Maniq grammar

Maniq (also known as Ten’en, ISO code 639-3) is a language from the Aslian branch of the Austroasiatic language family. Maniq belongs to the Northern Aslian subgrouping of Aslian, with primarily Semang hunter-gatherer speaker populations (Dunn et al. 2011). The Maniq language displays a number of typically Aslian and typologically interesting patterns unusual in the Austroasiatic and Mainland Southeast Asian context (Kruspe, Burenhult & Wnuk 2015). As the northernmost member of the branch, and a geographical outlier—being the only Aslian language spoken entirely in Thailand—Maniq is unique among Aslian languages. It is spoken in an enclave separated from other Aslian languages by over 150 kilometres and—unusually for Aslian—since at least the early 1900s, its speakers have not been in contact with other Aslian speakers. Also unlike its close relatives, Maniq is no longer in contact with Malay (Austronesian), but is in regular contact with Southern Thai (Tai-Kadai). Some of the basic typological features of Maniq include: a rich phonemic inventory, intricate derivational morphology, default SVO (subject–verb–object) constituent order, frequent argument ellipsis, and semantically dense verb lexicon with highly specific meanings encoded in monomorphemic forms (Wnuk 2016; Wnuk & Burenhult 2014).

PUBLICATIONS

Wnuk, Ewelina. 2016. Semantic specificity of perception verbs in Maniq. Nijmegen: Radboud University dissertation.

[CHAPTER 3: A concise 50-page grammatical sketch of Maniq].

Wnuk, Ewelina, and Niclas Burenhult. 2014. Contact and isolation in hunter-gatherer language dynamics: Evidence from Maniq phonology (Aslian, Malay Peninsula). Studies in Language 38 (4): 956–81.

Kruspe, Nicole, Niclas Burenhult, and Ewelina Wnuk. 2014. Northern Aslian. In Handbook of the Austroasiatic Languages, edited by Paul Sidwell and Mathias Jenny, 419–74. Leiden: Brill.