Department of Linguistics

About us

Research Profile

Historical Linguistics, Austroasiatic languages, languages of Southeast Asia, Gallo-Romance 

Towards Proto-Khmuic: Investigations in Khmuic Historical Phonology

The Khmuic languages of Northern Laos and adjacent areas constitute a relatively little-researched branch of the Austroasiatic language family. With the exception of Khmu, spoken by over half a million people and studied in some detail, Khmuic languages are spoken by small communities, some numbering only a few hundred speakers or, in the case of Iduh, less than a hundred. All of these smaller languages are endangered to some degree, and little published research has dealt with them.

My PhD dissertation aims to provide a first account of Khmuic linguistic history, based on primary data that I am collecting in Laos and Thailand. For most varieties included in my investigations, this is the first time that they will be documented and described in print. There is urgency to work on these languages, since besides being poorly described, if at all, several of them are well on their way to extinction.

As Khmuic is a phonologically quite conservative branch of Austroasiatic, research on Khmuic historical phonology can be expected to contribute significantly to our understanding of Austroasiatic linguistic history more generally.

The mountains of Sayabouli, where the Khmuic language Prai is spoken
The mountains of Sayabouli, where the Khmuic language Prai is spoken © Nathaniel Hiroz

Publications

Hiroz, Nathaniel, Julie Rothenbühler. 2022 a. ‘Projet “Toponymie de la Suisse Romande”’, pp. 319-325 in Aquino- Weber, Dorothée and Maguelone Sauzet (eds.), La Suisse Romande et ses patois: autour de la place et du devenir des langues francoprovençale et oïlique. Neuchâtel: Alphil-Presses universitaires suisses. DOI : 10.33055/ALPHIL.03170

Talks

Conferences and Invited Talks

Hiroz, Nathaniel. accepted. ‘Mal-Prai and Proto-Khmuic Reconstruction: The Case of Final *-s, *-h, *-ʔ’, paper to be presented at the 12th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 12), Payap University, October 23-25 2024.

Hiroz, Nathaniel, Nathan Badenoch. accepted. ‘Bit-Khang within Austroasiatic’, paper to be presented at the 12th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 12), Payap University, October 23-25 2024.

Hiroz, Nathaniel. 2024 b. ‘Proto-Austroasiatic Disyllables: Reconstructing Vowel Qualities in Non-final Syllables’, paper presented at the The 33rd Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS 33), National Tsing Hua University, June 15-17 2024. 

Hiroz, Nathaniel. 2024 a. ‘Issues in Mal-Prai Historical Linguistics’, invited talk given at Payap University Linguistics Colloquium, Feb. 28th 2024. 

Hiroz, Nathaniel. 2023. ‘Proto-Khmuic Phonation Contrasts and Beyond: The Return of “Proto-Austroasiatic Creaky Voice”’, paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 11), Chiang Mai University, October 26-27 2023. 

Hiroz, Nathaniel. 2022 b. ‘Lexical and Grammatical Tone in Prai’, talk presented at the 10th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 10), Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, 1 to 2 December 2022. 

Teaching

Teaching 

Einführung in die Historische Linguistik 2: Sprachverwandtschaft (Spring 2022, Spring 2023) 

Einführung in die Historische Linguistik 1: Sprachwandel (Autumn 2021, Autumn 2022) 

Bachelorarbeit und Masterarbeit Kolloquium (Spring 2021, Spring 2023) 

The Burmese language (Spring 2021)