Koho language

Koho or K'Ho is a South Bahnaric language spoken by the Koho people and Mạ people, mainly in the Lâm Đồng Province of Vietnam. It is very close to the Mnong language.

Sre
Kơho
Native to	Vietnam
Native speakers	200,000 (2019 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Bahnaric South Sre–Mnong Sre
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: kpm – Kơho cma – Maa
Glottolog	koho1243

The autonym of the Kơho people is kon cau (IPA [kɔn.caw]) while Koho (IPA [kəˈhɔ]) is a Cham exonym.^[2]

Subgroups and dialects

There are at least twelve Kơho dialect groups for the area: Chil (Cil, Til); Kalop (Tulop); Kơyon (Kodu, Co-Don); Làc (Làt, Lach); Mà (Mạ, Maa); Nồp (Nop, Xre Nop, Noup); Pru; Ryông Tô (Riồng, Rion); Sop, Sre (Chau Sơre, Xrê); Talà (To La); and Tring (Trinh). Although Mạ/Maa is a Koho dialect group, the Mạ people identify as a separate ethnic group.^[3][2]

Phonology

Data below are from Olsen (2015).^[2]

Consonants

Initial consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Voiceless	p	t	c	k	ʔ
	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	cʰ	kʰ
	Voiced	b	d	ɟ	g
	Implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative			s			h
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l	j

• The phoneme /r/ is commonly a voiced alveolar trill [r] but also often reduces to a flap [ɾ] when it occurs as the second segment in a consonant cluster.

Final consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop		p	t	c	k	ʔ
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative			s			h
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l	j

• Before the palatal finals /c/ and /ɲ/, there is an audible palatal offglide after the vowel [Vʲ], so that /pwac/ ‘flesh’ is pronounced as [pwaʲc] and /ʔaɲ/ ‘I (1st person singular)’ as [ʔaʲɲ].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	/i/	/ɨ~ɯ/	/u/
Close-mid	/e/	/ǝ/	/o/
Open-mid	/ɛ/		/ɔ/
Low		/a/	/ɑ/

• Vowels contrast in length.

Morphology

Compounding

Compounding is a common way of coining new words in Koho. Some examples:

• muh mat ‘face’ < muh ([muh]) ‘nose’ + mat ([mat]) ‘eye’
• phe mbar ‘sticky rice’ < phe ([phɛ]) ‘husked rice’ + mbar ([mbar]) ‘sticky’
• ôi ao ‘clothes’ < ôi ([ʔoːj]) ‘blanket’ + ao ([ʔaːw]) ‘shirt’

Affixing

One of the more productive prefixes in Sre is the causative tơn- [tən-], converts intransitive verbs to causative verbs. If the prefixed verbs have a nasal initial, then the nasal cluster avoidance rule applied.

Word	Meaning	Prefixed form	Meaning
duh [duh]	to be hot	tơnduh [tənduh]	to make hot
chơt [cʰət]	to die	tơnchơt [təncʰət]	to kill
ring [riŋ]	to be flat, level, equal	tơnring [tənriŋ]	to equalize, make right
mut [mut]	to enter	tơmut [təmut]	to make enter
muu [muː]	to descend, go down	tơmuu [təmuː]	to make descend, to lower

Cultural References

• The Vietnamese acrobatic show Teh Dar by Lune Productions uses the Koho language.

References

1. Kơho at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Maa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Olsen, Neil H. (2015). "Kơho-Sre". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
3. Le, Tan Duong (2003). A phonological comparison of Maa and Koho varieties (Master’s thesis). Payap University.

Sources

• Olsen, Neil H. (2014). A descriptive grammar of Kơho-Sre: a Mon-Khmer language (Ph.D. thesis). University of Utah.