Thavung language

Thavưng or Aheu is a language spoken by the Phon Sung people in Laos and Thailand. There are thought to be some 1,770 speakers in Laos, largely concentrated in Khamkeut District. A further 750 speakers live in 3 villages of Song Dao District, Sakon Nakhon Province, Thailand, namely Ban Nong Waeng (in Pathum Wapi Subdistrict), Ban Nong Charoen, and Ban Nong Muang.^[2]

Thavưng
Phon Soung, Aheu
โซ่
Native to	Laos, Thailand
Native speakers	700 (2007)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Vietic Thavưng
Writing system	Thai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	thm
Glottolog	aheu1239
ELP	Thavung

Thavung makes a four-way distinction between clear and breathy phonation combined with glottalized final consonants. This is very similar to the situation in the Pearic languages in which, however, the glottalization is in the vowel.^[3]

Phonology

Consonants^[4]

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop	plain	p	t	c	k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	cʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d
Fricative		f	s			h
Approximant		w	l	j
Trill			ɾ

Vowels

The vowels^[5]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Close-mid	e		o
Mid		ǝ
Open-mid			ɔ
Open	a

The vowels can also be long. In Thavung there are 3 Diphthongs: ia ɨa ua.

Further reading

• Premsrirat, Suwilai (1996). Phonological characteristics of So (Thavung), a Vietic language of Thailand.

References

1. Thavưng at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Suwilai Premsrirat (1996). Phonological characteristics of So (Thavung), a Vietic language of Thailand. Retrieved 22. Nov. 2017.
3. Sidwell, Paul. Vietic languages. Mon-Khmer Languages Project.
4. Steven Moran and Daniel McCloy and Richard Wright. 2019. Thavung sound inventory (PH). In: Moran, Steven & McCloy, Daniel (eds.)
5. "The Tower of Babel". starlingdb.org. Retrieved 2022-03-05.