English is minimal and will be dealt with first. In the lists of English words used in UL above there are three words which introduce or add to phonological distinctions which are not native to UL. <Eng. hammerprovides a minimal pair to < Mal. hamba, slave, captive This is one of only four minimal pairs we have found in which nasalisation is distinctive (Hogan 1999: 4). Previously (Hogan 1988:28) it was thought that nasalisation, though interesting, was not phonemic. The others consist of pairs of words both derived from Malay roots, but in one of which a [b] has dropped but the resulting non-nasalisation of the following syllable has remained (see Court 1970:204-206, for the process in other related languages). and both exhibit long vowels in closed syllables in a phonemically distinctive way(contrasting with ), but this does not seem to have had a wider effect on UL phonological structures. The more intense exposure to Thai has had a slightly greater effect, tending both towards simplification and complication of the UL phonological scheme. The first effect

18 is particularly noticeable in the speech of young people, the PYP dialect Note the following changes, in particular those numbered (1), (2) and (3): UL Malay POP PYP non final final non final final word-initial word-medial

(1) (2) (3)

Of the three numbered changes, the first (1) is the least likely to have been the result of contact with Thai. Although Thai words written with final are pronounced with final , the change in Urak Lawoi is not recent since it is universally present in POP, and appears to be a part of the system of internally-motivated sound change which characterises the genetic relationship between Malay and UL. Change (2), the replacement in PYP of the syllable-final blade-palatal with the altogether simpler semi-vowel may be due to the difficulty of pronunciation of the former, although it is possible that the absence of such a phone in Thai has encouraged its demise. In the AD dialect final Vowel + has been replaced by irrespective of the vowel. Change (3) is the one most directly due to Thai contact, since Thai does not have but of the three it is probably the least consistent, there being considerable free and incremental fluctuation among younger speakers between initial and Contact with Thai, including both UL-Thai bilingualism and the absorption of Thai words into the UL lexicon, is encouraging the emergence of aspiration as a phonemically contrastive feature, a phenomenon typical of light to moderate structural interference((Thomason and Kaufman 1988):54). Aspiriation of stops is not phonemic in

19 Malay (Hassan 1974:10-11) but is in UL (Hogan 1985:15, 19-20; 1999:1-2), even though the set of words involved is still limited. I refer to this as encouraging rather than causing because there is some evidence that ther e is an internal tendency for the contrast to develop. Several mechanisms appear to be active in this including onomatopoea (e.g. the sound of bamboo cracking; , the sound of coconuts falling;, to choke on a fishbone), assimilation from a following word-medial or the complete contraction of the syllable preceding the . That the latter processes are internal is shown by the fact that such assimilation-contraction occurs with voiced stops as well as unvoiced, and there is no possibility of influence from Thai voiced aspirates, since these do not exist. < , spirit-boat ceremony < slave, dependant < M. baharu, new < M. dahaga, to be thirsty Internal tendencies aside, the integration of Thai loan-words with unvoiced aspirated stops (see the lists in section 2.1 above) is almost certainly influencing the development of a contrastive feature based on aspiration. This may be further encouraged by a difference between UL and Thai unvoiced unaspirated stops. The Thai stops are characterised by sharp, clean release (Noss 1964: 10-13) with initial and in particular showing a tendency to being implosive in certain contexts. The corresponding UL stops are not nearly so sharp or crisp, and it is likely that UL young people coming back to their own language after school exposure to Thai perceive the UL stops as being slightly aspirated. The result is an increased tendency to free fluctuation between aspirated and unaspirated versions: <>name of an island <> a share

20 <>to share, divide out, give Aspiration occurs also in native UL words (of Malay origin) which do not have a medial , reflecting a spreading of the phenomenon outwards from the originally influenced words. There is even an attempt by some informants (though not others) to create our of a single Malay word a critical distinction based on aspiration: M. to agree, an agreement > (1) <> to agree, an agreement > (2) to act in agreement or unison (perhaps under the influence of Thai to act in unison) Other informants reject this distinction and say there is a free fluctuation between the forms. Even more widely distinguished (and intriguing because of the similar semantic fields of the Malay and Thai words) is: M. to pour out, empty out a liquid cf. Thai to measure (volume) by dipping or scooping out > UL (1) to measure by dipping out (2) to pour out, discard 2.4 Semantic interference

There is some influence of Thai on the semantic content of UL words both at a deep and systematic level and at a more casual or spontaneous level. An example of the latter is the spontaneous creation by a small discussion group of words for one hundred thousand and one million by analogy from Thai, in the first case even ignoring some distinctive features of two Thai words and playing on their broader contours: Thai hundred thousand; , line, strand, classifier for hair, string, wire UL , muscle, sinew, classifier for thread, etc. HENCE = hundred thousand Thai (1) to be bald (2) million UL to be bald HENCE = million

21 Much more significant and deeply rooted is the extension of the meaning of the verb , to give, to cover virtually the whole domain of Thai [ (cf. Weinreich 1953:48). Contrast (Malay) beri = to give, bestow, allow (Thai) = (1) to give (2) to have or let (someone do something) (3) so, so that (4) for (object or person) (UL) = (1) to give (2) to allow or let (3) Let it be so! (4) so, so that (5) for, on behalf of. In particular the occurrences as a final subordinating conjuction (4) and as a verbal particle (5) are unknown in Malay and must be due to the influence of Thai. Eg. (4) UL We will dance the ronggeng dance so that (the spirits) may see. cf. Thai *will dance so that see (5) he will open it for (them) cf. Thai he will open it for (them) 2.5 Morphological interference

Neither Urak Lawoi not Thai has a complex morphological structure. But there is some evidence of increasing influence of Thai in the formation of compound words. The use of or before a verb to indicate a person who does the action of the verb (or is in the state of a stative verb) might be due to the frequency of use of Thai or in the same role(Noss 1964: 64) , but the construction does exist in Malay, using ((Hassan 1974): 74). But a clear case of Thai influence is in the construction of abstract nouns from verbs and verbal adjectives. Thai uses the lexical prefix ] and Urak Lawoi frequently follows this pattern using , which in Malay means a song tune. Thai: to love; love tall, high; height UL:

22 to lovelove tall, highheight This was a device used very sparingly by POP speakers but is increasingly and productively used by PYP speakers. 2.5 Syntactic interference

Hogan (1978:20-26 ) has discussed three syntactic structures in which UL appears to have been influenced by Thai, rather than following a Malay patterns: passive formation, the verb phrase and the frame for determining word classes. I will summarize these briefly, suggest a few modifications which may be the result of on-going language change, and add a number of structures to the list. 2.5.1 Passive formation

Standard Malay forms a passive sentence by the use of a complement with oleh and a verb in the di- or ter- form as an exponent.. (Payne 1970: 86). Ahmad di-pukul oleh Ali Ahmad was hit by Ali There is also a possibility in colloquial Malay of using kena, to experience, as a sort of passive marker, in contrast to use in Standard Malay (see Payne 1970:66): Ahmad kena pukul. OR Ahmad experienced hitting Ahmad kena Ali pukul dia. Ahmad experienced Ali hitting him

Thai uses the form in a similar way to the colloquial Malay. This is not a full passive as it is usually only used for negative experiences: man thief that experience police catch UL uses this form exclusively person thief that experience policeman catch him The existence of the Thai structure thus appears to have combined with the internal tendency to eliminate affixed formations and select the colloquial form for Urak Lawoi

23 passive . But it may be extending its domain into non-negative cases which is not typical of Thai. 2.5.2 Verb phrase structure

Hogan describes the Malay, Thai and Urak Lawoi verb phrases briefly before showing how, in particular, the Urak Lawoi use of a Post -nuclear Periphery is more in keeping with Thai than Malay. 11 In particular the particles used in the Post-nuclear auxiliary, closely parallel the Thai particles respectively in indicating removal for future use, finality and completed action. But the Urak Lawoi verb phrase is in fact more like the Thai than Hogan has stated (or is perhaps becoming more like, since his informants were all POP speakers and mine are PYP). Firstly, the use of as a pre-nuclear auxiliary, indicating intention and futurity is widespread as a direct replication of Thai . Where Malay uses akan sparingly, usually to indicate intention, UL uses (probably derived from Malay hendak, wish, intention, purpose) frequently and often as a simple future marker, or indicating a hypothetical situation. This is very similar to the use of in Thai (see Noss 1964: 165). Secondly, one of the example cited by Hogan (1978:23) as a situation in which UL follows Malay rather than Thai, is in fact, for PYP speakers, precisely the opposite. he not able to die He cannot die. He did not die.

Hogans gloss (POP): PYP gloss

This precisely follows the Thai , he did not die (contrary to what might have been thought see Noss 1964: 139). In PYP, the sentence He cannot die would be expressed The sources of information are: for Thai, ((Panupong 1970): 83-129) with some details from Noss(1964: 133-46); for Malay, (Lewis 1969): 33-37) and Payne (1970:64-69). More details on the UL verb phrase may be found in Hogan (1985: 77-88; 1999:27-31). 11

24 or following the Thai patterns or Note again in these examples the parallel use of and for the hypothetical nature of the suggestion. The UL PYP dialect goes one step further than Thai in using as a common pre-nuclear auxiliary indicating accomplished or past action, something which is rare in Thai. 2.5.3 Word class frames In what is really another example of verb phrase structure, Hogan (1978:25-26) has pointed out that the identifation of verbs in Urak Lawoi can be made with word class frames very similar to those used for Thai: Thai: + V = in the process of Ving = UL: + V Thai: V + = already Ved = UL: V + 2.5.4 Urak Lawoi for Thai

Verbs of saying and perceiving in UL are frequently followed by the particle that, in an exactly similar way to the Thai use of and in contrast to the absence of similar structures in Malay (Hogan 1988:86; Noss 1964:177) Urak Lawoi Thai Gloss say that see that think that

The same particle is also used in both Thai and Urak Lawoi following certain conjunctions, with very little difference in meaning: +/- +/- +/- +/- but because

Even the etymological root of each particle is similar, the UL being derived from Malay ucap, to say, utter and the Thai from a homonymic verb to say, scold.

25 2.5.5 Possessive noun phrase

Unlike Malay, where possession is always indicated by juxtaposition (Possessed + Possessor), Urak Lawoi can either use juxtaposition or insert a particle or (for blood relationships only) between the possessed and the possessor. In this it is similar to Thai, which can form possessive phrases in the same two ways, with or without the words or(Hogan 1985: 74; Noss 1964:166-68). In both cases the presence or absence of the particle seems to be more a matter of personal choice and style than any sytematic rule, and consequently due to Thai influence rather than to any internal factor: Urak Lawoi:
2.5.6 Topic prominence

Thai

Gloss my house my house my mother

Further research is needed on the question of Urak Lawoi discourse structure, but there does seem to be a predeliction for topic-fronting, as can be seen from examples and texts in Hogan (1999:33-34, 41-49). This suggests a similarity with Thai, which Burusphat (1989) has suggested is a topic-prominent language, as opposed to Malay which he lists as subject-prominent. However, unlike some of the syntactic features which seem to be showing increased influence of Thai, topic-fronting is a feature which is equally or even more characteristic of POP than PYP. Without more work in this area it is not possible to advance this more than tentatively. 2.6 Contact Effects: Discussion

For a language which has such intense contact with Thai, lexical borrowing in Urak Lawoi is remarkably limited. No function words or even core vocabulary are involved. In the typology of borrowing within language maintenance (Thomason and Kaufman 1988:74-76), it is typical of only the most casual contact. There are some significant phonological influences, but it is in the area of morphology and especially syntax that the greatest impact of Thai is observed in Urak Lawoi, at least as far as younger speakers (PYP) are concerned. This would be typical of a contact situation at level 3 or 4 on Thomason and Kaufmans scheme. There appears to be an influence from Thai morpho -

26 syntactic structures which is not only significant but is increasing. One further line of evidence for this process is the frequency of calque translation that takes place within discussions in an inter-lingual environment. Some of these nonce translations, even of idioms, catch on and become established eg. Thai when good Just then Urak Lawoi when good Just then

There remain many vast differences and it it certainly not true that Urak Lawoi, even as spoken by young people, has become little more than Thai with UL lexemes. Yet that this is the direction of language change in response to contact is evident. Two further trends support this suggestion: attrition of vocabulary and simplification of native syntactic structures. The total lexicon we have amassed stands at around 3000 entries, but most everday conversations take place within a working vocabulary of about 1000 words. The New Testament was translated with a vocabulary of approximately 1500 words, not including proper names. POP texts show a syntactic-semantic complexity which manifests in economical, elliptical sentences, opaque to outsiders or second language speakers. PYP speech by contrast is more fully explicated and straightforwardly related. 3. Conclusions The socio-cultural analysis presented in the first part of this essay suggests a language under strong, even extreme, pressure. The dominance of Thai in every area of life is tempered only by a slight revivalist tendency in Urak Lawoi, produced, perhaps, by the very same force that is threatening to erode the language. Yet the when the effects of language contact are examined they show little impact on the core of the lexicon but rather more significant impact on the structure. It might be possible to explain this by consideration of a combination of factors: (1) Complete bi-lingualism in Thai. (2) Socio-cultural dominance of Thai.

27 (3) Erosion of vocabulary in all areas except the core and domains related to life in the village. (3) Imperfect learning of the structures of their own home language by younger members of the community who are at the same time exposed to Thai in almost every area of their lives. Does this conclusion give us any clue as to the future of the language? Predicting the outcome of anything as complex as a process of language change is subject to many uncertainties, especially unforeseen socio-economic shifts. In the 1970s it was impossible to imagine the impact that television would have on the community. Currently tourism has only a negative impact in restricting the range and type of fishing and diving the Urak Lawoi are permitted, but it may even yet impact the language in unpredictable ways. Nevertheless, if our suggestion of the reasons for the types of change are correct and if current trends such as the increase in Thai education and the revival of pride in Urak Lawoi continue, then we might expect the development of a language whose lexical and phonological features remain largely in line with its Malay origins, but which becomes more like Thai in its morphology and syntax.

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28 Haugen, Einar. 1972. The Ecology of Language. In Essays by Einar Haugen, edited by A. S. Dil: Stanford University Press. Hogan, David W. 1972. Men of the Sea: Coastal Tribes of South Thailand's West Coast. Journal of the Siam Society 60 (1):205-235. ________. 1976. Urak Lawoi' (Orang Laut). In Phonemes and Orthography: Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand, Pacific Linguistics C-43, edited by W. A. Smalley. Canberra: ANU. ________. 1978. Urak Lawoi', Malay and Thai: Some Syntactic Comparisons. Te Reo 21:15-33. ________. 1999. Urak Lawoi', Languages of the World/Materials 268. Muenchen: LINCOM Europa. ________. in collaboration with Stephen W. Pattemore. 1988. Urak Lawoi': Basic Structures and a Dictionary, Pacific Linguistics C -109. Canberra: ANU. Ivanoff, Jacques. 1986. Les Moken: Littrature Orale et Signes de Reconnaissane Culturelle. Journal of the Siam Society 74:9-20. Larrish, Michael David. 1992. Who are the Mok(l)en in Southern Thailand? Paper read at International Symposium on Pan-Asiatic Language and Linguistics, 8-10 January 1992, at Bangkok. Leerabhandh, Sudarat. 1984. Phonological Reconstruction of Proto Orang-Laut. M.A., Linguistics, Mahidol University, Bangkok. Lewis, M. Blanche. 1969. Sentence Analysis in Modern Malay. Cambridge: CUP. Makboon, Sorat. 1981. Survey of Sea People's Dialects Along the West Coast of Thailand. M.A., Linguistics, Mahidol University, Bangkok. Noss, Richard B. 1964. Thai Reference Grammar. Washington DC: Foreign Service Institute. Panupong, Vichin. 1970. Inter-sentence Relations in Modern Conversational Thai . Bangkok: Siam Society. Pattemore, Raewyn J., and Stephen W. Pattemore. 1995. A Place for Scripture and Reading in a Pre-literate Society. The Bible Translator, Practical Papers 46 (4):432439. Pattemore, Stephen W., and David W. Hogan. 1989. On the Origin of the Urak Lawoi': A Response to J. Ivanoff. Journal of the Siam Society 77 (2):75-78. Payne, E.M.F. 1970. Basic Syntactic Structures in Standard Malay. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Poplack, Shana, and David Sankoff. 1984. Borrowing: the synchrony of integration. Linguistics 22:99-135. Saengmani, Amon. 1979. Phonology of the Urak Lawoi' Language: Adang Island. M.A., Linguistics, Mahidol University, Bangkok.

29 Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language Contact: An Introduction. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. ________, and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Language Contact. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York. White, Walter G. 1922. Sea Gypsies of Malaya. London: Seeley, Service & Co.