| Also Known As: Xong,Shong,Chawng,Chong
Description:
The Chong language (also referred to as Chawng, Shong, or Xong) is an endangered language spoken in Cambodia and southeastern Thailand. It is a Western Pearic language in the Eastern Mon-Khmer language family branch. Chong is currently the focus of a language revitalization project in Thailand.
The Chong language is marked by its unusual 4-way contrast in register. Its grammar has not been extensively studied, but it is unrelated to the Thai language which is in the Kradai language family. Chong had no written form until 2000, when researchers at Mahidol University used a simplified version of standard Thai characters to create a Chong writing system, after which the first teaching materials in the language appeared. Chong is currently considered to be at stage 7 in Joshua Fishman's Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), where stage 8 is the closest to extinction.
The language only has about 5500 speakers remaining, 5000 in Cambodia and 500 in Thailand. The Chong community in Thailand is primarily located in and around Chanthaburi. While the language spoken in Thailand has been studied recently, the Chong language in Cambodia has not been investigated yet...... full article at Wikipedia |
