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Wikipedia / Man Met language

Man Met, or Kemie ( Kemiehua), is a poorly classified Austroasiatic language spoken by about 1,000 people in Jinghong County, Xishuangbanna, China. It is classified as an Angkuic language by Paul Sidwell (2010). It may be or Mangic according to Li Yunbing (2005), or Palaungic. Like most other Austroasiatic languages, Kemie has subject–verb–object (SVO) word order.

Autonyms include (曼咪), (克蔑), and (克敏), or khaʔ33 min33.

Distribution

Kemie is spoken in the following villages by just over 1,000 people.

Jinghong Township (景洪镇)

  • Xiaomanmi (小曼咪村, 58 households, 256 persons)

  • Damanmi (大曼咪村, 53 households, 234 persons)

  • Jiangtou Manmi (江头曼咪村, 33 households, 124 persons)

  • Manmi (曼咪村, man13 met53) of Gadong Township (嘎东乡, 51 households, 228 persons)

  • Sanjia (三家村) of Mengyang Township (勐养镇, 46 households, 200 persons)

Phonology

The data for Man Met phonology was recorded by Chen (2005) from native speakers of the Xiao Mammi village (小曼咪村), Jinghong County, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.

Word structure

Most lexemes are monosyllabic, though disyllabic compound words are pretty common. Stress falls on the final syllable in disyllables. The word structure can be described as (ʔa/m).ˈCiV(Cf)T.

Suprasegmentals (tones)

Man Met features seven tones, though some one them have limited distributions.

Tone value

Note

Example

11

Predominantly found in Tai loans; has final /ʔ/ or creak.

kʰɔn³¹ lɔ¹¹ "tadpole"

13

Infrequent, predominately with historically short /a, ɤ/ nuclei.

aɕim¹³ "bird"

31

Predominates in historically long non-high nuclei.

atɕɔh³¹ "ants"

33

Only two examples were attested.

hɔt³³ "to end"

35

Predominates with historically approximant and palatal codas.

sɤm³⁵ "to plant"

53

Restricted to checked and short syllables only.

pɛʔ⁵³ "goat, sheep"

55

Infrequent, occurs with /i, u/ with nasal codas. Varies to 35~13 in connected speech.

fa⁵⁵ "wide"

Consonants

Onsets

Labial

Alveolar

Alveopalatal

Velar

Glottal

Plosive

plain

aspirated

Fricative

voiceless

voiced

Affricate

Nasal

Lateral

Man Met onsets

In uninterrupted speech, /t͡s/ may be confused with /t͡ɕ/, according to report by Chen (2005). /s/ tends to realize as [t͡sʰ] in Han loan words. The language has the following complex onsets: /pr pw pʰr pʰw (tr) kr kw kʰr kʰw/.

Codas

Bilabial

Alveolar

Palatal

Velar

Glottal

Plosive

Nasal

Semivowel

Codas

Vowels

Front

Central

Back

Close

Mid

Open

,

Man Met monophthongs

References

Further reading