User:Preth1/Language selection

Language & Partner Selection

Potential Partner(s)

I would like to work with Chung Sze Kwok, Katelyn Becker, and/or Nyvisalsnuk Rith!

Languages in Order of Preference

1. Mon
2. Unami (or Lenape)

• Unami

Mon

Basic Information

• Autonym: ဘာသာမန် [pʰesa mɑn]
• Other Names: မွန်ဘာသာစကား (Burmese), ภาษามอญ (Thai)
• Language Family: Austroasiatic > Monic
• ISO 639: mnw (Modern Mon)
• Speakers: 851,000 (total in all countries); spoken by the Mon people
• Location: Southern Myanmar (Mon State, Kayin State, Tanintharyi Region), Thailand; recognized minority language in both countries.
• Language Status: 5 (developing) in Myanmar, 6b (threatened) in Thailand
  • Developing: "language is in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized form being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable."
  • Threatened: "language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users."

Language Features

• SVO
• Non-tonal (unlike Burmese and Thai)
• Orthography: Mon-Burmese script (Mon alphabet)
• Morphological Typology:
  • primarily isolating with little to no inflectional morphology, which is common in Austroasiatic languages. It does have some remnants of Old Mon's rich inflectional system, but those processes are no longer productive.

Resources for Mon

Here are some online resources I found for Mon:

• Omniglot: contains a sample translation of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• A Short Introduction to the Mon Language: contains some basic words and phrases in Mon with glosses though only IPA is provided

• The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages: contains a grammatical description of Modern Mon with some example sentences and glossed texts (I have a PDF copy)

• Open Languages Archives Community (OPAC): a compilation of resources on Mon including a Mon translation of Genesis by The British and Foreign Bible Society though there doesn't seem to be a corresponding translation

• Bible texts in Mon

• SEAlang Library Mon

• There are also some YouTube videos in Mon such as "Tin Mya's story (Mon language)", "Cho Zin's story (Mon language)", and an RFA Mon Language TV Program with captions though they're embedded in the videos.

Sources: Ethnologue (Mon), Wikipedia (Mon language), A Short Introduction to the Mon Language

Unami (or Lenape)

Basic Information

• Autonym: Wënami èlixsuwakàn (Unami) or Lënapei lixsëwakàn (Lenape)
• Other Names: Delaware, Lenape, Lenni-Lenape
• Language Family: Algic > Eastern Algonquian
• ISO 639: unm
• Speakers: "No known L1 speakers, but emerging L2 speakers. The last known speaker, Edward Thompson, died in 2002. Ethnic population: 11,000 (2015)."
• Location: southern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Oklahoma
• Language Status: 9 (Reawakening)
  • "The ethnic community associated with a dormant language is working to establish more uses and more users for the language with the results that new L2 speakers are emerging."

Language Features

• Word order is more fluid than in English because most of the information is encoded in the verb. However, in general, there seems to be more data on its morphology than its syntax.

• Orthography: there doesn't seem to be a standard writing system, but there are practical phonetic alphabets based on the Latin script such as the one used for the Lenape Talking Dictionary:
  • e.g. òkwës (fox), Nulamàlsi (I am fine), Làpìch knewël (I'll see you again)

• Morphological Typology:
  • highly agglutinative and polysynthetic
    • e.g. verbs in Unami have markings for person and number and inflections for order (independent, conjunct, imperative), aspect, and the negative.

Resources for Unami (or Lenape)

Here are some online resources I found for Unami (or Lenape):

• Omniglot (Unami)
• Lenape translation of "Silent Night" with a literal English translation
• Official Website of the Delaware Tribe of Indians: contains links to some word lists and stories in Lenape
• The Lenape Talking Dictionary: provides an extensive searchable dictionary of Lenape words, sentences, stories, grammar, songs, and lessons with audio recordings of native speakers
• Lenni-Lenape Word List
• Paper on the "Verbal Morphology of the Southern Unami Dialect of Lenape"
• Open Languages Archive Community (OPAC): compilation of resources in and about the Unami language

Sources: Sam Noble Museum (Unami language), Ethnologue (Unami), Wikipedia (Unami language), Wikipedia (Delaware languages)