Doctoral Dissertation Research:: Documenting Bih, An Austronesian Language of Vietnam In A Comparative Perspective: A Bih/Rade/English/Vietnamese Dictionary

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

Doctoral Dissertation Research: Documenting Bih, an Austronesian language of Vietnam in a comparative perspective: a Bih/Rade/English/Vietnamese Dictionary Bih is a Chamic language spoken in the Southern highlands of Vietnam. Around 500 people in Buon Trap town consider themselves as Bih ethnically, but fewer than 30 people are fluent in Bih. This supports the fear that the generation of elderly adults is the last generation speaking Bih. This doctoral dissertation project will contribute toward the preservation of the language by providing the first-ever orthography of Bih. Co-PI Tam Nguyen of the University of Oregon will undertake significant onsite work with the language. The co-PI will record natural language data in the form of conversations, folklore, songs and other forms of discourse. These oral texts supplemented with word-by-word elicitation when appropriate will contribute vocabulary toward the development of a Bih/Rade/English/Vietnamese dictionary. A Bih/Rade/English/Vietnamese dictionary promises to offer a significant contribution to linguistics and related fields as there are no grammars, dictionaries or scholarly publications available on the language to date. A detailed documentation of the Bih lexicon contributes to the field of Austronesian historical linguistics, particularly to Vietnamese scholars interested in the reconstruction of proto-history, such as anthropology, archaeology, folklore, art-history and population genetics. First and foremost, the project will be of use to the Bih people who exhibit the fear of their language loss and wish to have written forms of their lexicon for language preservation. As collaboration with the University of Tay Nguyen and the Center of Daklak Ethnic Research is included, the proposed project is carefully designed to meet the needs of the speaking community as well as those of the academic communities.