Ta'Oi language

Ta'Oi (Ta'Oih, Ta Oi) is a dialect continuum within the Katuic branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken amongst the Ta Oi people in the Salavan and Sekong provinces in Laos and the municipality of Huế in Vietnam.

Varieties

Sidwell (2005) lists the following varieties of Ta'Oi, which is a name applied to speakers of various related dialects.

Ta'Oi proper
Ong/Ir/Talan
Chatong is spoken about 50 to 100 km northeast of Sekong. It has been recorded only by Theraphan L-Thongkum.
Kriang (Ngkriang, Ngeq) is spoken by up to 4,000 people living in villages between Tatheng and Sekong, such as Ban Chakamngai.
Kataang (Katang) is a dialect that has been documented by Michel Ferlus, Gerard Diffloth, and other linguists. It is not to be confused with the Bru dialect of Katang.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c	k	ʔ
voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ
Fricative		s			h
Rhotic		r
Approximant	w	l	j

There are also creaky syllable-final segments /mʔ, nʔ, ŋʔ, wʔ, lʔ, jʔ/, however; they are not noted as a distinct series.
/ɟ/ may also be heard as a preglottal sound [ʔj].

Vowels

Monophthongs
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː	ɨ ɨː	u uː
Mid	e eː	ə əː	o oː
Open	ɛ ɛː	a aː	ɔ ɔː

Diphthongs
	Front	Central	Back
Close	ia	ɨa	ua

Morphosyntax

Taoih, like other Katuic languages, is largely analytic and slightly inflectional. Taoih has a large amounts of affixes which mark agreement for person and case and derive new lexicalized words. The specific cases that are marked differ by person. There are several grammatical cases in Taoih, including some important ones: nominative, accusative, locative, dative, and genitive.

Taoih Pronouns
	1st person	2nd person	3rd person
singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
Initial	aku	nhǎng	muhe	ame	inhoa	ipe	ʔo	anho'a	ape
Genitive	ɘɳku	ɘɳnhǎng	ɘɳhe	ɘɳme/ɘɳmaɨ	ɘɳoinhoa	ɘɳoipe	ɘɳo	ɘɳoanho'a	ɘɳoape
Dative	aku	anhǎng	ahe	amme/ammai	aoinhoa	aoipe	ao	aoanho'a	aoape
Locative	-	-	ihe	ime/imai	-	-	ido	-	imaɨ

Urɘq

book

ɘɳ-maɨ

GEN-2SG

Urɘq ɘɳ-maɨ

book GEN-2SG

Your book

Taoih is prominently a neutral alignment language. Taoih exhibits neutral alignment for case with (in)transitive verbs and also neutral alignment for agreement in both (in)transitive and ditransitive frames, the verb never shows agreement with any argument, regardless of its transitivity. For ditransitive verbs, Taoih exhibits indirective alignment.

Kuyuk

Kuyu’k

dong

give

urɘq

book

a-o-inho'a

DAT-LK-2SG

anho'a

and

a-o-ndil

DAT-LK-girl

Kuyuk dong urɘq a-o-inho'a anho'a a-o-ndil

Kuyu’k give book DAT-LK-2SG and DAT-LK-girl

"Kuyuk gives the book to you (dual) and the girl."

To mark benefactive arguments, the dative marker and preposition adeh occur before patients.

1SG

takoóh

cook

adeh

for.BEN

a-o-akoónh

DAT-LK-father

anho'a

and

a-maɨ

DAT-2SG

Ku takoóh adeh a-o-akoónh anho'a a-maɨ

1SG cook for.BEN DAT-LK-father and DAT-2SG

"I cook for father and you."