Urak Lawoiʼ language

Urak Lawoiʼ or Urak Lawoc (Urak Lawoiʼ: อูรักลาโวยจ, IPA: [ˈurʌk ˈlawʊjʔ]) is a Malayic language spoken in southern Thailand.

Urak Lawoiʼ
อูรักลาโวยจ
Native to	Thailand
Region	Phuket, Langta islands
Ethnicity	Urak Lawoiʼ
Native speakers	5,000 (2012)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (disputed) Malayic Urak Lawoiʼ
Writing system	Thai script (usually oral)
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Thailand native to provinces of Phuket, Krabi, Satun
Regulated by	Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University
Language codes
ISO 639-3	urk
Glottolog	urak1238
ELP	Urak Lawoi'

The Orang (Suku) Laut who live between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula speak divergent Malayic lects, which bear some intriguing connections to various Sumatran Malay varieties.^[2]

Phonology and orthography

Vowels

Vowel table^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
High	/i/		/u/
Mid	/e/	/ə/ [ə~ɨ~ɯ]	/o/
Low	/ɛ/	/a/	/ɔ/

• In closed syllables, some vowels change their quality:
  • /a/ becomes [ʌ] (/ˈrawak/ [ˈraˑwʌk] 'space').
  • /i/ becomes [ɪ] (/ˈbaliʔ/ [ˈbaˑlɪʔ] 'return').
  • /o/ becomes [ʊ] (/ˈproc/ [ˈprʊiʔ] 'stomach').
• Epenthetic /j/ and /w/ are added after high vowels /i/, /u/ respectively (/ˈsiˑjak/ 'light', /ˈbuˑwak/ 'to throw away').
• Vowels are somewhat allophonically lengthened in stressed open syllables.
• Vowels other than /ə/ are slightly nasalized after nasal consonants. If the following syllable has /w/, /j/ as the onset, this onset is also nasalized (/məˈnaŋɛh/ [məˈnãˑŋɛ̃h] 'to cry', /ˈɲawa/ [ˈɲãˑw̃ã] 'body, self').

Orthography (ordered according to Latin letters)

Thai (long & short)		Latin	IPA
◌า	◌ั	a	/a/
แ◌	แ◌	ä	/ɛ/
เ◌อ	เ◌ิ	e	/ə/ [ə~ɨ~ɯ]
เ◌	เ◌	ë	/e/
◌ี	◌ิ	i	/i/
โ◌	โ◌ or absent	o	/o/
◌อ	◌อ	ö	/ɔ/
◌ู	◌ุ	u	/u/

Notes: In the Thai script, the left column represents diacritics for open syllables, while the right one for closed syllables. For syllables with vowel ö, before consonants k, m, n, ng, p, and t, the vowel is not written. Similarly, the diacritic for a is not used before q. Any vowels with separate closed syllable diacritics have an inherent value of /-ʔ/ when not used with a succeeding consonant.

Consonants

Consonant table^[4][5]

		Labial	Alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Aspirated	/pʰ/ พ	/tʰ/ ท	/cʰ/ [t͡ɕʰ] ช	/kʰ/ ค
	Voiceless	/p/ ป	/t/ ต	/c/ [t͡ɕ] จ	/k/ ก	/ʔ/ อ
	Voiced	/b/ บ	/d/ ด	/ɟ/ [d͡ʑ] ยฺ	/ɡ/ กฺ
Fricative		/f/ ฟ	/s/ ซ			/h/ ฮ
Nasal		/m/ ม	/n/ น	/ɲ/ ญ	/ŋ/ ง
Lateral			/l/ ล
Semivowel		/w/ ว	/r/ ร	/j/ ย

• [t͡ɕ] and [t͡ɕʰ] allophones are influenced by Thai, whereas [d͡ʑ] is influenced by Malay.
• Aspirated consonants and /f/ only appear in loanwords (mostly from Thai).
• Phonetically, /-c/ and /-s/ is pronounced [-jʔ], and [-jh] (after back vowels and /a/) or [-h] (after front vowels), respectively, syllable-finally.
• /l/ becomes [l] after /i/, /ə/, otherwise [ɭ] in syllable-final positions (/ˈlihəl/ [ˈliˑhəl] 'space' vs. /ˈbumɔl/ [ˈbuˑmɔɭ] 'doctor').
• /ər/ is compensatorily lengthened to phonetically long [əə]. In stressed positions, the vowel cluster fluctuates between [ɽ], [ər], [rə].
• The coda stop /k/ after a front vowel becomes [kx] (/ˈkamek/ [ˈkaˑmekx] 'sheep').
• Syllable-initial stops /p/, /b/, with the same syllable containing a back vowel and coda /c/, are labialized to /pw/ and /bw/ respectively (/səˈboc/ [səˈbwʊjʔ] 'to utter').

Finals

IPA	/-k/ [-k̚]	/-ŋ/	/-t/ [-t̚]	/-n/	/-p/ [-p̚]	/-m/	/-j/	/-c/ [-jʔ]	/-s/ [-jh]	/-w/	/-h/	/-l/*
Thai	-ก	-ง	-ด	-น	-บ	-ม	-ย	-ยจ	-ยฮ	-ว	-ฮ	-ล*
Latin	-k	-ng	-t	-n	-p	-m	-y	-c	-s	-w	-h	-l*

• /-j/ and /-w/ can be treated as a part of diphthongs or triphthongs.
• /-l/ only exists in the Phuket dialect.

Stress and intonation

Urak Lawoiʼ does not have tones, except in Thai loans. Words are usually stressed in penultimate syllable, except if the expected stress is placed on the pre-syllable (e.g. open syllables containing /ə/, but not /ər/) the stress moves into the next syllable. Urak Lawoiʼ also has global intonation — for instance, interrogative sentences have rising intonation and negative sentences have lower-pitch intonation.

References

1. Urak Lawoiʼ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Anderbeck, Karl (2012). Notes on Malayic Suku Laut Dialectology (abstract) (PDF). ISMIL 16 conference presentation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
3. Hogan 1988, p. 21
4. Hogan 1988, p. 13
5. de Groot 2012, p. 19

Further reading

• Saengmani, Amon (1979). Phonology of the Urak Lawoiʼ Language: Adang Island (PDF) (MA thesis). Mahidol University.
• Hogan, David W. (1976). "Urak Lawoiʼ (Orang Laut)". In Smalley, William A. (ed.). Phonemes and Orthography: Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand. Pacific Linguistics C – 43. Canberra: The Australian National University. pp. 283–302. doi:10.15144/PL-C43. hdl:1885/146593. ISBN 0-85883-144-9.
• Hogan, David W. (1988). Urak Lawoiʼ: Basic Structures and a Dictionary. Pacific Linguistics Series C No. 109. Canberra: The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-C109. hdl:1885/146628. ISBN 0-85883-385-9.
• de Groot, Jacob Y. (2012). Urak Lawoiʼ: Language and Social History. Phuket: Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus.
• ศูนย์ศึกษาและฟื้นฟูภาษาและวัฒนธรรมในภาวะวิกฤต. (2020). คู่มือระบบเขียนภาษาอูรักลาโวยจอักษรไทย ฉบับมหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล. นครปฐม: สถาบันวิจัยภาษาและวัฒนธรรมเอเชีย มหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล. ISBN 978-616-443-534-6