This link will connect you to Paul Sidwell’s article; “Khmuic classification and Homeland.” The article cites four authors who have each agreed that Lua’/Pray is merely a dialect of the Thin/T’in language. The word Thin/T’in is commonly used to refer to the inhabitants of the Thai and Lao villages where either the Mal or Lua’/Pray is spoken. The word Thin/T’in was originally a derogatory term that the Thai government used to refer to the inhabitants of the Mal and Lua’/Pray speaking villages; and David Filbeck noted, upon introducing the word T’in/Thin to English publication, that the word is a reference to the tribal inhabitants of a specific area rather than the speakers of a specific language. So, there is no such thing as a thin/T’in language. Thin/T’in is merely a term that is used to classify a number of closely related dialects that are spoken by the Thin/T’in people, and Sidwell’s article is consistent with this conception of the term Thin/T’in. Furthermore, the article shows that Sidwell supports the Khmuic classification of Lua’/Pray, because he places Thin/T’in within the Phray-Pram subgrouping of the Kmuic classification. The article provides evidence for Sidwell’s classification of Lua’/Pray through an analysis of certain lexical data that has been obtained from the various types of Khmuic languages. Unfortunately, the article’s lexical data for Thin/T’in derives from the Mal dialect rather than the Lua’/Pray dialect, and the reader is left to infer the classification of Lua’/Pray from an unidentified similarity between the Mal and Lua’/Pray dialects. In other words, the article identifies similarities between Mal and other Khmuic languages, but fails to identify similarities between Lua’/Pray and other Khmuic languages; or even between the Thin/T’in dialects of Mal and Lua’/Pray.

No comments have been posted yet.

Sign in to leave your comment