Riang is a Palaungic language of Burma and China. Speakers are culturally assimilated with the Karen, but are Palaung by ancestry and their language is unrelated. Riang Lang and Riang Lai (Yinchia) are sometimes considered distinct languages.
| Riang | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Burma, China |
| Ethnicity | Palaung |
Native speakers | (28,000 cited 1995–2008)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:ril – Riang Langyin – Riang Lai |
| Glottolog | rian1260 |
| ELP | Riang (Myanmar) |
Phonology
editRiang Lang consonants described by Hall (2018):
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ||||
| Nasal | voiced | m | n | ɲ̟ | ŋ | |
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h | |||
| voiced | l | |||||
| Rhotic | voiced | r | ||||
| Approximant | voiced | w | j | |||
Vowels (Hall 2018):
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | aː | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | a | ɔ |
| Diphthongs | [ia] | [ua] |
Riang Lang is sesquisyllabic and has two tones. Its typical word template is ((C)ə̆(C)).(C)(C)V(C)t.[2]
References
edit- ^ Riang Lang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Riang Lai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Hall, Elizabeth. (2018) A phonological analysis of Riang Lang. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society (JSEALS), 11:2. [1]
- Shintani Tadahiko. 2014. The Riang language. Linguistic survey of Tay cultural area (LSTCA) no. 101. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA).