This week I’m doing a survey with the Eastern Bruu people group in N.E. Thailand in an area known as the Korat Plateau. I’ll going to an area that is only a few hours from the Laos border. I’ve visited four villages already and have another four to go. Most of my time is spent with the village leaders, shop owners, and farmers.
I don’t speak or comprehend E. Bruu. You might be wondering, “How you can tell whether or not the people are using the local dialect?”
It is actually quite easy to distinguish the local tongue from Thai (which I understand). All the other languages spoken in the area are from the Thai language family and hence use the same phonetics. Bruu, on the other hand, is part of the Mon-Khmer language family and has many phones (e.g. initial voiced affricates, word final flapped alveo-palatals) that Thai related languages don’t have. So, as soon as I hear something that isn’t familiar at all, then it has to be Bruu.
A typical visit would be to first see the village headman. He functions like a mayor or village elder. It is the custom of this country to visit the headman first, especially if the visitor doesn’t know anyone in the community. To show good manners and respect I’ll usually bring him some fresh fruit and give it to him at the beginning of our conversation. I’ll introduce myself by saying that I’m here for academic research (which is true) and ask if I could bother him for a few minutes with some cultural questions. Some of my questions are:
• What do the children prefer to speak? (In this area the people can understand three minority languages and one national language)
• What language to women use with each other, the opposite sex, the elderly and kids?
• Is there intermarriage with other ethnic groups?
During our conversation I’ll ask him permission to tour the village and chat with the members of the community. I’ll then walk around the village or plop down at a noodle shop to listen and chat with the neighbors. Stores and noodle shops are great places to listen to the local dialect and see what languages are actually spoken in a natural context.
I’m going to doing people group assessments for the next few months. For more detailed description of the purpose of these surveys please read my Survey Coordinator post.
March 19th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Rob,
Great to see you are doing this. You are the right guy to be walking into places where you know nobody and making friends on the spot. Eat some spicy noodles for me!
Joel