Southeast Asia by Nathan Badenoch
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 2025
The classification and naming of plants and animals is said to follow a number of "universal" con... more The classification and naming of plants and animals is said to follow a number of "universal" constraints cross-linguistically. While these constraints are generally accepted in the literature, few have been rigorously tested with a large language sample. In particular, the languages of mainland southeast Asia appear to have been neglected in such endeavours, even though it is common knowledge that some key constraints are violated in this region. Here, we investigate the construction of "Generic" plant and animal names in 22 languages of mainland southeast Asia, and show that the vast majority of these-especially among plant and fish ethnotaxa-are two-part "secondary names", in contrast to a major constraint that predicts that such names should be one-part "primary names". This appears to be a widespread areal feature, and has implications for the validity of other nomenclatural "universals", which remain to be similarly tested.
Liguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 2024
Gérard Diffloth (1937–2023) was a leading authority on Austroasiatic languages, with a wide rang... more Gérard Diffloth (1937–2023) was a leading authority on Austroasiatic languages, with a wide range of linguistic interests ranging from historical reconstruction to expressives, and much more. He was a tireless fieldworker who firmly believed that research into the linguistic history of Austroasiatic needed be grounded in long-term fieldwork with native speakers in their daily speech environment. In this paper we introduce an unpublished manuscript on the phonology of the Tri language spoken in Vilabouli District, Savannakhet Province in southern Laos. Chamberlain and Badenoch offer a brief introduction to this work, with a tribute to his commitment to fieldwork and the principles he maintained throughout the many decades of working with speakers of Austroasiatic languages
This essay was written in 2007 as a reflection on my doctoral research Social Networks in Natural... more This essay was written in 2007 as a reflection on my doctoral research Social Networks in Natural Resource Governance in a Multi-Ethnic Watershed of Northern Thailand at Kyoto University. Much has changed in the local governance landscape of northern Thailand and interethnic relations continue to evolve in dynamic ways. Some of this discussion has been presented in Badenoch (2022) “The Uplands of Northern Thailand: Language and social relations beyond the Muang” in The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia. I share the essay as a 20-year perspective on some issues of society in the uplands of northern Thailand.
Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2023
ວາລະສານວິທະຍາສາດ ເສດຖະກິດ ແລະ ສັງຄົມ, 2023
This paper examines the village protection ritual of the Phusang (Paza) people of northern Laos a... more This paper examines the village protection ritual of the Phusang (Paza) people of northern Laos and its role in the construction of community.
The Journal of Lao Languages, 2023
The story of Pu Vangveng is an example of the oral literature of the Phong people living in Houap... more The story of Pu Vangveng is an example of the oral literature of the Phong people living in Houaphanh and Xiengkhouang provinces of northeastern Laos. Oral literature is a set of performative practices through which local histories, belief systems, and worldviews are articulated and reproduced. Appreciation for and understanding of folklore and other forms of oral performance through the languages in which they are traditionally told is an essential part of research on upland society. The cultural meaning of stories such as the one presented here is created not simply through an act of narration but is a product of the linguistic encoding of semiotic relations within the lived experience of the narrator and their community. The creation of cultural meaning is made even more complex by the human diversity of the region, where there is a long history of cultural contact between people of different ethnolinguistic groups.
Journal of Research Institute, Topics in Middle Mekong Lingustics 3, 2022
The Duodenary Cycle is a method of reckoning time that is used widely in mainland Southeast Asia.... more The Duodenary Cycle is a method of reckoning time that is used widely in mainland Southeast Asia. In the upland areas, ethnic groups that have historically been in contact with speakers of Chinese and Tai languages commonly use a 12-day cycle for determining what livelihood and ritual activities should be done on which days. The terminology used in these cycles shows influence from different cultures and languages, but there has also been a significant degree of internally motivated innovation. In this paper we explore data from several Tibeto-Burman languages spoken along the Laos-China-Vietnam border area. While the linguistic influence of Tai and Chinese are predictably strong we find various strategies to localize the duodenary system, where native terms for the symbolic animal are incorporated. These processes are of interest in light of the history of the original duodenary systems, which were themselves a product of cultural and linguistic contact, and where symbolic and specific names for the days have been in flux.
Topics in Middle Mekong Linguistics 3, 2022
The "water spirit" is a common cultural motif across mainland Southeast Asia. This paper examines... more The "water spirit" is a common cultural motif across mainland Southeast Asia. This paper examines the Bit word cŋas ‘ngeuak’ (water spirit) to uncover semantic and phonological change processes in the specific cultural context. The analysis uses semantic categories created by collocation to provide insight into how the shared cultural phenomenon of ngeuak fits within speakers’ perceptions of boundaries in the animate world, drawing on data from folklore. The paper asserts the importance of collecting detailed data on fauna names as well as the benefits of triangulating between lexical data, local knowledge systems and oral literature.
Topics in Middle Mekong Linguistics 3, 2022
This is a transcription and translation of a Bit folktale that tells of relationships between hum... more This is a transcription and translation of a Bit folktale that tells of relationships between humans, animals, and spirits. Of special interest is the "mythical water spirit" known as "ngeuak" in the Tai-Lao world. The Bit term and its associated folklore open channels for a broader understanding of this important phenomenon from the perspectives of Austroasiatic speakers, who have been in intense contact with Tai-Lao groups over history. This text is a companion piece to "Crocodiles and Dragons": Fauna and Folklore in the Forests of Northern Laos (2022).
Journal of the Siam Society, 2022
The Ksingmul people of the northern Laos-Vietnam border area have been known within local Tai soc... more The Ksingmul people of the northern Laos-Vietnam border area have been known within local Tai social systems as Puak, a derogatory term that evokes images of forest-eating termites. Occupying the lowest rung in the Tai social hierarchy, what is known of the Ksingmul has been dominated by the idea of Tai-ization — a process of cultural loss and assimilation. But overt markers of physical culture and economic status mask the persistence of traditional beliefs, moral entanglements and alternative historical perspectives that can be accessed only through the Ksingmul language. In this article, I analyze a story called “Person and Nya Wai Become Friends”, which tells of a competition of trickery between a human and a wild spirit. In the telling of this story, the narrator marks the words of the spirit with a prefix that marks the “abnormal speech” of a non-human. He uses the marking to index the moral stance of the person and the wild spirit, as they first become friends, and the human subsequently betrays the special bond of friendship. The wild spirit Nya Wai “speaks like a human” when he is trying to gain mercy from Person when he is caught stealing from Person’s bird traps, while Person starts to “speak like a ghost” as he hatches his plot to get revenge on Nya Wai by tricking him into castrating himself. This is one of the linguistic devices used by the narrator to perform human-spirit relations in the telling of the story. Such performances are firmly located within the multiethnic landscape of the uplands, where power structures are negotiated, constructed and subverted through language use.
Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia, 2022
accepted pre-print version, in Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia (2022), edited by Wouters and ... more accepted pre-print version, in Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia (2022), edited by Wouters and Heneise
Japan-ASEAN Platform Working Paper 15, 2022
https://japan-asean.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/tdwp/
Expanded Spanish translation of Bridging the Di... more https://japan-asean.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/tdwp/
Expanded Spanish translation of Bridging the Disciplinary Divide: 50 Years of Research at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, for dialog between Southeast Asian Area Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies
Manusia, Alam, & Masyarakat, 2022
https://insistpress.com/katalog/manusia-alam-dan-masyarakat-kajian-multidisiplin-asia-tenggara/
https://insistpress.com/katalog/manusia-alam-dan-masyarakat-kajian-multidisiplin-asia-tenggara/
Journal of Lao Language, 2021
This paper explores play counting systems in the Austroasiatic languages of northern Laos.
Japan-ASEAN Transdisciplinary Studies Series, 2021
In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to reexamine the for... more In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to reexamine the formation and interethnic relations in the uplands of Northern Laos. We unpack the historical and contemporary dynamics between "majority" Tai, "minority" Kha groups and the imagined cultural influence of "Lao" to draw out a more nuanced set of narratives about ethnicity, linguistic diversity, cultural contact, historical intimacy, and regional imaginings to inform our understanding of upland society. The paper brings together fieldwork and archival research, drawing on previous theoretical and areal analysis of both authors.
Working Paper Kyoto, 2021
In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to reexamine the for... more In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to reexamine the formation and interethnic relations in the uplands of Northern Laos. We unpack the historical and contemporary dynamics between "majority" Tai, "minority" Kha groups and the imagined cultural influence of "Lao" to draw out a more nuanced set of narratives about ethnicity, linguistic diversity, cultural contact, historical intimacy, and regional imaginings to inform our understanding of upland society. The paper brings together fieldwork and archival research, drawing on previous theoretical and areal analysis of both authors.
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2021
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12314
The study of expressive lang... more https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12314
The study of expressive language has helped illustrate how ideophonicity operates between grammar and performance, as both syntax and poetics, across a wide range of phenomena experienced by speakers. In the Bit language, spoken in Laos and China by approximately 2,400 people, there is a rich vocabulary of expressives, or ideophones, used to depict a lack of movement, action or agency. In doing so, Bit speakers define silence in terms of sound, stillness in terms of potential or past movement, and absence through the experience of expectation or habit. It is widely recognized that silence is not simply the lack of sound, but this analysis shows how culturally specific conceptions of the meaning of silence can be represented with the marked poetic language of expressives to account for the experience of various forms of absence. As such the analysis is an exploration of how ethnopoetics and semiotic ideology intersect in the production of Bit linguistic culture.
Interlinear glossing of Bit text in Badenoch (2021).
Journal of Lao Language, 2020
86 h rtw8xy fq d ;a f9a omtlt3i [h kosov']= k9a o 86 h rtw8xy fq d ;a f9a omtlt3i [h kosov']= k9a... more 86 h rtw8xy fq d ;a f9a omtlt3i [h kosov']= k9a o 86 h rtw8xy fq d ;a f9a omtlt3i [h kosov']= k9a o va dlvolkf]k; va dlvolkf]k; ;k]tlko;y -kdko ;k]tlko;y -kdko ;k]tlko;y -kdko va dlvolkf]k; lt[a [xt9= kxu mu @ rl @&*# 7l @W@W ;k]tlko;y -kdko va dlvolkf]k; lt[a [xt9= kxu mu @ rl @&*# 7l @W@W
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Southeast Asia by Nathan Badenoch
https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/communities/15cec84b-7599-49fd-93a5-547e21e06394
Expanded Spanish translation of Bridging the Disciplinary Divide: 50 Years of Research at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, for dialog between Southeast Asian Area Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies
The study of expressive language has helped illustrate how ideophonicity operates between grammar and performance, as both syntax and poetics, across a wide range of phenomena experienced by speakers. In the Bit language, spoken in Laos and China by approximately 2,400 people, there is a rich vocabulary of expressives, or ideophones, used to depict a lack of movement, action or agency. In doing so, Bit speakers define silence in terms of sound, stillness in terms of potential or past movement, and absence through the experience of expectation or habit. It is widely recognized that silence is not simply the lack of sound, but this analysis shows how culturally specific conceptions of the meaning of silence can be represented with the marked poetic language of expressives to account for the experience of various forms of absence. As such the analysis is an exploration of how ethnopoetics and semiotic ideology intersect in the production of Bit linguistic culture.
https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/communities/15cec84b-7599-49fd-93a5-547e21e06394
Expanded Spanish translation of Bridging the Disciplinary Divide: 50 Years of Research at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, for dialog between Southeast Asian Area Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies
The study of expressive language has helped illustrate how ideophonicity operates between grammar and performance, as both syntax and poetics, across a wide range of phenomena experienced by speakers. In the Bit language, spoken in Laos and China by approximately 2,400 people, there is a rich vocabulary of expressives, or ideophones, used to depict a lack of movement, action or agency. In doing so, Bit speakers define silence in terms of sound, stillness in terms of potential or past movement, and absence through the experience of expectation or habit. It is widely recognized that silence is not simply the lack of sound, but this analysis shows how culturally specific conceptions of the meaning of silence can be represented with the marked poetic language of expressives to account for the experience of various forms of absence. As such the analysis is an exploration of how ethnopoetics and semiotic ideology intersect in the production of Bit linguistic culture.
2024年11月23日『言語記述論集』18（長田俊樹先生古稀記念特集号）
発行 京都: 言語記述研究会
Badenoch and Osada. 2023. “Expressives and Affect: Everyday Poetics in Natural Landscapes”, in Aiyadurai, Chattopadhyay and Choksi (eds) Ecological Entanglements: Affect, Embodiment and Ethics of Care. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan.
https://orientblackswan.com/details?id=9789354422591
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Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Download at
https://nursing.wisc.edu/lexicon-of-english-hmoob-medical-terminology/
proficiency (LEP) patients. Research shows that Hmong patients experience poorer quality interpreter services than
other LEP populations. This study’s purpose is to understand Hmong medical interpreters’ perceptions of the factors that
affect their ability to make accurate medical interpretations during clinical encounters. Method: A qualitative study was
conducted with Hmong-speaking medical interpreters. The interviews were semistructured, audio recorded, and analyzed
using conventional content analysis. Results: 13 interpreters aged 29 to 49 years participated in the study. Three factors
affected the interpreters’ ability to make accurate medical interpretations for Hmong-speaking patients: (a) matched gender
between the interpreter and patient, (b) culturally taboo topics in communicating about reproductive body parts and sexual
health/activity, and (c) culture and generational language differences between interpreters and Hmong patients. Discussion:
Clinical encounters that match patient–interpreter ages, gender, and/or local culture may reduce communication barriers.
https://englishkyoto-seas.org/2023/08/vol-12-no-2-of-southeast-asian-studies/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/alice-vittrant-and-justin-watkins-eds-the-mainland-southeast-asia-linguistic-area-trends-in-linguistics-xxii-712-pp-berlin-mouton-de-gruyter-2019-isbn-978-3-11-040176-9/FE3CA2FAFD425AC61B5B8DD468380415