Preedaporn Srisakorn
Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences,
Some Remarks on So
(Thavung) Registers
So (Thavung), an endangered language of the Vietic
branch of the Austroasiatic language family, was previously described as a
register language (Suwilai 1996; Nuchanart 1998; Preedaporn 2008). However, it
has been found that due to the constant contact with neighboring tone languages such as Thai, Lao,
and Nyoh, So (Thavung), as spoken in Song Dao district of Sakon Nakhon
province, may mutate into a tonal language if its voice quality is completely
lost. The PRAAT program, therefore, is adopted to test if this hypothesis is
true or not.