A Dictionary Of Mah Meri As Spoken At Bukit Bangkong

Mah Meri is an Aslian (Austroasiatic: Mon-Khmer) language spoken in scattered settlements along a section of the southwest coast of Selangor in Peninsular Malaysia. The Mah Meri are the only Aslian speakers who live in a coastal environment. Their language, which may have about 2,000 speakers, has no written language and is highly endangered. This is the first comprehensive dictionary of Mah Meri and is based on the author’s extensive field research and consultation with members of the community over the last ten years. The dialect presented here is spoken by about 600 people at Bukit Bangkong, the most southerly Mah Meri settlement. The dictionary contains around 4,000 entries, each with a phonetic transcription and translations in both English and Malay. Many entries are further complemented by illustrative examples, notes on usage, derivations, ethnographic information, and illustrations—all provide insight into the world of Mah Meri speakers. Two finder lists (English–Mah Meri and Malay–Mah Meri) are included, giving access to the intended audience of international and local scholars and community members. The volume also includes a general introduction to the Mah Meri, notes to assist the reader in using the dictionary, and a short grammatical description.

This Handbook presents the typology, classification and historical reconstruction of this important language family of South and Southeast Asia. The work includes 21 grammar sketches presenting each branch, plus extensive overview chapters.

This is a dictionary of Nafsan, the language spoken in Vanuatu in the south of Efate Island in the villages of Erakor, Pango, and Eratap. Nafsan is one of 130 distinct languages spoken in Vanuatu. Over several decades, linguist Nicholas Thieberger worked in close collaboration with the Erakor community to record this unique language and to refine its written presentation. The resulting publication offers insight into the diversity of meanings available to speakers of Nafsan, providing some 3,400 senses for Nafsan words and an English-Nafsan finderlist. In addition, the book gives an overview of the Nafsan sound system, provides a list of existing literature on the language dating back to early missionary translations, and includes maps of Efate locating nearly 200 place names. Readers will also find South Efate cultural knowledge embedded in the explanations of the Nafsan words and their usages. A welcome companion to Thieberger’s A Grammar of South Efate (2006), this book complements and significantly augments other multimedia resources made available online by the author.

This book gives readers a present and critical view of different language and linguistic issues in selected Asian contexts. The language aspect of the manuscript explores various areas of English language learning and teaching while the linguistic aspect looks at different fields such as sociolinguistics, semantics, stylistics, corpus-based studies, translation studies and cultural studies. These aspects also provide distinct tangents in researching language for they offer significant points of view and outcomes in understanding the influence and/or the function of cultures when dealing with either spoken or written discourses involving native or non-native speakers. Such dynamics are instrumental in bringing about wider range of topics pertinent to the transdisciplinary nature of the current research theme in this part of the world. Substantially, the major sub-disciplines included in the manuscript frame both theoretical and hands-on implications for more rigourous innovations and expansions in the respective area of investigation.

Is there a single, Platonic 'reciprocal' meaning found in all languages, or is there a cluster of related concepts which are nonetheless impossible to characterize in any single way? This title develops and explains techniques for tackling this question. It confronts a general problem facing semantic typology.

Spoken on Mavea Island by approximately 32 people, Mavea is an endangered Oceanic language of Vanuatu. This work provides grammatical descriptions of this hitherto undescribed language. Fourteen chapters, containing more than 1,400 examples, cover topics in the phonology and morphosyntax of Mavea, with an emphasis on the latter. Of particular interest are examples of individual speaker variation presented throughout the grammar; the presence of three linguo-labials (still used today by a single speaker) that were unexpectedly found before the rounded vowel /o/; and a chapter on numerals and the counting system, which have long been replaced by Bislama’s but are remembered by a handful of speakers. Most of the grammatical descriptions derive from a corpus of texts of various genres (conversations, traditional stories, personal histories, etc.) gathered during the author’s fieldwork, conducted for eleven months between 2005 and 2007.

The handbook will offer a survey of the field of linguistics in the early 21st century for the Southeast Asian Linguistic Area. The last half century has seen a great increase in work on language contact, work in genetic, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics, and since the 1990s especially documentation of endangered languages. The book will provide an account of work in these areas, focusing on the achievements of SEAsian linguistics, as well as the challenges and unresolved issues, and provide a survey of the relevant major publications and other available resources. We will address: Survey of the languages of the area, organized along genetic lines, with discussion of relevant political and cultural background issues Theoretical/descriptive and typological issues Genetic classification and historical linguistics Areal and contact linguistics Other areas of interest such as sociolinguistics, semantics, writing systems, etc. Resources (major monographs and monograph series, dictionaries, journals, electronic data bases, etc.) Grammar sketches of languages representative of the genetic and structural diversity of the region.

Offers a linguistic window into contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, looking at how they survive and interface with agricultural and industrial societies.