Neither Kha, Tai, nor Lao:
Language, Myth, Histories, and the Position of the
Phong in Houaphan
Oliver Tappe1
Nathan Badenoch2

Abstract
In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to re-examine theformation and interethnic relations in the uplands of Northern Laos. We unpack the historicaland contemporary dynamics between “majority” Tai, “minority” Kha groups and the imagined
cultural influence of “Lao” to draw out a more nuanced set of narratives about ethnicity,
linguistic diversity, cultural contact, historical intimacy, and regional imaginings to inform ourunderstanding of upland society. The paper brings together fieldwork and archival research,drawing on previous theoretical and areal analysis of both authors.

1. Introduction
The Phong of Laos are a small group of 30,000 people with historical strongholds in the Sam
Neua and Houamuang districts of Houaphan province (northeastern Laos). They stand out
among the various members of the Austroasiatic language family – which encompass 33 outof the 50 ethnic groups in Laos – as one of the few completely Buddhicized groups. Unlike
their animist Khmu neighbours, they have been Buddhist since precolonial times (see Bouté
2018 for the related example of the Phunoy, a Tibeto-Burman speaking group in Phongsaly
Province).
In contrast to the Khmu (Évrard, Stolz), Rmeet (Sprenger), Katu (Goudineau, High),
Hmong (Lemoine, Tapp), Phunoy (Bouté), and other ethnic groups in Laos, the Phong still lacka thorough ethnographic study. Joachim Schliesinger (2003: 236) even called them “an obscurepeople”. This working paper is intended as first step towards exploring the history, language,
and culture of this less known group. We hope to encourage other researchers to follow thisinitiative and take a closer look at the Phong and their specific position within the multi-ethnic
setting of Houaphan.
This paper is inspired by a rare archival find: A Phong-French dictionary compiled by
the colonial administrator Antoine Lagrèze in 1925 (Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-enProvence; ANOM RSL/Z). Besides offering a unique chance to study language change andpragmatics, the unpublished manuscript includes an insightful ethnographic study that calls for
closer ethnohistorical scrutiny (sample text in Appendix I). Our working paper thus focuses on
the linguistic and historical aspects of this specific ethnic category. It includes an in-depth
Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
tappe@uni-heidelberg.de
2
Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Villanova University, USA. nathan.badenoch@villanova.edu
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study of the key origin myth of the Phong – the story of the culture hero Hat Ang. In addition
to contributing to anthropological knowledge production on the Phong, we aim to investigate
the interethnic dynamics that shape local lifeworlds in culturally diverse contexts like
Houaphan (see Badenoch and Tomita (2013) for the related example of Luang Namtha innorthwestern Laos). Our discussion includes material from archival research and fieldwork
conducted with the Phong in Houaphan and communities of Phong in the Vientiane area.
Our work with the Phong has raised many fascinating questions about the history andidentity within the multiethnic landscapes of Houaphan. Our understanding of the region has
been informed by insightful work on the Tai and their socio-political systems. The Tai-Kha
relationship continues to be a productive, but frustrating framework for unpacking local
histories, cultural identifications, and ethnic formations. Recent work by Pierre Petit (2020)
has added to the existing body of knowledge about Tai political structures, but the position ofAustroasiatic groups remains woefully understudied. Grant Evans (2000) has brought someattention to the recent cultural history of the Ksingmul, but still within the framework of Taiization, the process by which non-Tai groups assimilated to the stronger political-economic
structures and dominant cultural practices (see as well Évrard 2019). Georges Condominas(1990), drawing on the work of Vietnamese scholars, as well as his own fieldwork, has
synthesized and theorized how the interethnic relations of these upland areas define a social
space. The Phong further complicate these questions because of the number of selfidentification terms they use, variation in their languages and accounts of a history ofinteractions that do not fit with the received wisdom. Research focusing on non-Tai populations
from a multidisciplinary perspective is needed if the social complexity of these localities is tobe appreciated. Importantly, it is this perspective that is missing from regional histories. In thispaper, we bring together analysis from anthropology, history, linguistics and folklore to explore
the formation of ethnic worlds in the uplands of northern Laos.
Within this perspective, language is critical. Among the very few detailed studies of
Phong language and history published to date is Bui Khanh The’s The Phong Language of theEthnic Phong Which Lived Near the Melhir (sic) Muong Pon Megalith in Laos (Field Work
Notes): An Introduction of data and description (1973). This 1,200-word list and descriptionof Phong phonology, morphology and syntax includes some ethnographic commentary fromtheir fieldwork. Data from this study is included, referenced as Bui. The title of the study refers
to the megaliths in Houamuang district studied by the archaeologists Madeleine Colani in the
1930s and Anna Källén more recently (see Colani 1935; Källén 2016). Since the megaliths of“Sao Hintang” (‘twenty standing stones’) were located in the Phong settlement area, local oral
traditions falsely identify the Phong as the original creators of the mysterious stones (datingback three millennia like the famous stone jars of Xieng Khouang province). Given the factthat the Phong insist on having migrated from the upper Nam Ou a few centuries ago, we canonly speculate about the autochthonous population of yore who created the megaliths.
Interestingly, the megaliths are mentioned in the Phong origin myth of the culture hero Hat
Ang (see the detailed discussion below). Further information on ethnography, linguistics andmythology are provided by only a few colonial sources. Besides Lagrèze’s manuscript, anothervocabulary was compiled by Macey (1905). Further ethnographic information on the Phong
was provided by the prolific travel writer Alfred Raquez (1905) and the colonial administrator
Adolphe Plunian (1905).

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2. Tai society as an ethnolinguistic mosaic
This paper is an exploration of the Tai/Kha relationship from the perspective of the Phong,who, as Austroasiatic people living among various Tai groups, “should” fall under the Kha
category. The Tai/Kha framework has been useful, and efforts to continuously unpack thediversity and dynamism of the Kha category have produce more nuanced understandings of
the uplands. But it is necessary to step back to recognize that the entire relationship is an
abstracted and idealized one, not only from the Kha perspective, but from the Tai as well. The
cultural and linguistic differences between various Tai groups may be downplayed, andsubsumed under a locally hegemonic understanding of Tai political, economic and social
systems. This can be observed in frequent references to historical processes of Taiization andmore recently Laoization (Évrard 2019). Granted, in the case of the Khmu, one of the better
understood Austroasiatic groups in the region, internal diversity is partially the product of theirinteraction with different Tai groups. Nonetheless, the category Tai lacks nuance in many
streams of historical and anthropological research. The field of historical linguistics, however,utilizes analytical tools that use linguistic characteristics in sound systems, grammaticalstructures and pragmatics, to discern different types of influence on Austroasiatic languages.
A good example of this is the 2014 Kammu Yùan Dictionary by Svantesson et al., which makes
specific efforts to distinguish between Lao and Lue sources in the significant body of words
borrowed from Tai languages.
As we discuss the position of the Phong within the Tai cultural landscapes of Houaphan,
it is necessary to recognize the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Tai groups in the region.
The divide between Buddhist and non-Buddhist groups is an obvious and important factor that
contributes to social dynamics and inter-ethnic relations. There are significant linguistic
differences as well, and these should be considered and utilized in a systematic way. As always,
ethnonyms can be confusing, and while they are important data for historical and social
analysis, they should also be treated with respect for the complex linguistic nuances that
underpin them. Chamberlain’s work on Tai historical linguistics offers insights into thediversity of these groups, and are essential reading for anyone interested in the uplands ofMainland Southeast Asia.
The word tai can be used in three ways: to refer to the linguistic family or a sub-group,
as part of an ethnonym of many of these groups, and in reference to these languages or theirspeakers. The old form of this word is the Proto-Tai *day. One important distinction to bemade is whether the /t/ sound in the tai element of the ethnonym is aspriated /tʰ/ or unaspirated/t/. This phonological development, in which Proto-Tai *d changed to /t/ in some languages(such as Tai Dam and Tai Daeng) and /tʰ/ in others (such as Phuan, Lao and Thay Neua), ispart of a larger criteria in the historical classification of Tai languages. The use of this aspiration
criteria has been discussed as the P/PH divide, which represents two historical trajectories of
the Proto-Tai initial voiced consonants (Chamberlain 1991). We follow Chamberlain’s
suggestion of referring to the /tay/ groups as Tai and the /tʰay/ groups as Thay. In the Tai
category we find isoglosses between Thay Vat and Tai Dam in the northern area of the province,and between Thay Neua varieties and Tai Daeng in the rest of the province.
The term Lao is also complex and confusing (Chamberlain 2019). The entire area of
Houaphan was part of a geographical region referred to historically as Ai-Lao, but aside fromrecent arrivals of government staff in the cities, people of the Lao ethnolinguistic group havenot been part of the ethnic landscape of the region; in other words, one does not find ethic Lao
villages in this region. Tai dialectology takes the structure of the tone system to be a key

3

identifying criteria, and the Lao language and its varieties are characterized by a specificpattern of historical tone mergers that are not present in the Tai languages of Houaphan.
Therefore, linguistically the languages spoken by the Tai peoples in Houaphan are mostaccurately identified by the term Tai-Thay, which is does not include Lao, and importantly
avoids confusion with the term Thai and its association with Thailand. To make this situation
more complex, the term Lao /laaw/ is also used as part of ethnonyms, meaning ‘people’, muchin the same way as tai and thay. In Houaphan, one finds the term Thay Phut, and more recently
Lao Phut, which is often understood as “the Buddhist Lao”, but in fact should be taken to mean
“Thay people who have adopted Buddhism”. Matters are confused further, because Lao is used
under the modern Lao nation state as a politically inclusive “people term”; the most pertinent
example being Lao Phong, which is indexical of an ideology that seeks proximity to discourses
of a Lao political and civilizational center.

Fig. 1: P/PH Isogloss in Houaphan

As is shown on this thematic map of the P/PH isogloss (Figure 1), the area of Houaphan is
historically a “PH area”, where the Neua-Phuan languages were spoken, but in the 19th and 20th
centuries P-speaking groups such as Tai Dam and Tai Daeng have migrated into the area,
giving the more textured landscape of language variation within the Tai population. This would
show that the Phong would have only encountered the P-speaking groups after these migrations,and importantly for the following discussion, means that they were not traditionally part of thepolitical structures of the Tai Dam or Tai Daeng. The primary point of linguistic contact with
Tai languages would be the Neua-Phuan languages, of which it is difficult to set clear borders
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(Chamberlain 1971). Thus, it is worth proposing that in the context of Huaphanh, we are
speaking of a Thay/Kha relationship, in terms of the local linguistic ecology.3
This linguistic Tai-Thay distinction is an important frame for understanding the social
dynamics of the region. For example, oral tradition holds that the Tai Xoy are a group ofanimist, Tai-speaking people who have lived in Muang Xoy since migrating to Houaphanhfrom the Tai Daeng areas adjacent on the east (Boutin 1937). Some of them even ended up in
the Nam Et area and partially converted to Buddhism while keeping the toponym Tai Xoy(Petit 2020: 78). However, it is also likely that those Buddhist Tai Xoy communities wereactually Thay Neua from Muang Xoy who in the 1980s were displaced by joint Ho Chineseand Tai Daeng forces (Mironneau 1968). In Muang Xoy, the longstanding conflict between
Buddhist Thay Neua and animist Tai Daeng simmered until the 1930s. French missionaries
took advantage of this antagonism and converted some Tai Daeng communities in Houaphan(see Degeorge 1924 on the Catholic Mission in Houaphan). This was successful to aconsiderable degree because it arguably was a form of resistance to Thay Neua dominance andthe pressure to become Buddhist.
In response, some Tai Daeng groups scattered around the province from their center at
Muang Xoy, which had been a Tai Daeng stronghold. Tai people from Muang Xoy refused tocall themselves Tai Daeng, adopting the ethnonym Tai Xoy instead. According to local elders,Thay Neua and Tai Daeng relations had been strained in the past in Houaphanh, and one stillhears jokes about the Tai Daeng saying hua pen kɛɛw, ʔɛɛw pen laaw “Their heads are
Vietnamese, their waists are Lao”, pointing towards their foreign origins and resistance tointegration into the local Buddhist landscape. The intertwining of ethnicity, inter-ethnic
relations and cultural difference “produces” many types of ethnogenesis among the Tai as
well4. It is possible that the Phong were caught in this tension and decided to “take sides”,
thereby solidifying the the “memory” of their self-identification with the Thay Neua. With the
involvement of the King of Luang Prabang, a historical affiliation with the “Lao” is also
possible. At this point, we offer the above as an entry-point into a more nuanced view on local
history, ethnogenesis and cultural influence.
Thus, it is critical that these terms be kept clear when speaking of historical relations,multilingualism, and cultural contact. In this paper, we refer to Tai as a general term referring
to groups of people that speak Tai-Thay languages, often in terms of the framework ofinteractions between Austroasiatic peoples like the Phong and the Tai-Thay groups aroundthem. The term Lao is limited to references to the modern nation state and its ethnicclassifications, or Buddhist Thay peoples who influenced the Phong in the past. This reference
also requires unpacking, for if the historical Phong narratives have geographic veracity, theywould have been in contact with the Lao of Luang Prabang, as well as the Lue of the mountains
west of the Nam Ou river. In this paper, when we discuss the relationship between Tai and Kha,
this refers to the multiple relationships that obtain between groups of people speaking Tai-Thaylanguages and those speaking Austroasiatic languages.
3. Phong across ethnicity and governance in Houaphan
In 1953, the French missionary Père Jean Mironneau encouraged the EFEO director Henri
Deydier to visit a peculiar ethnic group: The “Kha Phong” (Deydier 1954: 19; cf. Macey 1907:
Sincere thanks to Jim Chamberlain for on-going discussions that led to this section and the map, which draws
on his previous work.
4
Personal communication, Sisomphone Soukhavongsa and Jim Chamberlain.
35

1411). This small group had attracted his attention as they had Buddhist monks and temples –uncommon for the so-called “Kha,” the Austroasiatic speaking groups that were considered‘uncivilized’ by the French colonial administrators. His surprising observation reflects the one
by Antoine Lagrèze three decades earlier, who even hesitated to include the Phong in thedisrespectful “kha” (serf) category. Already at the turn of the 20th century, Alfred Raquez
noted that from the Lao “[the Phong] learned the Buddhist religion” including festivals andcalendar, and ironically remarked: “But try telling these semi-civilized people they are Kha inorigin!” (Raquez 1905; English translation available online 5 ). We should flag Raquez’scomment about the Lao origins of Phong Buddhism, as we are not sure if the Phong lived in
an area where they would have come into direct contact with Lao.
Interestingly, Lagrèze divided his dictionary into “Phong” and “Kha” by which hereferred to the Khmu (whose language is different from the Phong, even if they share theAustroasiatic language family; see Foropon 1927: 8; Boutin 1937: 95). However, the Phong
indeed form part of the “Tai vs. Kha” complex as famously studied by Georges Condominas:a hierarchical (ritual and political) relationship between an autochthonous, Austroasiatic
speaking population, and the dominant Tai/Lao groups in the diverse meuang of the Taispeaking world (Condominas 1990; see Evans 2002). The relationship between people
categorized as “Kha” and their dominant neighbours was marked by relations of tribute andcorvée obligations, and by annual rituals reproducing the sociopolitical hierarchy of therespective meuang. Even if neither Austroasiatic nor any other group claim autochthony inHouaphan, the Tai/Kha scheme structures local sociopolitical organization. As colonial sourcesreflect, there is some confusion between the categories “Lao” and “Tai Neua”/ “northern Tai”
(more accurately Thay Neua, the group unrelated to the Tai Neua of Luang Namtha) and – toa lesser degree – the Tai Daeng and Tai Dam. The French considered the Tai as a ‘civilized
race’ with a class of notables, while Phong, Khmu, Hmong and Yao are represented as halfcivilized or even “savages”, politically and culturally subordinated to the Tai/Lao groups (whowere trusted with key positions in local administration). However, the Phong remain an
ambiguous category, “neither Lao, Tai, nor Kha” (Raquez 1905: 1398), with their local elites
considered useful intermediaries to administer certain peripheral regions as our discussion of
Lagrèze’s dictionary will demonstrate.
Common to many Austroasiatic speaking people is the idea of being dispersed anddispossessed by Tai invaders in bygone times. Like other origin myths of Tai and Austroasiatic
people, Phong oral traditions assume an early conflictive relationship between the Phong and
Tai people. Lagrèze notes that four to five centuries ago (in the 15th century), the “northern
Tai” chased the Phong from the rich river valleys, echoing contemporary accounts of theexpulsion of autochthonous “Kha” by immigrant Tai peoples (Evans 2002; Turton 2000).
Phong mythology (see below) addresses the precarious Tai/Kha relationship and provides
interesting ethnohistorical explanations for Phong perceptions of past and present marginality.
According to Phong oral history collected in the Phong stronghold Ban Saleuy6 (SamNeua district, Houaphan province) and in a Phong neighborhood in Sam Neua town, the Phong
migrated from the upper Nam Ou to Houaphan (via Luang Prabang province) in the 18th
century. As the myth of Hat Ang indicated, the Phong original settlement by the Nam Ou (animportant trade route; see Bouté 2018) was already marked by a close relationship between thehttps://missionraquez.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/dispatch-six/
Although there is no local narrative to elaborate on the etymology of the name of this important village, wenote that /salәәy/ means ‘prisoner’ in local Tai languages. Moreover, there is an old Austroasiatic word with themeaning ‘prisoner of war’ reconstructed as *ɟlәәy (Shorto 2006).

5
6

6

Phong and the Lao court. These oral accounts roughly match with Raquez’s account of Phongnotables from Ban Saleuy who held that “their race originated at the source of the Nam Ou,
which they left to settle in the kingdom of Vientiane, and then moved on to Hua Phan territory
exactly 183 years ago” (Raquez 1905: 1401). This could mean around 1720, i.e. shortly after
the division of Lan Sang into the competing kingdoms of Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Xieng
Khouang and Champasak, a time of political upheaval and uncertainty.
Since the Phunoy moved down the Nam Ou in the late 18th century, according to
Vanina Bouté (2018), it is not unlikely that they occupied fields left by the Phong before. This
speculation would raise question about the links between the Phong and groups in the regions
of Luang Namtha, for which the ethnolinguistic section below aims to offer some ideas.
According to their oral traditions, the Phong crossed the mountains of northern Luang Prabang
province and the watershed between the Nam Ou (and, thus, the Mekong) and the eastward
running rivers of Houaphan (Nam Ma, Nam Et, Nam Sam, Nam Neun, to name a few). After
their migration to Houaphan, the Phong settled in upland valleys and plateaus of present-day
Sam Neua and Houamuang districts.
Traditional livelihoods of the Phong villages include upland swidden cultivation andonly little wet rice cultivation. Besides rice and corn, the Phong cultivate cotton and tobacco.
They keep buffaloes, cows, pigs, and goats. Chicken raising is considered a female task.
Fishing forms an important component of local subsistence. Collecting non-timber forest
products is another traditional livelihood strategy. Ban Saleuy is famous for the trade ofbutterflies and other insects. Phong women in Ban Saleuy demonstrate elaborate weaving skills
which are clearly inspired by their Lao and Tai neighbors (in Lagrèze’s days, the art of silk
weaving was still unknown among the Phong).
Phong livelihoods are determined by terrain, similar to those of other ethnic groups inmountainous Houaphan. The Tai groups practice more wet rice, but also swidden cultivation,
while the Hmong and Yao often lack the little wet rice fields that Phong and Khmu cultivate
along small rivers and creeks. Like other upland groups, the Phong have been subject toresettlement programs so that small upland villages have been relocated to larger settlements
such as Ban Saleuy at the Road No. 6 (see Appendix 3). The houses resemble the Tai model(stilt houses) and today show concrete foundations and metal roofs, and other markers ofmodernity.
Houaphan, historically a confederation of several upland meuang or kong, is an
ethnically heterogeneous province with a dozen ethnic groups – with the Thay Neua/Lao Phut
only one ethnic minority (albeit an economically and politically powerful one) among others.
In 1895, commissar Monpeyrat counted 2,474 Phong and Ksingmul inscrits from a total of
32,990. The Lao constituted less than half of the population (15,602 out of 32,990 inscrits; Tai
Deng 10,443, Tai Dam 745, Khmu 2,422, Hmong 1,284; “Monographie du territoire des Uaphan thang hoc”; ANOM INDO GGI 26509). Notably, the Phong concentrated in Houamuangand Muang Ven (including the Phong stronghold Ban Saleuy, today Sam Neua district) with
980 and 1,275 inscrits, respectively (while the Ksingmul only settled in Xieng Kho further
north). In Houamuang, they constituted almost half of the population, a significant
demographic factor until the present day.
The general demographic ratio remained stable up to the 1920s when commissar
Foropon (1927: 10) counted 2,000 Phong out of roughly 40,000. Here and in other sources, theBuddhist Tai/Lao (numbering 17,500) were categorized as “Tai Neua”, the group we refer to7

as Thay Neua, indicating linguistic and cultural difference from the Lao of the Mekong basin;
see Tappe 2018). During the Indochina Wars and after the communist revolution of 1975,
however, a considerable part of the Thay population (and most Christian Tai communities)
either migrated to the lowlands or abroad. According to a recent census of Houaphan that uses
the official ethnic categories (Lao National Statistics Centre 2007), the Lao Phut constituteonly 26.7% of the population (75,012 out of 280,938), less than the Tai category (80,782,
including Tai Deng, Tai Dam, Tai Khao) and only slightly more than the Hmong (68,289; thenumbers of the Austroasiatic groups: Khmu 28,879, Phong 13,517, and Ksingmul 8,140).
In Houaphan, all ethnic groups share a history of migration, and none claims
autochthony in the region. However, the Phong are sometimes associated with the megaliths
in Houamuang district, as mentioned above. When French archaeologist Madeleine Colani
explored the archaeological site in the 1930s, she mentioned an ancient giant race named Phongthat – according to local Tai mythology – had assembled the stone circles. Even if numerous
myths – including the Phong origin myth of the culture hero Hat Ang – hint at a connection
between the Phong and the megaliths, the autochthonous population does not ‘match’ withpresent-day Phong as historically more recent immigrants. This historical fact notwithstanding,
Tai people might conceptualize the Phong as autochthonous because it is part and parcel of theTai vs. Kha logic. This view requires an ethnic Other as linkage between meuang and pa,
capable of harnessing the non-human potency of the wilderness including wild animals andspirits (see Kleinod 2020). The Phong perhaps refer to generic non-Tai Others within themeuang structure as the following discussion of the ethnonym “Phong” suggests.
4. Phong: An ambiguous ethnonym in the “Tai-Kha” complex
Ethnonymy in multilingual landscapes is notoriously complex, as people are known byautonyms and exonyms. Autonyms give form to the ethnic imaginations of community, while
exonyms often reflect negative connotations. In the event that a group’s autonym means‘person’, such as with the Khmu, the term can be flexible and accommodating of internal
diversity (Proschan 1997). Other native terms can be used to encode feelings of intimacy andinclusion, such as the Khmu tmooy, meaning ‘guest’ and providing a tool for distinguishinginternal subgroupings based on lexical differences, geography and other distinguishing features(Évrard 2007).
The ethnonym Phong is highly problematic, from both the social and linguistic points of view.
First, there is confusion, often reflected in official data as well as research, created by theexistence of three groups of Austroasiatic people living in relative proximity to each other.
Two groups of Phong (or Pong) speak Kri-Mol languages (Chamberlain 2020), while the othergroup is included in the Khmuic branch. The languages, history, livelihoods, and cultural
practices of these two should be treated separately. Furthermore, when collecting ethnographic,
historical or linguistics data among the Phong in Houaphan, one comes across many different
ethnonyms, at several different levels of social organization: Phong Laan, Phong Piat, Phong
Phaen, Phong Khami, Phong Cepuang/Tapuang, Phong Pung and Phong Saleuy, to name themost frequently heard when discussing Phong sub-groupings.
Historically, the name Kha Phong and Pou Kanieng/K’nieng are mentioned in colonial era
documents (Macey 1905). In official LPDR documents the term Kaniang has been used withincreasing frequency. In a recent survey of Phong languages (Kato 2013), all five Phongvillages surveyed in Houaphan gave /kniәŋ/ as the autonym. In the relocated villages surveyed
in the Vientiane area, this term is less frequently encountered. In more formal settings, the8ethnonym Lao Phong is increasingly used to highlight Lao citizenship and belonging to the socalled “Lao multi-ethnic people” (pasaason laaw bandaa phaw) according to official state
rhetoric in Lao PDR (see Pholsena 2006, Schlemmer 2017, Tappe 2017).
In the introduction to the Dictionnaire Kha Phong, Lagrèze refers to the Phong as “LesPong ou Pou-pay”7. Unlike the Kha, by which he means Khmu, the Phong are limited to thetasseng of Muong-Peun and Song-Khao. The Kha, or Khmu, are referred to as “Les Kha ou
Phou Theng”. As is often the case in the uplands, ethnonyms must be interpreted within thecontext of local histories. Attention to linguistic detail is also important, because the interplayof exonyms and autonyms can provide hints about internal socio-political dynamics, as well aslarger inter-group relations.
It seems clear that /phɔɔŋ/ and its variants, such as /puәŋ/ and /puŋ/ are names that havebeen used by local Tai to refer to several groups of closely related Austroasiatic people.
However, the current use of the /phɔɔŋ/ term has a broader origin within the social structuresof multiethnic Houaphan, upon which the political systems of the Tai Dam and Tai Daeng areoverlaid. Taylor’s map (1983) of the protectorate of An Nam has Phong located upstream of
the Giao, in the area between the Red and Black Rivers, probably extending to the Ma River
as well (Figure 2).

Fig. 2: Taylor’s Protectorate of An Nam showing Phong

This corresponds to the area of the Sip Song Chu Tai and the cultural mosaics it framed. How
did a broad geopolitical reference turn into an ethnonym? Chamberlain (1991) discusses therendering of Tai terms “bông” and “bôn” in Chinese characters in an inscription, located inNghe An province of Vietnam, in his analysis of the linguistic ethnohistory of the Tai andsurrounding people of the area. He suggests that these correspond to Phong and Phuan, theFrench colonial sources can be confusing, as the notation of local names and words often does not make a
distinction between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, such as t/th and p/ph.

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latter being the Tai people historically centered in the adjacent area of Xieng Khouang. In thissame analysis, Chamberlain supports the hypothesis that this phong is the same phong in thename of Souvanna Khamphong, the grandfather of Fa Ngum, the first king of the Lan Xang
kingdom. In the poetic register of storytelling among the Phong Laan people, who are locatedon the border of Houaphan and Xieng Khouang, they make poetic reference to themselves as/thay phɔɔŋ thay phuәn/. It is unlikely that this is an assertion of Phuan ethnicity or origin, but
it does suggest the perception that they were people historically associated with or locatedbetween these political systems.
As described above, historically the Phong interaction with Tai groups probably
centered on Neua-Phuan types. This means that they were not integrated into the ethno-social
system of the Tai Dam. Nonetheless, since the Tai Dam system has been taken as a model forunderstanding ethnic relationships in the area in terms of Tai/Kha relationships, we discuss thepossible implications of an alternative model in the Phong context. The hierarchy of social
relations in the Tai Dam polities has been described and summarized by Condominas (1990),
adapted below for reference (Table 1).
Table 1: Condominas’ Tai Ethno-political Hierarchy

ethnicgroup

statuscollective decisionmaking, military
manpowerfunctions andshare of rice-fields

tao

tay

pay

mo
notablestake part in it

manpowertakersmyth of origin
lineage issues fromGreat Thênclean exit

othersgourd
kuong ñǒksa’

10puǎ’ pai

excluded from it

manpowergiversblackened
exitThe system consists of structural relations oriented towards a clear Tai/Kha opposition but ismore complex. The problematic sa’ category (sa’ is local cognate of the Tai term kha) is madeup of two groups of “serfs,” one of which is predominantly Tai (kuong ñǒk) while the other ispredominantly Austroasiatic (puǎ’ pai). In this region, the sa’ category would have been
populated by the Ksingmul, Khmu, as well as other smaller groups such as Laha and Khang,
both of which have undergone significant Tai-ization.
The Austroasiatic origins of the Phong would suggest that they were treated in the Taiworld as sa’. References such as “Kha Phong” and “Sa Phong” would support this. Colonialcommentators such as Lagrèze noted that the Phong differed from other Kha in “dress,
language and physique”, offering that they were “neither Tai nor Kha” (see as well Raquez
1905). As will be discussed more below, the Phong view on their cultural affiliations within
the local cultural-political system shines a different light on the simplistic Tai-Kha divide. So,
while the term Kha Phong could simply mean “the vassals of the Phong leader”, it seems thatat some point the term came to be used specifically for this group of people speaking a set ofclosely related languages that was not Khmu or Ksingmul, yet not Tai. Furthermore, as
Condominas suggests, the cultural importance of the Gourd Myth (see also Proschan 1997 andDang 1993), through which many groups explain the origin of the many different ethnic groups
and their languages, is another interesting point – in the Phong oral tradition, Gourd origins are
not mentioned. It is worth noting also that the pua’ status has become an (derogatory) ethnonym
for the Ksingmul who have lived within the Tai Vat and Thay Ay cultural zones for as long as
memory holds. Because the framework includes other socio-economic and cultural factors,
there are several useful angles that an ethnographic-archive approach can take.
There are many contemporary place names in the Tai-Lao landscape that include a/phɔɔŋ/ element, suggesting that the geographical scale of a previous phong political, or at leastsocial, unit was reduced over time. Indeed, Khammanh (2004) mentions that in the Tai Daengpolitical system, phong is a level of administration between the village (baan) and the district(meuang), usually consisting of 3-5 villages, and led by a kwaan phɔɔŋ (or taaw phɔɔŋ in the
Tai Dam system.) The term is found also in Diguet’s 1895 description of Tai Daeng. Moreover,
Petit (2020) discusses the role of the “phya phông” (with the short /o/ vowel, in contrast to thelong /ɔɔ/ vowel) in Muang Aet, a leader of a “second-level polity” responsible for organizing
corvee labor under the French. Similarly, Pan (ms. 1975) mentions phong/fong as a local leader
under the phia in Tai Dam Chu San. In the modern Lao language, the word phɔɔŋ (ພ້ ອງ) ‘group,company; relatives’ indicates a shift the sense of the word to the people, rather than the politicalunit. In the Austroasiatic Bit language, now spoken in Phongsaly, Oudomxay and Luang
Namtha but originating in the upper Black River area, the elaborate phrase luuk nɔɔŋ pɔɔŋ pay[Bit pronunciation of /phɔɔŋ phay/], refers to those loyal to the chao meuang and available formilitary mobilization, but without ethnic specification (Badenoch 2019). In this parallel phrase,luuk nɔɔŋ “subordinates, followers” (literally “children and younger siblings” is collocatedwith pɔɔŋ pay. In Condominas’ system pay (/pay/ - short /a/ vowel)8 is contrasted with pua’pai (/puәʔ pay/ – long vowel /aa/ vowel). Bit contrasts vowel length, so a literal translation ofpɔɔŋ pay (short vowel in pay) could put them in the Tai category. Alternatively, pɔɔŋ could be
an assimilated non-Tai group, like kuong ñǒk. Proschan (1997) suggests that from the Khmu
ethnohistorical perspective, Phong meant “a region without a chief” or “inhabitants of remotearea.”The term /phay/ from the Proto-Tai form *bray B4 probably referred to people who had been sertfs but werereleased from their serfdom (Jim Chamberlain, p.c. referencing William Gedney p.c.)811

Into the mix of ethnicity, social status, and language in Houaphan, we must bring theO-du/Iduh/Tai Hat. Their language is closely related to Phong, and they share the /pram/ wordfor ‘person’. Unlike the Phong, they live on both sides of the Laos-Vietnam border. In Vietnam,
they have mixed intensively with the local Tai and Khmu, and their language is in criticaldecline (Ito 2013). The Iduh language in Laos is intact, and basic vocabulary was collected in
the the Austroasiatics linguistics project of the 1980s mentioned below.
Cross-linguistic, cross-ethnic references to people groupings can be as frustrating as
ethnonyms but should be given full consideration as alternative sources of social history. The
following sections explore this question from various perspectives within a Phong frame ofcultural and historical reference, drawing on data from folk ethnography, language, and myth.
Our explorations follow the intersections between linguistics, folklore, and colonial narratives.
What seems most important here is the fact that the Phong remained outside of the social
structures of the Tai and maintained more contact with speakers of Thay languages.
5. The Phong view on multiethnic landscape
The Phong see themselves as in the middle of a four-tiered social system shared with the Tai
and Khmu. In the Tai system exemplified by the Tai Dam, the Austroasiatic speaking groups
are considered kha/saa or puak/puaʔ. Austroasiatic cultures are taken in opposition to Tai,
including livelihoods (upland vs lowland agriculture), literacy, belief systems, residence
patterns and roles in tax and labor mobilization. The Phong system sets them apart from theseother Austroasiatic-speaking people, whom they refer to as tәkaw or kәkaw.
Three civilizational criteria color the Phong discussion of this social hierarchy: weaving,irrigated rice cultivation and Buddhism (Table 2).
Table 2: Ethnic Categories in Phong Landscapes

Phong
category
rii
phɔɔŋ
thay
tәkaw/kәkaw

weaving
Thay Nua, Phuan, LaoPhong groups
Tai Dam, Tai Daeng, Tai Khao
Khmu

●
●
●

irrigated
rice
●
●
●

Buddhism●●

The Phong add a level of complexity to the familiar Tai/Kha framework. Importantly, thePhong consider themselves to be part of the Lao Buddhist tradition, which sets them apart fromthe local Tai groups that hold the status of power in local political systems. The rii category isinteresting because it combines Thay, with whom the Phong have had intense contact, and Lao,which whom they do not encounter directly in Houaphan. This “Lao” claim may refer more toan idealized Buddhist identity. It should be pointed out that the Phong thay means the people
we refer to here as Tay. This may seem confusing when looked at from the outside, but isconsistent internally, because the “Thay” groups are called rii, and in the Phong use theaspirated thay because their main influence is from a PH language.
The self-identification forms such as thay ʔay ‘our group’, suggest that when speakingof ethnic identity associated with the in-group, the boundaries are more rigid, but the broadersocial categories are more flexible. Reconstruction of their historical movements from thePhong oral tradition seems to put Phong in the realm of the Buddhist Thay, rather than other12

non-Buddhist Tai groups, which may explain their views on the social hierarchy in Houaphan.
The Tai groups’ lack of Buddhism puts the Phong in an interesting position in their own system,
in which they are in some sense above the politically and economically more powerful. Like
most Buddhist groups, Buddhism of the Phong retains many animistic practices that are
specific to their own cultural traditions.
The Phong are certainly more oriented towards the Buddhist Lao/Thay Neua than tothe animist Tai Daeng who form important settlements in Sam Tai and Viengxai districts.
While colonial and missionary sources (Boutin 1937; Mironneau 1968) have documented thetense relationship between the Lao/Thay Neua – privileged by the French residents to guarantee
the loyalty of the Luang Prabang royal house – and the Tai Daeng – backed by Catholic
missionaries – who had occupied deserted fields after the Ho and Cheuang troubles of the late19th century. The Phong appear as mere bystanders of this conflict that was settled throughrelocation programs in the 1930s. In colonial times, there was hardly any overlap of the Phongand Tai Daeng regions of settlement (the watershed between Nam Sam and Nam Neun forminga natural boundary). How the Buddhist Phong perceive the non-Buddhist Tai Daeng (whoconsider themselves as Lao Lum) today remains an open question that deserves scholarly
attention.
The Phong have a long tradition of weaving on upright looms, producing both Tai
patterns and their own variations. Phong language for weaving related materials and concepts
is a mix of borrowed and native terminology. They do not weave on the small back loom; intheir conception, this is a lower form of weaving that is associated with the Khmu. The Phong
generally do not live near the Khmu, a fact of which they are acutely aware. This is related to
the fact that they prefer cultivating irrigated rice, which means they live in the foothills nearrivers, landscapes that are conducive to water management. The Phong have several derogatorynames for Khmu: phteŋ ‘people of the mountain tops’ (< T phuu theŋ), ruuc and phreʔ/prɛʔ areall explained as implying “backwards.” The fact that there are multiple names with different
social connotations suggests that there was contact in the past. Interestingly, there is not a highawareness or understanding of the Ksingmul who live in Xiengkho district on the Lao-Vietnam
border.
In Ban Saleuy, people keep their language and ritual practices – even though Lao
language, Buddhism, and weaving skills (arguably borrowed from Lao) constitute key markers
of Phong “civilization” in contrast to the Khmu and other minorities. The Phong Piat subgroupliving in Ban Saleuy reveals certain self-confidence and cultural pride – arguably a rare findamong most Austroasiatic speaking groups in Laos. They explicitly refuse the Lao Thoeng
category that is usually reserved for such groups. Instead, they consider themselves Lao Lum
or at least Lao Phong to stress the difference from Khmu and Ksingmul.
Wet rice fields are conspicuously large even if the villagers also practice swidden
cultivation as all village communities (also Lao ones) do in mountainous Houaphan. Other
Phong settlements have fewer wet rice fields. However, the mere existence of such fields
apparently suffices to claim Lao Lum status. According to the nai baan of Ban Saleuy, theyield from the rice fields does not last for the whole year (which is only rarely the case in
upland villages in Laos, anyway) and that the households often rely on remittances from
relatives in Vientiane to buy food. Moreover, traditional stories frequently use motifs ofswidden agriculture (Phong Laan plɛɛŋ leeŋ and Phong Khami ʔiәm leɲ) as their basic setting,providing an interesting contrast with the lowland discourse of irrigated farming. Further
confusing these cultural categories is the fact that collectivization of lowland agriculture in13

Houaphan was significant enough to rearrange many groups farming practices and realign theirideas about what is traditional in their livelihoods.
As other communities in northern Laos during the civil war, the Phong of Ban Saleuy
experienced division and conflict (see Lee 2018 for the prominent example of the Hmong;
Évrard 2007 for the Khmu; see as well Pholsena 2013). This comes as no surprise as the Phongstronghold of Houamuang formed part of the northern front of Vang Pao’s forces against theLao communist base in Sam Neua (Ahern 2006: 234). When in 2019 we inquired about the –apparently expensive – construction of a new Buddhist temple, the vice headman flatly
mentioned that the brother of a former village head had sponsored the project – from his exile
in the USA. Apparently, two brothers of a local elite family found themselves on opposing
sides in a fierce civil war. Such hidden histories often remain a bone of contestation in local
memory discourses. Interestingly, the vice headman also mentioned the first visit of the ‘lost
brother’ with his Phong-American family a few years after the inauguration of the temple, a
big festival depicted as healing the wounds of the war. Large numbers of Phong were moved
during the war to Sam Thong, and then to other places including Vientiane province, wheresome of the fieldwork for this paper was conducted.
6. Phong Linguistic Ethnology
The social identity of those known as Phong is ambiguous, as introduced above. The cultural
identity of this group is also difficult to pin down, as there is no centralized source of authority,and the language has never been written down. In this sense, the Phong are a good example ofthe cultural and social fluid upland group. That said, sub-groups of the Phong have a strong
sense of self-identification, of which language is a key element. Discussions of about the Phonglanguage frequently include discussions about how other groups say things differently, andhow that makes them closer or farther from other groups. Phong is spoken in an area of
Houaphan that has a high diversity of languages spoken, so variation among Phong languages
must be considered within a larger context of linguistic diversity, multilingualism, and culturalcontact. In this section we look at linguistic evidence to help understand the complexity within
the general Phong grouping.
The map below was prepared in the Austroasiatic linguistics project of 1996-1998,
entitled “Languages and Verbal Arts of Ethnic Groups in Laos and Vietnam speaking Northern
Mon-Khmer Languages”, funded by the National Science Foundation9 . The Phong area is
illustrated by the P on the map, living now in the west-bank uplands of the Ma River and theheadwaters of the Ca river, between Xam Nua and Xieng Khouang (Figure 3).

9Many thanks to Gérard Diffloth for sharing this map, and for on-going discussions about these languages.

14

Thai
Phong

Mal-Pray

Iduh

Fig. 3: Distribution of Austroasiatic-speaking groups using pram ‘person’

Other pram groups include the Iduh in the upper Ca River basin on both sides of the VietnamLao border, Thai Then living in the mountains between the Song River and Khan River inLuang Prabang Province, and the Lua’ (Thin) people living on both sides of the Thai-Laoborder, speaking varieties of Mal-Pray. These languages are all closely related, and it is hardto overlook the similarity of the Then/Thin names (See Badenoch, forthcoming). The pramgroups form a loose band of distribution from Houaphan/Xiengkhouang, across Luang Prabang,
Xainyabuli and into Nan province of Thailand. The Ksingmul, represented by X, are the peopleof the upper Ma River, and the Khang living in the Upper Black River. The Bit, who are
distributed across the area from Dien Bien Phu to Luang Namtha, share cognate non-/pram/ethnonyms (See Badenoch 2019) with Ksingmul (psiiŋ/ksiiŋ) and Khang (tnraaŋ/khaaŋ). Bit
and Khang languages are closely related, and Ksingmul shares some distinctive and importantcharacteristics with both (see Edmondson 2010). Mlabri live near the Thin on the Thai-Laoborder and speak a language that has a particularly complicated history of close contact withThin and Khmu, as well as being historically related to both further back in history (Rischel
1995). These groups live on the edges of a Khmu area that is centered around Luang Prabang,but extends through Phongsaly into China, northwestern Vietnam, and northern Thailand. The
Mlabri ethnonym includes mlaʔ ‘person’, which may be cognate with mal, the first element of
the Mal-Pray, which is also found as an element in Phong Khami third person pronouns.
In the ethnically complex Houphanh area, we have a Pram group, a Psing group, and a
Mal group, as well as Khmu. But as is often the case, the most common Phong reference to the
Self is a form of the pronominal construction meaning ‘us’, or ‘our group’, using the borrowed
Thay word thay ‘group of people’ and the Phong first person plural inclusive pronoun (Table
2).

15

Table 2: Phong First Person Plural Inclusive Pronouns

Phong Laan
Phong Khami
Cepuang
Tapuang

thay ʔay
thay ʔiәthay ʔiәthay ʔee

we inclusive
we inclusive
we inclusive
we inclusive

This normally refers to the members of the specific dialect group, for example maay thay ʔiә‘Phong language as spoken by a Phong Khami person’, or panmaay thay ʔay ‘Phong languageas spoken by a Phong Laan person’. Because the pronoun is an inclusive form, it is not usedwith people from outside of the group, and therefore could never be used as an ethnonym more
broadly.

Fig. 4: Bui’s map of Phong groups

Bui’s map (Figure 4) shows Phong villages clustered mainly in the upper tributaries of the Nam
Noen, to the east of Hua Muang and south of Muang Sam. Several village names that
correspond with Phong linguistic varieties that are also used as ethnonyms identifying Phong
sub-groups: 3 Muong Phen (phɛɛn), 4 Cha Puang (cәpuәŋ or tәpuәŋ), 5 Kha My (khәmii), 6
Ban Lan (laan) and 12 Xa Loi (sәlәәy). We can see Phong villages clustered along thetributaries of the Nam Noen River. According to the 2015 national census, there are 30,000
Phong living in the area. Bui’s fieldwork was carried out in “Muong Pơn”, in Lao Muang Peun.

16

Among Phong people there is an awareness of a larger ethnic identification above thedialect or village group. Reference at this level is made with thay phɔɔŋ or thay pɔɔŋ thay phɛɛn.
The latter is a typical elaborate phase, where two similar words are paired with a common headto create an abstract or poetic sense. This gives the impression that there are two main
subgroups in the Phong ethnic group. Folk ethnology collect supports this idea. Throughdiscussion with people speaking different varieties of the language, there seems to be a general
concensus that the large Phong group includes two main groups: one including Piat and Khami,
and another including Phaen, Laan and Saleuy.
Sidwell (2014) proposes a four-way split within a grouping called “Pramic”, including
Tai Hat, a cluster of Laan-Phaen-Tapouang, a cluster of Kaniang, Piat and Saloey, and Tai
Then. The Lua’ (or Mal-Pray languages) are not included in this subgroup, as they do not sharethe same vowel development. As mentioned above, they do share the pram word for ‘person’.
Looking at the Phong data summarized in Appendix II (including data from Kato 2014,
Badenoch fieldnotes, Bui 1973 and Lagrèze 1925), there are two basic criteria that can be used
for comparison to understand the internal diversity of the larger group: phonology (when thevarieties share words, but they differ slightly in pronunciation, which varieties share thedifferent forms?) and lexicon (how do different words for the same concept map to each other?).
Table 3 presents data for ‘head’ and ‘hair’ in Phong varieties.
Table 3: ‘head’ and ‘hair’ in Phong varieties

Piat
Tapuang
Pung
Phaen
Laan1
Laan2
Khami
BKT

‘head’
klii
ʔoʔ
kluu
ʔɔʔ
ʔɔɔʔ
ʔɔɔʔ
klii
ʔɔʔ

‘hair’ksɔk klii
ksɔʔ klii
ksɔ? kluu
ksɔʔ ʔɔʔ
ksɔʔ ʔɔɔʔ
ksɔʔ ʔɔɔʔ
ksɔk klii
ksɔʔ kluu

Looking at ‘head’, there seem to be three groups: kluu, klii and ʔɔɔʔ. Phonologically, because/ii/ and /uu/ are produced in that same place in the mouth, but with rounded lips /uu/ andunrounded lips /ii/, we can say hypothesize a /klV/ Piat-Khami /ii/ group, a Pung group /uu/,
and then a group with an entirely different word /ʔɔɔʔ/. We get additional phonologicalinformation from ‘hair’, which is a compound formed from ‘hair’+’head’ and see that BKT isalso in the /uu/ group, while Tapuang is in the /ii/ group. We see that the Phaen, Laan1 andLaan2 varieties do not have the /klV/10 word for ‘head’. In fact, from other data we know that
Laan2 does have the word in the /kluu/ form, in the word for ‘top’: kluu blooŋ ‘top of thevillage’ and kluu leeŋ ‘top of an upland field’. We would hypothesize that ʔɔɔʔ replaced kluu
in Laan2 in the main usage ‘head (of the body)’ but was retained in more idiomatic usages.
Depending upon Piat, we could possibly group them into two. Several other forms
confirm this basic two-way distinction for the data we have (Table 4):10Here /V/ indicates a vowel.

17

Table 4: Comparison of Phong data

Piat
Tapuang
Pung
Phaen
Laan1
Laan2
Khami
(Bui)

‘to drink’
siәŋ
siәŋ
sɨɨn
sɨɨn
sɨɨn
sɨɨn
siәŋ
sәn

‘to cough’
tuur
toor
tgɔʔ
tgɔʔ
dgɔʔ
dәgɔʔ
toor
tgɔʔ

‘village’
duәŋ
duәŋ
blooŋ
blooŋ
blooŋ
blooŋ
duәŋ
?

‘name’
pnii
pnii
pnnuu
prnuu
rnuu
parnuupnii?

‘long’ ‘to have’liәŋ ʔuuileeŋ ʔuuilooŋ ʔiilooŋ ʔiilooŋ ʔiilooŋ ʔiileeŋ ʔuuyloŋʔi

The Pung variety lines up on the other side, however. Pronouns (Table 5) also provide bothphonological and lexical support.
Table 5: Comparison of Phong Pronouns

‘I’
Piat
Tapuang
Pung
Phaen
Laan1
Laan2
Khami
(Bui)

ɲɔɔ
ɲee
ʔaɲ
ʔaɲ
ʔɛɲ
ʔaɲ
ɲɔɔ
ʔeɲ

‘you’

mɨɨ
mәә
mɔɔ
mɔɔ
mɔɔ
mɔɔ
mɨɨ
mɔ

Thus, we can observe the clustering of Piat, Tapuang and Khami in terms of shared lexical andphonological characteristics distinguishing this group from the Pung, Phaen, Laan and Bui
varieties.
Phong Piat
Phong Phaen

Piat, Tapuang and Khami
Pung, Phaen, Laan, BTK

Discussions with members of these groups produce further subgroupings and theories aboutbranching; for example, one Cepuang elder mentioned another group called kdɛɛŋ that broke
off from the Cepuang. The name Cepuang/Tapuang is worth a brief discussion. The variation
here is in the first syllable /tә-/ or /cә-/. These are may be redutions of the words /thay/ ‘person’
and /caa/ ‘subject’ (cognate with “kha” in the local varieties), in combination with a local
variant of /phɔɔŋ/. If the /cә-/ can be traced back to the word /caa/, then this suggests contact
with Tai, rather than Thay groups. (But see further discussion in section 7 with reference to
Khmu.) Given the diversity of the Phong languages included here, it is likely that there is evenmore variation that could be studied at the interface of synchronic and diachronic analysis.
It is interesting to note that in the terminology used by speakers of these varieties, there
is often an opposition including Phong and another of the varieties, where the speaker identifies
their own speech generally as Phong, while the others are specified at Piat or Phaen. One
exception is Laan, in which informants tend to identify primarily as Laan, and the rest are18

Phong. It is possible that the term Phong has the sense of being the most legitimate variety,perhaps because of its social proximity to centers of administration. Nonetheless, the common
thay phɔɔŋ thay phɛɛn framework suggests a social center-periphery with relation to the local
administrative structures.
The name Saleuy is important in the meta-discourse of ethnicity and language among
the Phong. A large road-side village called Ban Saleuy speaks a variety of Piat. The Saleuy areoften referred to as a marginal group of Phong, but the reason is not clear. One Cepuang elder
living in Vientiane, who first referred to himself as thay sәlәәy, but then provided data on thecәpuәŋ variety, said that Saleuy is the name of a larger group that includes Cepuang and otherclosely related groups, in line with the proposed Piat subgroup. As mentioned above, the Taiterm sәlәәy sәk ‘captive, prisoner of war’ seems like a feasible link. If this group overlaps with
the Phong (as opposed to Phaen) then it is possible that thay phong could mean those people
that were brought to live in or under the leader of the Phong, while the others remained further
outside of the Tai political system. Returning to the colonial records, Lagrèze also commented
that there were two groups of Phong; one group living around Sam Neua and one around Sam
Tai. According to his records, the Phong group living around Sam Neua paid tribute toVientiane, while the Sam Tai group were revolting against both, although we have not heard
any verification of this.
The 1949 Carte ethnolinguistique shows this reality in spatial terms, and provides
additional information on the larger linguistic ecology of the region. First, both Phong groups
are labelled Thai Phong, as expected in the colonial record. Again, the use of Thai does notnecessarily denote ethnic Tai/Thay, but can be a “people marking” word. However, they arecolored coded as Tai/Thay in the scheme of the map, in yellow: this equates them with theothers in this category such as “Thai Noir”, “Thai Rouge” and “Thai Neua.” The northerngroup of Thai Phong, around Houamuang, are completely surrounded by Mon-Khmer “Mou”(Khmu?) and “Phouteng,” but within a ring of Thai Neua beyond which are the Tai Daeng
and Tai Dam. The southern group of Thai Phong, are borded by an area of “Meo” to the east,
but are surrounded mostly by the “Thai Neua.” From this map one would hypothesize that the
Phong of Houamuang would have been in contact with the Khmu and Thay Neua, while themore southern group would have most intense contact with Thay Neua, and possibly “ThaiPhouen” (Phuan) and possibly Tai Daeng, depending upon the naturea of settlement to theireast (Figure 5).

Fig. 5: “Thai Phong” shown in Carte ethnolinguisique

19

The geographic distribution of the Phong indicates different cultural contact scenarios
at the time the map was drawn, suggesting the need for further work on linguistic contact,
folklore and others oral traditions. The basic bifurcation of “Thai Phong” speakers provides auseful point of departure for a deeper probe of the internal diversity of the Phong.
7. Lingustic contact: Language in overlapping cultural worlds
Phong are known for being particularly flexible in terms of cultural identity, and are quick to“become Lao”, hiding their backgrounds and abandoning the language. Evans (2000) has
reported Taiization of the Ksingmul in Houaphan, claiming that they are in the last stages of
becoming Tai Dam. Dress, housing, and language are common indicators of cultural shift.
Many Phong healing rituals are conducted in Thay (maay rii), and some forms of singing havebeen borrowed wholesale, including styles and Thay language. Naturally, the modern Lao
language has contributed to the lexicon of Phong and other languages in the areas of politics,
socioeconomics, and popular culture (see Badenoch 2017 for contemporary “official” registerof minority languages), but the time depth of cultural interaction between the Phong and the
Tai/Thay is evident in the language.
Like many other Austroasiatic languages in Laos and Vietnam, the Phong have been
under the linguistic influence of Tai groups for centuries. Their languages contain manyborrowings from neighboring Thai languages. We can tell the length of time since borrowing,
because the preserve the /r/ sound in borrowings from Tai that have since changed to /l/ or /h/(Downer 1989-1990). Words like rɛɛŋ ‘strong’, rɨә ‘sweat’, riә ‘to drop things’ and riit
‘customs’ will be recognized in their /h/ form in Lao and other local Tai languages. The
influence is often uneven as well, for example ‘knife’ is found as some form of krɨɨy in Phong
Laan and Phong Pung, raa in Tapuang, Piat and Khami, but we find the Tai borrowing miit in
Phaen and another Laan variety.
Borrowing of adjectives shows different patterns that hold systematically throughout
the Phong varieties. Adjectives are interesting because they can be compared in terms of pairsof opposite meaning. The pairs are presented for Khami in Table 6.
Table 6: Borrowing of Adjectives

Native Austroasiatic pairs

Borrowed Tai pairs

thick
thin

ban
kadaa

high
low

suuŋ
tam

new
old

thmiә
phrom

wide
narrow

kwaaŋ
khɛɛp

heavy
lightweightkayәәlkayɨhdeep
shallowlәktɨɨn

Even when there is variation in the native terms, they tend to maintain the consistency ofborrowing/retention across pairs. For example, among the Phong varieties we find three etyma(ban, tmɨɨl and ktɔn/ktәn) for ‘thick’, and two (kdaa/gdaa and ŋnaa) for ‘thin.’ All are native
Austroasiatic words.
20

The semantic area of TASTE offers similar patterns. In all Phong varieties recorded,
there are borrowed Tai words for ‘delicious’ ɟɛɛp and ‘salty’ khem, while the other taste words
are of native etymology: ‘sweet’ siәw, ‘sour’ sat, and ‘spicy’ tih/pray. Again, it is interesting
to note the variation in forms within the native lexicon. However, these large patterns hold
across Phong varieties. When the correspondence patterns are this clear, and this regular, it canbe hypothesized that the borrowing happened at the stage of the proto-language, in other words,
before the varieties began to change.
Although there is not much clear evidence of linguistic borrowing from Khmu, culturalcontact must have been common within the region. The Phong call the Khmu tәkaw/kәkaw.
This word is used to keep social distance from the Khmu, even in the face of geographic
proximity. Knowledge of the Khmu is not lacking, as we have heard Phong explain that the
Khmu refer to the Phong with derogatory terms; for Phong Laan ɟɛʔ trʔaɲ and Phong Phaen ɟɛʔtrʔɨʔ. The word ɟɛʔ is a general Khmu word meaning ‘stranger, guest’, used to refer to “Other”
non-Khmu groups, including Lao and Tai, Hmong, Yao, Chinese, Vietnamese and evenWesterners. The meaning of trʔaɲ may refer to the fact that the Phong Laan first person singularis ʔaɲ. As for trʔɨʔ, Suksavang gives two English definitions, ‘not yet ripe or inhabited by
insects (for pumpkins) and ‘not quite all together (people). The Lao definition given translates
as ‘immature, unripe’ or ‘half-and-half, neither one thing or the other’. Moreover, some Khmurefer to the Phong and the Ksingmul as ɟɛʔ puәŋ (Suksavang et al. 1994), presumably a generalreference to non-Khmu Austroasiatic groups of the Huapanh-Xiengkhouang area. As
mentioned above, there is also phonetic similarity to the Phong subgroup Cepuang, which isanother possible etymology and would suggest that this group was in closer contact with Khmu.
The existence of two Khmu terms for the Phong is interesting, as it could reinforce the basic
Phong-Phaen divide. However, this information was given by Phong people, and warrants
detailed exploration with Khmu from Houaphan. It is worth reiterating that these binary
constructions are extremely common, highly poetic in local languages and regional features
shared across language families.
There is interesting evidence of the Phong sense of disadvantage within the trading
system in Phong evasive ways of counting. It is common for Austroasiatic groups living in thisregion to replace their native numerals above three with Tai-Lao forms (Sidwell 1999). Some
Phong groups have also devized an evasive counting system that is based on punning and otherword play enabled by their fluency in Tai languages (Table 7).
Table 7: Evasive Counting Systems

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Ban Saleuybaʔanbaarʔanpiәʔanksuut [bәksuut]bәbɨәŋ tɨәybәtɨәy plaay baʔanɟiәtbәtɛɛkphrombaar bɨәŋ tɨәyDiffloth databoʔanbaarʔanpiaʔanphonbɯaŋ tɯayboʔ pʔua
giat
tit
prom
buʔvɯar

Phaen
baʔan
baarʔanpiaʔanksuut
bobɨәŋ
tɨɨm baniiwtɨɨm baar niiwtɨɨm pia niiw
prombaar bɨәŋ

21

In the Ban Saleuy system, the first three numerals have Austroasiatic etymologies, followedby the general classifier ʔan. Other forms are descriptive constructions, such as ‘5’ whichmeans ‘one hand’, and ‘6’ ‘one hand plus one’. In the Phaen system, ‘5’ is simply ‘one side’,and even though the word ‘side’ bɨәŋ is a Tai borrowing, its meaning is obscured using thePhong element bo- (or ba-) meaning ‘one, single’. Some numerals are puns that play on thefact that speakers of non-tonal Austroasiatic languages often ignore the tones of Lao, or at leastfind this area of ambiguity as productive for a funny innovation; for example, ‘4’ ksuut means‘iron poker’, because the Lao words for ‘four’ and ‘iron poker’ are homophones if the tone is
ignored. The same holds for numeral ‘9’ prom ‘old’ in Phong, where the Lao words for ‘9’ and‘old’ are differentiated only by the tone. In the system recorded by Diffloth (pc.), which retains
the old numerals from one to five, ‘6’ is a play on the Lao word hok meaning both the number
and a type of bamboo, in Phong pʔua. The differences between local versions of the system areminimal, but interesting, and show how linguistic resources are manipulated to create
difference. Esoterogeny, the deliberate production of unintelligibility, may play a significant
role in shaping language change as an indicator of shifting expressions of identity.
As secret number systems show, Phong play with the uncomfortable realities ofmultilingualism in an area where tonal and non-tonal languages are spoken near to each other,something done by other Austroasiatic groups as well. In doing this they put themselves down,
recognizing the disadvantage of not speaking Lao natively. At the same time, they turn itaround to create a means of communication that excludes the Tai and other groups. So far, thistype of system is not known in Laan. If these numerals were devized as a way of enhancing
their bargaining position, it might follow that the need was not so strong in Laan areas thatwere more distant from the centers of trading. A Cepuang elder once commented that the Laanwere prɛʔ, the pejorative term used for Khmu, because of their backwardness. This shows thecomplexity of self-other distinctions in a world of overlapping cultural spheres and conflicting
social aspirations. The number systems identify play, and particularly within language andinter-ethnic communication, as an important strategy for coexistence and survival.
7.1 The Languages of the French-Phong-Kha Dictionary
The local languages recorded in the dictionary are Phong and Kha. The system for representing
Phong and Kha draws on spelling conventions of Quốc Ngữ orthography and is applied in areasonably systematic way. As shown above, there is significant linguistic diversity within the
Phong group. Kha is a reference in this case to the Khmu, another group that is quite diverse
across Laos, Vietnam, China, and Thailand. The Khmu spoken in Houaphan and Xiengkouang
are believed to make up one variety. The Khmu variety spoken in Xieng Khouang andHouaphan today is conservative phonologically, characterized by a retention of voiced stops/b, d, g, ɟ/, where in other areas these have changed to /p, t, k, c/ together with the developmentof pitch contrast. These sounds are recorded in the Kha (Khmu) data: buit ‘alcohol’ /buuc/, dạ‘at’ /daʔ/ and gay ‘to come’ /gaay/. The Khmu variety maps reasonably well to the languagethat Suksavang et al (1994) call Khmu Cuang /kmhmuʔ cɨәŋ/, spoken in the area.
The question of the Phong variety used in the dictionary is more interesting. Thisvariety clearly has a sesquisyllabic word structure, onset clusters, voiced and unvoiced stops,
and finals /-l, -r, -y, -s, -h, -ʔ/. Vowel length is indicated less regularly, short vowels marked
with the nặng tone. Most of the basic vocabulary is shared with other Phong varieties. Using
the diagnostic list introduced above, with Piat and Phaen as representatives of the two mainvarieties respectively, we can get a general idea of the Phong variety (PHONG) recorded inthis document (Table 8).
22

Table 8: Lagrèze PHONG with Piat and Phaen

head
drink
cough
villagenamelongto have
I

Piat
klii
siәŋ
toor
duәŋ
pnii
liәŋ
ʔuuy
ɲɔɔ

Phaen
kluu
sɨɨn
tgɔʔ
blooŋ
pnuu
looŋ
ʔii
ʔaɲ

PHONG
cli /kli/sieng /siәŋ/
tuar’ /tuәr/duang /duәŋ/pưn ni /pnni/
lieng /liәŋuy /ʔuy/
nhia /ɲiә/In this comparison, the PHONG data lines up with Piat. We can even get more specific, because
within the Phong group, the vowel reflex for ‘long’ is Piat /iә/ and Khami /ee/, both contrastingwith Phaen /oo/, indicating that this is indeed a type of Piat. There are some minor differencesthat blur the general boundaries; for example, ‘soil, earth’ Piat ptiә, Tapuang tpɨi, PHONG
th’pê /tpe/. PHONG has reversed the initial *pt- to tp-, an innovation shown in only Tapuang
and Pung (interestingly, in Badenoch fieldnotes Cepuang data it is pt-). The vowel shows somevariation across dialects, further bluring that picture. A few other words are problematic: ‘urine’prơ ơm /prʔәm/ is the common word across varieties, but in Kato’s Tapuang and Badenoch’s
Khami it is recorded as /nom/, a word of solid Austroasiatic etymology *nuum ‘urine’ (Shorto2006) shared by Khmu and others. This type of diversity is expected for small groups living in
upland villages. However, it is also possible that there are multiple informants for the PhongKha dictionary.
From this analysis, it seems clear that the Phong of this dictionary is a Piat-type, rather
than Phaen-type, with very close similarities to Kato’s Piat, Badenoch’s Khami and Kato’sPung. This finding provides some support to the working hypothesis that the Phong group wascloser to the center of the Tai social system. If the French were planning to engage in some
program of language development, it would make sense that they chose a variety with highprestige; perhaps it was geographic considerations, which would mean that a variety near to acenter of administration was chosen.
7.2 The Phong dictionary in context: Planning for an alternative social space?
The Phong dictionary seems extensive for an apparently marginal group. According to Antoine
Lagrèze, the French administrator who compiled the dictionary, the Phong “have neither script
nor monuments”, only a few legends such as the ones discussed below. Like their ‘Kha’/Khmuneighbors, the Phong were considered on the way to progressive extinction (as argued byarchaeologist Madeleine Colani a decade later, too; see Colani 1935).
In 1925, “Lao” was well established as the lingua franca in Houaphan but given that
there were historical no speakers of Lao proper in this region, it is likely that “Lao” meant a
Thay language, or perhaps in more generally the Tai-Thay languages that are spoken there.
Thus, the French appeared to feel no need to communicate in Phong or Khmu languages. So
why did Lagrèze started the project of a Phong dictionary in the first place? One trace could
be the general trend of colonial knowledge production of that time. As Oscar Salemink points
out in his seminal study on the ethnohistory of the Central Vietnamese Highlands (Salemink
2003; see as well Pels and Salemink 1999), the identification and description of distinct “races”

23and their significance or challenge for colonial administration, was a main concern for colonialadministrators.
The Dictionnaire Kha Phong by Antoine Lagrèze, administrateur des services civils,
was in 1925 presented to Monsieur Dauplay, the Résident Supérior in Laos. Lagrèze mentions
that the Kha and Phong know the Lao language, and their own languages are not particularly
important for economic relations among groups. Lagrèze also describes the origin of thesepeople as a mystery, particularly given the megaliths that exist in the Phong area. Because they
have no writing, their own language is an important tool in understanding their history. Evenat the time, the Phong were undergoing cultural change, including linguistic, as a result ofcontact with other groups. The adoption of Buddhism played an important role in this as well.
Lagrèze was well aware that the Phong were part of a larger group of Kha that stretched far
beyond the outer areas of Province of Sam-Neua. There is genuine academic interest in
documenting a small and changing language, clearly related, but in an opaque way, to a larger
indigenous language.
It is remarkable for a dictionary that includes a non-Tai/Thay language like Phong toemerge in such a substantial form from the French colonial archives. The colonial researchersin Vietnam produced much more information on minority languages, such as the comparative
wordlists and ethnographic backgrounds published in the Journal Asiatique. Work in theCentral Highlands of Vietnam first initiated by missionaries was integrated into the colonialadministration in a way that was never seen in Laos. Although the context of this dictionary
remains unclear, it does offer some insights on governance and social relations in colonial
Houaphan. The choice of languages for the dictionary – French, Phong and Kha – raises afundamental question about the motivations for the project. The lack of Lao language material
could be interpreted as an indicator that Lao was marginal to the social setting in which thiscolonial administrator was working, or it could indicate an academic interest on his part, giventhat the origins and relationships of the upland languages were mysterious at those times (andcontinue to be in some cases).
The names of the languages are also interesting. In times when the puzzling anduncomfortable diversity of the uplands led to very conveniently general and ambiguousclassifications such as Kha and Meo, this dictionary presents a Phong language and a Kha
language. The Phong would have been known commonly as Kha Phong, putting them in thesame broad social category as the Khmu. The Khmu, however, as a large group in the northernareas of Laos, were relatively well known, including some knowledge about Khmu subgroups.
Why the Khmu would be called Kha in this otherwise detailed description is somewhat
puzzling and suggests that politics may be a large force in the production of this dictionary.
In most colonial sources, the Phong are categorized as Kha for linguistic andphysiognomic reasons. However, whereas the Khmu are depicted as miserable creatures,
backward and uncivilized, Lagrèze describes the Phong in a more positive light: “They appear
bright, intelligent, with regular traits and generally marked by great finesse.” Lagrèzeemphasizes that their villages are well maintained and that the Phong have almost abandoned
the “backward” practice of lacquering teeth, which is a cultural trait found in many Tai groups.
They wear clothes and hairstyle similar to the Thay Neua. This indicates an ongoing processof mimetic appropriation. Tai/Lao titles (such as phya) granted to Phong notables constituteanother example of this interplay.

24

Two factors might explain the interest of the French administration in the Phong. 1)
The Phong are a demographic and economic factor in Houamuang district (e.g. as provider offorest products such as benzoin), and 2) they appear more civilized than other upland groups(“Leur degré de civilisation est plus élevé.”), even holding politically influent positions as
tasseng (subdistrict) chiefs in Houamuang (Song Khao village; see “Rapport general sur lasituation de la province 1912-1913” by Commissar Lambert, 12 July 1913; ANOM RSL/D2).
In addition, as Lagrèze notes in another report to the Résident Supérieur (1 March 1925;
ANOM RSL/E4), Houamuang was plagued by poor local governance since the Lao/Tai
notables were unreliable opium addicts – unlike the Phong (see Boutin 1937: 94 for an explicit
reference to Phong abstinence). Given the French concerns with local budget, the Phongoccupied a key position for economic and political reasons. Apparently, their discipline andreasonable administration, as well as their economic significance, made the Phong goodcolonial subjects in the eyes of the French.
The 143 pages of the dictionary are composed of two main sections – a general lexicon
with alphabetized French headwords followed by Phong and Khmu glosses, and a large section
organized by semantic fields. The second section also has words organized by parts of speech– commonly used verbs and adjectives, as well as grammatical notes and examples sentences.
The material covered in the dictionary is wide-ranging, including basic vocabulary, culturally
specific terminology, and administrative language. Sections such as Body, Disease, Family,
House, Food, Vegetation and Animals are rich sources of native Phong words, with only
minimal borrowings. These borrowings for the most part can be considered old Tai borrowings
and are often shared among Austroasiatic languages across the region, as the reflect the general
contours of cultural contact between upland and lowland groups. Other semantic areas, such
as Administration, Industry and Commerce, Monks and Religion and Jobs and Professions, arealmost entirely “Lao” borrowings, as they represent a much newer layer of cultural contact andborrowing.
The dictionary has separate sections covering French Administration and Indigenous
administration. One impression is that the author was creating a resource to use in the
integration of Phong and Khmu communities into the colonial structures. This could include
local-language education, general awareness of administration and recruitment of local leaders
for actual governance work. The dictionary can be seen as the first step in a program of‘language modernization’, in which decision makers try to make a language more suitable for
new roles in society. One strategy in language modernization is to coin new terms to fill gaps
in the lexicon. There is very little of this done in the dictionary; the strategy is rather to borrowwords from Lao and French. Because the Phong and Khmu have a long history of contact with
Tai political and socio-economic systems, there is a tradition of linguistic borrowing. This isfurther facilitated by the fact that the Phong and Khmu phonological systems are notincompatible. Intense interactions between speakers of different languages can bring about thegradual harmonization of sound systems and grammars, creating a “linguistic area”, wherelanguages share many structural traits (Vittrant and Watkins 2019).
One area where the dictionary writers do intervene is in the creation of some abstract
nouns. Austroasiatic languages typically have several ways of forming nouns from verbs, using
prefixes and infixes. The meanings association with nominalization are specific, including
instrumental and agent, for example. For example, Phong prsak ‘thread’ is formed by infixing-r- in the word psak ‘cotton’, while trnɔɔk ‘rope’ is derived from tɔɔk ‘to tie’ with an -rn- infix.
Similarly, ‘firewood’ is formed by prefixing pn- to ʔos ‘fire’, to give pnʔos, ‘language’ ispnmaay, derived from maay ‘to speak’ and the same pn- prefix, and ‘downward slope’ harɟuur

25

is ɟuur ‘to descend’ with a nominalizing har- prefix. Affixes of this type are common, but they
are usually not completely productive, which means that a speaker does not have free license
to create new terms. To compensate for the perceived need to create more abstract nouns, theauthors, or perhaps more accurately, their informants, have borrowed a nominalizing
construction from Tai. The noun khwaam ‘word, matter’ can be used quite productively tocreate an abstract noun from an adjective, for example khwaam suuŋ ‘height’ < khwaam + suuŋ‘tall’. In the implementation of this strategy, the Phong equivalent maay ‘speech, language’ isused; maay saw ‘sickness’ is created from saw ‘to hurt, to be ill’, maay kaaŋ dee ‘protection’from maay + kaaŋ dee ‘to protect’. This can be done on Tai borrowings as well maay muan‘enjoyment’ < Tai muan ‘fun, enjoyable’. In the dictionary, these forms occur together with anequivalent Khmu construction involving the word hrlɔʔ, having the same meaning as khwaam
and maay. It is possible that the Phong forms are motivated by the Khmu, as Khmu has beenin historically deeper contact with Tai-Thay groups. This practice is continued today in the
Khmu language of government radio broadcasting and is one of the markers of an ‘official
register’ that is developing as means of communication of policy to the people in minority
languages (Badenoch 2017).
Besides the relevance of the linguistic data for understanding subgroup identification,interethnic dynamics, and language change, Lagrèze’s manuscript also provides interesting
examples of historical ethnography as the following sections will elaborate.
8. Historical Phong ethnography in colonial sources
The Dictionnaire Kha-Pong includes an ethnographic part that is unmatched in its detail.
Neither Antoine Lagrèze’s colonial contemporaries nor present-day anthropologists have everachieved to produce such a thorough account of Phong livelihoods and culture. Due to thislacuna, the ethnic category Phong largely remained obscure until the present day. Besides a
few linguistic studies (Bui, Kato, Ferlus) we find only superficial notes in the works of Colani(1935), Källén (2015) and Tappe (2019). The entries in Jean Michaud’s dictionary (2006) and
Schliesinger’s survey (2003: 236) remain sketchy and imprecise (sometimes even confusing
the Phong from Houaphan with Vietic-speaking groups further south in the Lao-Vietnamese
borderlands).
We have already speculated about Lagrèze’s interest in this particular group (or the
stance of the French administration more generally). It seems very likely, that this was an issueof local governance. The ‘half-civilized’ Phong seemed to be trustworthy subjects in an uplandregion marked by lucrative forest products such as benzoin and stick lac, and by the emergent
opium business. Given the French concerns with questions of local budget, an efficient
governance of upland resources was arguably key for Houaphan’s economic sector. Yet theethnographic part of the dictionary does not only focus on economic and political issues but
gives an insightful account of cultural practices and social life such as religion and kinshiprelations – colonial knowledge production par excellence.
Interestingly, Pierre Petit (2020: 112) argues that this kind of ethnographic knowledge
was largely irrelevant for the French administration who “(..) did not interfere much with theintimate aspects of the local society: law and order had to be respected, taes had to be paid andlabor provided, but the administrators were not interested in the other dimensions of thevillagers’ lives, or did not report them in the archives.” Lagrèze’s detailed account is an
exception among the vast archival material stored in the colonial archives in Aix-en-Provence.
This only confirms our assumption, that the French administration had a specific26gouvernmental purpose for the Phong (or specific Phong groups) in mind, for example as
reliable intermediaries between the Lao elite in Sam Neua and the scattered upland populations
further south.
The following ethnographic vignettes are all taken from Lagrèze’s Dictionnaire. As an
in-depth ethnographic field study has been beyond the scope of our respective research projects
so far, these passages aim to provide an ethnohistorical background and inspiration for future
researchers on Phong sociocultural lifeworlds. Unfortunately, Lagrèze did not leave any
information about data collection and (with a few exceptions) specific localities. Thus, thequestion remains if the cultural practices observed were valid for all Phong subgroups. Not
surprisingly, comparing these ethnographic accounts with present-day sociality and ritual
practice will remain a considerable methodological and epistemological challenge.
Only recently, we have sent a translation of Lagrèze’s account via whatsapp toacquaintances from Ban Saleuy. 11 Unfortunately, we received only a few bits of related
information on the present ritual practice. Spirit ceremonies seem to remain an essential partof lifecycle rituals such as birth, wedding and death rituals. Our informants stress that by andlarge the ceremonies are held according to Lao ‘traditions’. Perhaps most importantly, the‘sorciers’ mentioned by Lagrèze have been replaced by mo phon, former Buddhist monks
acting as ritual experts as in lowland Lao religious practice. In consequence, we use the pasttense in the following historical-ethnographic account from almost one hundred years ago, withthe caveat that it remains difficult to clearly identify this Phong group or groups.
8.1 Religion: Buddhist Kha and Resistance to Taiization
Lagrèze speculated that the Phong (like all Kha) showed “a tendency to leave their customs
and even their religion”. By this he probably meant certain animist ritual practices – “leurs
antiques croyances”. Only ten years later, French archaeologist Madeleine Colani (1935: 27)
described the Phong as “a race close to extinction”. Conversion to Buddhism and a lack ofsignificant local material culture appeared as key markers for this tendency. Indeed, the Phong
constitute a good test case for a process of sociocultural transformation that Grant Evans (2000)
and Olivier Évrard (2019) discuss as Taiization or Laoization. Besides conversion to Buddhism– which already happened in precolonial times – the (mimetic) appropriation of Tai-Thaymaterial culture, loanwords and sociopolitical structures exemplify this process (see Tappe
2018; Ladwig and Roque 2020; Jonsson 2010).
However, the Phong know specific cosmologies and ritual practices that until today
distinguishes them from their Buddhist (“Lao Phut”) neighbors. As in the case of Austroasiatic
speaking groups on the Bolaven plateau (Sprenger 2018), conversion to Buddhism produces
shifts concerning the temporality and spatiality of the ritual cycle but does not completelytransform these original systems. Conversion to Buddhism did not lead to cultural assimilation,neither did the adoption of silk weaving from the Phong’s Tai and Thay neighbors. Suchcultural borrowings have been vernacularized and constitute key markers of Phong local
identity today (see Tappe 2021; Évrard 2006, 2019; Bouté 2018).
Today as in the colonial past, the Phong have only a limited number of monks andnovices. In Lagrèze’s time the “sorcerers” were certainly more relevant for Phong ritual life
(mo phi and mo mun in Lao/Tai languages; the dictionary does not include the terms sorcerer
11

Thanks to Kaiphet Thipphavong (Sam Neua) for his unfailing assistance.
27

or diviner, though). For the present, a thorough ethnographic study of Phong ritual life is still
pending. Thus, we will avoid too much historical comparison. However, some parallels can be
drawn from simple observation: As in the past, the temples are the sites of the major village
rituals such as the ones dedicated to the protective village spirit (phi ban). Ritual experts
communicate with the spirit world, epitomizing the animist dimension in both Buddhist andnon-Buddhist religious life in past and present Laos (see Sprenger 2016; Holt 2010; Ladwig2015). Lagrèze called this syncretism an “éclectisme religieux”.
Lagrèze wrote that every Phong village had a protective spirit who demanded an annual
sacrifice on the occasion of New Year at the beginning of the rainy season (analogous to Laopi mai). For three days the village was declared khalam (taboo) and no one was allowed toenter or leave the village. If a stranger entered the village, he was required to appease the angry
spirits by offering pigs and rice wine. Lagrèze described the spirits as “assez capricieux”, asambiguous beings (cf. Århem and Sprenger 2016). For example, the spirits prohibited the
Phong women to use treadmills. Therefore, they only used rice mortars by hand.
Lagrèze mentioned two kinds of sorcerers who took care of all spiritual issues: a ‘big’
sorcerer and a ‘small’ one. The latter was the first to consult in case of an illness which wasconsidered as the agency of malevolent spirits (mo means doctor in Tai languages and refers
to the close linkage between illness and dysfunctional sociocosmological relations; see
Sprenger 2016; Stolz 2021). He sung himself into trance and asked the spirits who caused theillness what they demanded for leaving the patient’s body. Usually, the sacrifice of a pig or
chicken was required. If this did not work, the ‘big’ sorcerer came into play. He basicallyfollowed the same procedure but usually demanded a larger animal (e.g. buffalo). Sorcerers
were highly respected notables and sometimes became village chief. They appointed andtrained their successors.
Like their Tai and “Meo” (Lagrèze used this pejorative term for the Hmong) neighbors,
the Phong believed in evil witches, called phi pok (perhaps a typo, meaning phi pop instead?).
People feared them and usually chased them from the villages. They were not allowed to marry,as their children would become phi pok as well.
8.2 Life cycle rituals: Interface with Lao-Tai daily practices
According to Lagrèze’s account, Phong religious life was marked by a ritual cycle from birth
to death. The most important life cycle rituals were certainly birth, marriage, and burial.
‘Sorcerers’ assumed key roles in all rituals of Phong village life. Like Khmu ritual practice,rattan symbols (taleo in Tai languages) marked houses or even whole villages as taboo/khalamto visitors. This was particulary the case for houses where a woman was expected to give birth.
Here, sorcerers invited benevolent spirits to protect the house against the invasion of evil ones.
The good spirits were served rice liquor during the whole pregnancy (one bamboo tube every
fifteen days). After birth, the umbilical cord was cut with a sharp bamboo spatula, the childwas washed and wrapped in cloth. At once, the mother ritually fed her child with rice porridge.
This reminds of the practice of many other Austroasiatic groups such as the Khmu and Rmeet(see Sprenger 2006a; Stolz 2021). The placenta was placed in a bamboo tube and buried,
followed by a big feast including the burning of incense by the sorcerer for the spirits. Only
after fifteen days, the young mother was allowed to leave the house.
As other colonial observers remarked on people in Laos more generally (see Ivarsson
2008), Lagrèze good-humouredly noted the laissez-faire attitude and easygoing morals of the28

Phong. He described the premarital relations as ‘liberal’: girls of 14-15 years and boys of 2025 years arranged rendez-vous – in fact through a secret opening in the thin bamboo walls by
the girl’s bedstead – that were usually tolerated by the parents. However, the boy was expected
to offer a pig to the protective spirit of the house (“génie tutélaire de la maison”). If the boy
had convinced his parents of proposing marriage, a complex ritual exchange cycle would beinitiated: The parents sent two elders with rhetoric talent (talent oratoire; see Petit 2020 for the
Tai Dam context; Lissoir 2017) to the house of the future bride in order to start negotiation. As
token of respect, they presented following initial gifts: Two silver bars, two small knives, one
set of betel, and some tobacco. Tradition demanded two or three rejections before the bride
parents accepted the gift and offered a jar of rice wine (law hai) – essential component of any
ritual exchange in Houaphan – in exchange. Sharing the alcohol, the two elders and the parents
agreed on the marriage and fixed a date for the ceremony.
On the appointed wedding day, the groom sacrificed a chicken for his bride’s housespirit. His parents sacrificed a buffalo or a pig – according to their wealth – and gave half of it
to his future parents-in-law. Interestingly, the latter did the same in a kind of direct reciprocal
way (yet also hierarchical if the sacrifices differed in kind or size). Thus, both parents
contributed to the big feast where all village notables and commoners shared the food – averitable community event. The groom brought a mattress/bed to his parents-in-law. The
couple’s wrists were tied together with thin thread reminding of the basi ceremonies of Tai/Lao
ritual life (a common practice even today as confirmed by our Phong informants). After themeal, they were considered married. The couple spent the night in the bride’s house before
they moved to the groom’s house on the next day.
The brideprice was fixed between 25 and 30 piasters (according to Foropon 1927: 48,
a pig cost 15-20, a cow 25, and a buffalo 30 piaster). If the groom was too poor and could
afford neither brideprice nor sacrificial animals, he had to stay with his parents-in-law and was
expected to work on their fields until the final payment. If a girl was married against her will,
she might have commited suicide with the poison of a specific liana. In case of premarital
pregnancy, the boy had to either marry the girl or was expected to pay the equivalent of a
wedding ceremony and the brideprice, and to supply for mother and child until the latter wasable to walk. Polygamy was rare and only occured among very rich notables.
Death constituted another occasion of ritual exchange. The deceased was bedded up in
the house with a cotton thread tied around his wrist (resembling basi ceremonies) and covered
with best cloth. All jewelry was removed but a piece of silver was placed in the deceased’s
mouth. A coffin was made from a big trunk of a tree growing near the village. After thedeceased had been put inside, a large feast started with all relatives, neighbors, and village
notables (that is, the village community plus the extended family network; an activation of all
relevant social relations). Unfortunately, Lagrèze did not give any information about eventual
gift exchanges here.
For two days before the burial, Buddhist monks prayed for the deceased’s soul. The
sorcerer determined the location of the grave by dropping an egg. If it did not break, the place
was not good. The coffin was placed in the grave with the head pointing towards the village.
A small straw hut marked the grave similar to Tai burial practices (see Robert 1941 for the Tai
Deng; today the Phong cremate the dead like the Lao do). Three days later, the family offereda plate with food for the deceased soul/spirit, afterward they did not visit the grave anymore.
The wife/husband of the deceased inherited everything, or the heritage was divided among thesons (daughters only received food and were supplied by their brothers until marriage).

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The soul/spirit of the deceased was said to move either to heaven or hell according to
Buddhist cosmology. After two years in heaven (and longer if in hell in case of bad karma) the
spirit returned and became a phi heuan (house spirit). House spirits were located in specificshrines with a wooden ladder (as in the case of the Tai/Lao ho phi). The fact that Lagrèze used
the Tai term for spirit (phi), instead of the Phong expression ruôy (as mentioned in the
dictionary), indicates that he probably did his interviews in Lao language and/or the Phong hadharmonized their animist representations with the Tai ones.
8.3 House construction: Family, spirits and sivilai
Lagrèze noted that the Phong houses were built on piles like the Lao and Tai did (as the casetoday), albeit smaller and darker. In a village, all houses shared the same orientation. Building
material (wood, bamboo) was collected in advance, as a house had to be built in one day
starting with the first cockcrow. Choosing an auspicious location was a sensitive issue: People
dug a hole and added two rice seeds that stuck together. If they still adhered to each other thefollowing day, the location was acceptable. The Phong also chose an auspicious day for thedate of house building, otherwise the inhabitants would face calamities.
When the house was finished, a selected friend from the village elders stood guard on
the threshold. The owner of the house devoutly begged for entrance. The guard asked: “Whatdo you want here?” “I come from the high mountains and bring blessing and wealth for thishouse.” Only after some negotiations, the recalcitrant guard allowed the landlord to enter his
house. He lit a fire and prepared tea which he shared among all family members after having
taken the first sip. A few days later, he organised a big feast for the spirits (Lagrèze did not
specify which ones; possibly the ancestor spirits) in order to invite them to stay in the house(as protective spirits). After that, the villagers divided up the meal.
A visitor had to follow a few rules in order to not annoy the spirits of a house and theirhosts. He or she had to ask the landlord for an exact place to sleep (where the visitor mustorient his or her head towards the outer wall). A Phong house had two spirit shrines: One
dedicated to Buddha by the entrance, the other one for the protective ancestor spirits locatedby the landlord’s chamber. To honor the host, visitors placed two candles (in pairs according
to Lao Buddhist convention) on the first shrine. Luggage was not permitted to be placed next
to the shrines and not permitted to be carried with poles (as this was reserved for transporting
coffins). Raw meat was forbidden to be carried over the front stairs (reserved to men) but only
over the back stairs reserved to women by the kitchen. Only the landlord was allowed to touch
the shrines.
8.4 Mining and metallurgy: Extraction and sacrifice in the spiritual landscape
Colonial sources like Raquez (1905) and Lagrèze (1925) described the complex mining
traditions of the Phong. The ritual and cosmological aspects deserve particular attention (for arare study of mining and metallurgy in upland Laos see Évrard et al. 2016). As classic studiesof the anthropology of mining suggest (see Nash 1979), mining activities are not only
dangerous for questions of work security but also for the intervention of malevolent spirits.
Miners penetrate the subterranean world and either disturb certain spiritual beings or enter aprecarious relationship with them (through sacrificial gifts in exchange for the exploitedmineral). Phong mining was a case in point (we could not trace any traditional mining practices
for the present, though).

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Near Sop-Poueng (location unclear) the Phong villagers practiced iron mining on a
nearby hillside. According to tradition, mining activities were restricted to only nine days inthe fourth Lao lunar months (cf. Raquez 1905). Large sacrifices (not specified here; probably
buffaloes?) to the powerful local spirit were required, and the village was declared khalam forthe mining period (besides, sexual intercourse is forbidden). Each family member was allowed
to take two charges of iron ore per day (one charge was as much as one can carry; very young
and very old people could not partake). The ore was taken to the village and buried in the
ground for further procession.
Every three years, a particularly important ceremony for the spirit of the mine took
place: Twelve piglets, twenty-four chicken, twelve ducks and twelve jars of rice wine were
offered to the spirit (note the number twelve, an auspicious number in the Lao Buddhist
calendar). The khalam period lasted for three months. Lagrèze’s informants even stated that in
the past human sacrifices happened, namely a young man and a young woman abducted fromanother village. However, Lagrèze reassured his readers that today the spirit was “less bloodthirsty” even if still so much feared that the Phong would not accept strangers in the vicinityof the mine. Permission from the spirit was required and visitors were not allowed to take away
any mineral.

9. Focus on Mythology: Ethnogenesis and interethnic dynamics
The historical relationship between the Tai people and Austroasiatic speaking groups such as
the Phong and the Khmu is addressed in numerous origin myths and legends. In Lagrèze’s
manuscript, the expression ‘Tai invasion’ is crossed out and replaced with ‘struggle’. Indeed,using ‘invasion’ would be misleading as the Tai migration into mainland Southeast Asia
entailed more complex interethnic dynamics than the idea of a conquest suggests. Historically,
we can identify Tai vs. Kha conflict and competition as well as a ‘symbiotic relationship basedon both ritual and economic exchanges’ between Tai and neighboring non-Tai communities(Grabowsky and Wichasin 2008: 11), and the uplanders’ important socioeconomic position in
specific localities (see Sprenger 2006b; Badenoch and Tomita 2013; Évrard 2019).
In the Phong sociocultural context, perhaps the most important and complex myth isthe legend of the culture hero Hat Ang (Tappe 2021). One leitmotif of this myth is the close
relation – exchange as well as conflict – between Phong and Tai, indeed emblematic for theambiguous and dynamic Tai/Kha relation (for example see Proschan and Chamberlain (1992,
1986) for analysis of the Cheuang myth) This key myth of the Phong will be discussed in moredetail below. Before we give all our attention to Hat Ang, other telling stories about Phongethnogenesis and sociocosmological relations deserve closer scrutiny.
One story noted by Lagrèze goes as follows: There was once a “Pong country” (paysPong) under the domination of Vientiane which demanded an annual tribute from the Phong(that is, the Phong being integrated into the meuang system). All Phong chiefs were required
to bring the tribute to the court of Vientiane. One of them even received the Tai title chaomeuang as token of respect and loyalty. This status was fixed with a large deed (Fr. brevet)

31

stored in a bamboo tube. The Phong chao meuang returned to Houaphan full of joy about theVientiane king’s benevolence. On the way he found the cadaver of a deer killed by a tiger. He
decided to pick up the cadaver and transport it by using the bamboo tube as a pole. This idea
turned out to be disastrous as the royal certificate slipped from the swaying pole (due to thesacrilegious use – to carry a cadaver – of the pole?).
Two Tai brothers who had accompanied the Phong entourage (perhaps also vassals but
without chao meuang status?), took the document. When the Phong chief realized his loss, he
was sad but also too careless to retrieve the document. Later, the Lao king passed away. His
son was not familiar with all his subjects and demanded to see the respective royal patents as
proof of privileged status. When the Phong chief arrived to bring the annual tribute, he could
not meet the new king’s demand. Instead, the Tai brothers produced the royal certificate andbecame the rulers of the “pays Pong”. The disenfranchized Phong retreated into the mountains.
This story explains the hierarchical relationship between Phong (and Khmu) and thepolitically more powerful Lao/Tai people. It is not that important if the Tai brothers in the story
are Tai (Daeng) or Lao/Thay Neua since both occupied dominant positions in different meuangof Houaphan in different times. It is also possible that the story dates to the times of Phong
settlement in the Nam Ou region (with the court of Luang Prabang instead of Vientiane, andperhaps Tai Lü as the cunning brothers taking advantage of ‘Kha’ naivité). A key motif of thismyth is the fact that the Kha originally enjoyed a privileged relationship with the court ofVientiane but lost this status due to ignorance. As we will see in the case of the Hat Ang myth,
the opposition between careless Kha and cunning Tai/Lao is central to understanding thisspecific Tai/Kha setting.
Another telling myth is the “cycle of Sam Teu” (Sam Tai; in local dialect the ‘ai’ vowel/aɨ/ is realized as /әә/) as noted by Lagrèze and – three decades later – Deydier (1954: 5). The
region of Sam Tai was once a vast forest. One day a prince from Vientiane (named Mun-SamPhan-Sam) went hunting in the area. He was enchanted by the beauty of the place and decided
to establish a village (this refers to the first Buddhist settlement in Houaphan in the 16th
century; see Lorrillard 2008). His father, the king of Vientiane, agreed and appointed him chaomeuang of the new settlement. He also ordered that the prince collected tribute from the Phong
who settled in the vicinity. His rule was harmonious until he passed away and his children took
over. The Phong refused allegiance (as succession to the throne is always a critical time forruling elites) and the payment of tribute; they also started a rebellion against Sam Tai.
Vientiane sent troop and the Phong withdrew to the citadel of Vien-Keo. The fortress
was invincible as the Phong dropped rocks on any invader. When attack after attack went
fruitless, general Chao Youn used cunning: He gathered 300 goats, attached candles at theirhorns and send them on the way up to the citadel. The Phong held them for the Vientiane army
and wasted all rocks and arrows on them. Then Chao Youn easily conquered the citadel and
the Phong surrendered. Due to the intervention of the chao meuang of Sam Tai, some Phong
escaped captivity and were permitted to settle in the meuang of the Lao (as Lagrèze explicitly
states). Since then, Lao and Phong entertained a friendly relationship.
As the previous story, the hierarchical Tai/Kha relation is addressed and explained.
Moreover, a harmonious relation between Phong and Lao/Thay Neua in the meuang of
Houaphan is maintained (in Lagrèze’s time as well as in the present). The fact that the chaomeuang of Sam Tai had pity with the Phong and allowed them to settle in the meuang hints atthe significance of the Kha for the dominant Tai/Lao. It has been suggested that not only were32Kha well integrated into the meuang (Badenoch and Tomita 2013), their role in the economyof the meuang in fact contributed to its prosperity (Grabowsky 2009). Deydier (1954: 6) adds
that the fallen Phong soldiers are now the protective spirits of the meuang, also indicating anecessary socio-cosmological relationship.
9.1 The myth of the sacred deerThis story noted by Lagrèze begins in Muang Lan, historical Phong stronghold and perhaps anearly settlement of the Phong in Houaphan. Once upon a time, an evil ghost molested the Phongmeuang (sic!) and killed everyone who crossed the ghost’s path. When neither prayers nor
sacrifices were of any help, the Phong decided to move away. For many days, 8,000 families
sneaked through dark caverns (“entrailles de la terre”) before seeing daylight again. By the exitof the caverns, a widow dropped a kitchen utensil which turned into a huge rock blocking theway. Those who were caught within the mountain had to die from suffocation. The remaining
families collected water from all sources in the vicinity to cook rice. Then they poured out thewater which produced the creek Hoay Chao.
The Phong built a bamboo raft and rode down the creek until the confluence with the
Hoay Vek (a river in Houamuang District). They decided to establish a village. While clearing
the area they discovered iron ore underneath. The Phong built furnaces and produced sickles
and machetes. Since land for wet rice cultivation was limited, land distribution was a bone ofcontention. Within a fierce debate an albino deer emerged among the Phong. The deer did notresist captivity but, with a knife at his throat, pleaded in Phong language (“apparement ungénie”): “Don’t kill me, I am here for your good luck, follow me and I will show you the bestplace to establish a village.” The Phong, afraid of the spirit (called phi-cerf in Raquez’ version;
Raquez 1905: 1481-3), obeyed and left their furnaces behind. In addition, the deer demandedthat the Phong would never kill deer again if they achieve plentiful land.
Deer and Phong followed the Hoay Vek and reached Ban Na-San by the Nam Et River(no Phong settlement today). When the Phong suggested staying in beautiful Muang Aet withwealth of fish, the deer told them to move on. They passed Muang Ham and followed the Hoay
Soy up to its source, while the Phong grew tired and begged the deer to stop. However, thedeer persuaded them to move on. Many days later, having almost lost courage, the Phongreached the fertile plain of Muang Peun (interestingly, circle movement!). “It’s here”, qoth thedeer and repeated the agreement that the Phong were not supposed to kill and eat deer anymore.
Then the sacred deer disappeared under the Phong’s cheers. The Phong established villages,
remained independent for a while before they fell under Tai/Lao rule. Until the present day,the deer is considered a sacred animal, a food taboo (not confirmed by our informants today,
though).
The myth of the albino deer mentions mining and metallurgy as practiced in the firstsettlement in Houaphan. Interestingly, this group of Phong left the potential source of wealthbehind when the deer promised to take them to richer rice fields. The myth seems to privilege
wet rice ‘civilization’ to other livelihoods. Indeed, traditional mining is a forgotten practiceamong most Phong communities today – and was perhaps only a marginal phenomenon incolonial times. Even if both Raquez (1905) and Lagrèze (1925) describe metallurgy practices
in some Phong (and Khmu) villages in Houaphan, it is not unlikely that this craft remained
unknown among other Phong groups (which would indicate different origins or at least
historical trajectories of migration and ethnogenesis).

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Deer also make an appearance in the Hat Ang myth, yet only in Plunian’s (1905)
version. The version from Lagrèze’s manuscript omits this detail. Plunian notes that Hat Ang
used a magical awl to produce human beings from the ground (Plunian 1905: 128). However,at first a flock of deer appeared when Hat Ang drove the awl into the ground. This mythicalelement suggests a common origin of humans and deers since both were produced from theground through Hat Ang’s magical tools. According to Plunian, this is the reason for a kind of‘totemic’ relationship between the Phong and the deer that is marked by the hunting taboo
mentioned above (ibid.: 130).
Many of the key elements in thes myths appear in the legend of Hat Ang. This myth isa particularly detailed account of the ambiguous Tai/Kha relation and functions as explanatorymodel of present-day power asymmetries. Not surprisingly, the story of Hat Ang seems to be
the most popular Phong tale as it was noted by different sources in different times.
9.2 The myth of Hat Ang
An analysis of the myth of Phong culture hero Hat Ang adds fresh perspectives on upland
ethnogenesis and sociopolitics in upland Laos (see Tappe 2021). Local mythology can be used
as tool to explore the history of the Tai/Kha relationship and to investigate the role of uplandpeople in shaping this relationship. Besides functioning as an explanatory model for thepresent-day marginality of upland peoples (cf. the myth of the money tree of the Austroasiaticspeaking Rmeet; Sprenger 2006a/b), the myth of Hat Ang offers a host of interesting detail andethnographic information: historical origins, pioneering mobility, kinship, exchange, ethnic
stereotypes, cosmology etc.
Different versions of the myth of Hat Ang have been noted down by Alfred Raquez(1905), the colonial administrators Adolphe Plunian (1905) and Antoine Lagrèze (1925),
archaeologists Madeleine Colani (1935) and Anna Källén (2016), and former EFEO director
Henri Deydier (1954). At present, the myth still forms part of local oral traditions in somePhong villages (Tappe 2021).
The following version was included in Lagrèze’s Dictionnaire – an almost verbatim
reproduction of Raquez’s (1905) version. It suggests a close yet ambivalent Tai/Kha
relationship: A Lao princess from Vientiane found an enchanted fruit (mak san) in the Mekong,ate it, became pregnant, and finally gave birth to a boy – Hat Ang – who cried day and night.
Neither the midwives nor the doctors nor the diviners were able to find out the reason. One
day, a Phong man travelled down the Nam Ou and the Mekong to visit Vientiane (Luang
Prabang in other versions, indicating contested Lao sovereignty since the early 18th century; itis also not unlikely that the Phong’s counterpart is Tai Lü given the historical origins of the
Phong in the Nam Ou valley where the Tai Lü held local political sovereignty). When he gave
a mak san to the boy, the royal offspring stopped crying. The king took this as heavenly signand offered his daughter’s hand to the Phong man.
The young couple moved to Don Chan (a sand bank near Vientiane), where they triedin vain to establish swidden fields (hai) in the nearby hills. Each time the Phong man cut thetrees, they reappeared by the following morning. The Lao king blamed the Phong for the
couple’s misfortune and accused him of being a malevolent spirit. He forced the couple into
exile, up to Houaphan. Here the present-day settlement of the Phong in Houaphan is clearly
the result of a failed ‘Tai/Kha’ relationship, with Hat Ang’s father being a kind of outcast,associated with malevolent spirits.

34

Even if the myth articulates the upland-lowland divide between the upper Nam Ou andLuang Prabang/Vientiane, relations, and interactions at first suggest a common Tai/Kha social
space, a “space determined by the set of the systems of relations characteristic of the groupconcerned” (Condominas 1990: 1). The myth describes an early alliance between Lao andPhong through the story of the Lao princess eating an enchanted fruit coming from the uplands(Plunian’s version even suggests that the Phong man himself had enchanted the fruit; Plunian
1905: 126). The princess’s marriage with Hat Ang’s “Kha” father remained an ambiguous one,though. The different versions of the myth indicate more or less forced exile instead of a shared
Lao/Phong space – a disruption of the affinal relationship across ethnic differences, here
between Hat Ang’s father and his Lao affinal relatives.
The Raquez/Lagrèze version fast-forwards and describes the grown-up Hat Ang as anambitious leader of a veritable upland meuang – the “royaume des Pong” according to Lagrèze.
Hat Ang received “instruments bizarres” (Raquez 1905: 1399) from a powerful spirit: A
double-faced gong, a hoe with a diamond blade, and an iron awl. With the help of the awl, Hat
Ang could produce a water source from sheer rock and make fire (a clear reference to uplandswidden cultivation; see as well Badenoch 2020). With the hoe, he could break rocks. By
hitting the gong, he was able to summon protective spirits.
Holding powerful magic tools, Hat Ang was at the top of his authority. After having
accepted the rule of the lowland Lao king for a long time, the Phong now saw the chance tothrow off the yoke of Lao rule and withdrew their allegiance. The Lao king sent an army but
was beaten by the Phong, thanks to their spiritual support. The Phong kingdom flourished, and
Hat Ang became a king recognized by “heaven” (Raquez 1905: 1400).
In the heat of one summer day, people were resting in the shade when a hawk (ibid.) or
marten (Lagrèze’s version) invaded a henhouse, provoking quite some uproar. The Phong
confused the turmoil with an armed attack from the Lao and, in a panic, hit the gong. The
troops went to arms but saw nothing but the escaping animal with a chicken in its fangs. The
spirit resented this sacrilege and demanded back the misused gong. Hat Ang obeyed and his
people lost confidence due to the divine anger (even if they were able to keep the remaining
instruments, but had no support from the deities anymore, this was a disruption of a criticalcosmological relationship).
Hat Ang, although being of mixed Tai/Kha origin, is clearly categorized as an uplander,
as the offspring of an exiled couple and as the founder of an upland kingdom. Throughemulating the Lao meuang with temples and a palace, he seems to challenge the authority of
the lowland Lao – not least thanks to magic/sacred (Lao: saksit) tools granted by powerfulspirits. The magical instruments are a key theme of the myth: the gong, the awl and the hoe
refer to functioning cosmological relations, manpower and natural resources, all of them key
to agricultural subsistence and social reproduction.
All versions agree that Hat Ang had created a prosperous Phong kingdom, a genuine
mountain meuang. According to the Raquez/Lagrèze version, however, after the Lao king hadlearned about the loss of the gong, he decided to steal the remaining tools. He sent his son to
win the heart of Hat Ang’s daughter. Hat Ang was very pleased about the charming prince’s
proposal and accepted the marriage. Everything went well until the devious prince took the
magic tools and threw them into a volcano. In addition, he talked Hat Ang into building a highwooden tower so that the Phong king and his entourage could watch the beautiful city of35

Vientiane or Luang Prabang, respectively (according to different versions of the myth; seeTappe 2021). When Hat Ang and hundreds of Phong climbed the tower, the prince set fire to
the wooden construction. As if this wasn’t enough, the Lao prince chased the Phong people
into ravines and streams; only a few of them – “Les débris de la race pong” (Raquez 1905:1401) – made it to the mountains.
Here, in addition to the loss of divine support due to disruptions of sociocosmologicalrelations (and, previously, the affinal relation to the Lao court), the element of lowland Lao
cunning is introduced as an explanation for the decline and inferiority of the Phong civilisation.
This contrasts with the Rmeet myth described by Guido Sprenger (2006a/b), where the people
cut the tree of money so that the precious fruit ended up in the lowlands – necessarily sobecause the tree was overgrowing villages and fields. Even if both myths suggest an
asymmetric ‘Tai/Kha’ relationship, aspects of upland agency and aspirations differ (see as well
O’Morchoe 2020 on the ethnohistory of the Lahu).
In the Hat Ang myth, kinship remains a key issue. By the time he received the saksit
tools in the Raquez/Lagrèze version, Hat Ang had become an established upland ruler and apotential candidate for lowland meuang patronage – e.g. as a border guard, as a provider offorest products, and indeed as a partner for marital exchange: as the history of Laos andThailand reveals, kings used to assemble a large number of wives and concubines, many ofthem tokens of loyalty and respect from lower ranking notables or even other leaders (both Tai
and non-Tai; cf. Condominas 1990; Grabowsky and Wichasin 2008).
The (asymmetric) interethnic relationship between Tai/Lao and Kha is the leitmotif ofthe myth: after Hat Ang – himself being of mixed Tai-Kha origin – established a kingdom inthe uplands, the Lao king defeated him with cunning and left a scattered population. From theperspective of the Phong, this is a tragic story reflecting their bygone glory and traumatic
decline. Contrary to James Scott’s (2009; cf. Jonsson 2014, 2017; Tappe 2019) interpretationof purposefully stateless “Zomian” societies, the Phong interpret statelessness as loss and theresult of lacking intelligence and over-ambitious aspirations. Hat Ang’s magically supported
political power notwithstanding, the cunning and intelligence of the lowlanders took advantage
of Phong myopia and hubris, in order to defeat them.
Another short myth (Badenoch 2020), from the Phong Laan, describes the culturalinteractions between the Thay and Kha worlds. In this story, humans betrayed the animals by
cheating in a competition to demonstrate the special powers (lit deet) that each had. The powerof the human was to cause fire. He set fire to the forest, which changed forever the relationshipbetween humans and the animals. It also created ongoing antagonism with the Ngueak, or spiritof the underworld. While the “natural” order was overturned by the human use of fire as atechnology of livelihood, the moral implications of the story are asserted using Thay Buddhist
terminology and motifs.
The perspective of Person is told using numerous poetic devices that are shared acrosslanguages in the region, as well as nuances that are transparent only within the Phong context.
For example, the animals switch from using the intimate second person plural pronoun before
the betrayal, but switch to the singular more distant form after the fire has been set. Although
the main actors in this legend are Person, Animals and Ngeuak, there is a Thay/Kha understory
running throughout, touching on topics such as meuang-pa (civilized and wild space),
livelihoods (settled agriculture hunting-gathering and swidden agriculture), as well asinteraction between local spirits and larger Indic spiritual references. This myth demonstrates

36how the simple dichotomy of Thay/Kha is really a more dynamic cultural complex thatinvolves language, morality, and ecology.
10. Cultural intimacy, language and the making of local hierarchies
Ethnolinguistics and (oral) ethnohistory constitute two approaches for investigating
ethnogenesis, interethnic dynamics and processes of ethnic change. Venturing in the past ofsocieties without script is a precarious task, though. Analyzing language and oral traditions in
combination enables fresh perspectives on sociocultural dynamics in a multi-ethnic setting like
Houaphan in NE Laos (see Petit 2020). Studying mythology and ethnolinguistic phenomena
helps understanding the complex entanglements in multi-ethnic contexts. Both approaches
highlight processes of linguistic and cultural borrowings, mutual mimetic appropriations, anda history of complex relationships beyond a simple Tai/Kha antagonistic binary. Therefore,
this working paper aims to complement – or, rather, encourage in the first place – theindispensable ethnographic inquiry in present-day Phong communities to better understandcross-cultural dynamics in upland Laos.
In 2014, an old man told the story of Hat Ang – in a much shorter version than those
discussed above, and amidst much discussion and laughter. The smiles of the other villagers in
Ban Pa Cha shifted between enjoyment about sharing a good story – magic tools! – andembarrassment about telling a foreigner about the Phong’s historical defeat and present-day
marginalization. Characterizing the Lao as deceitful and morally corrupt was also a sensitive
issue as indicated by the lowering of voices. The old Phong man briefly commented that Hat
Ang once built a city that was destroyed by the jealous Lao, the debris now constituting thestanding stones of Hintang (to the disagreement of the village headman). Indeed, unlike thecolonial versions, most Phong today do not consider the Hintang megaliths as remnants of Hat
Ang’s palace. As archaeologist Anna Källén (2016) confirms, the Phong deny indigeneity or
any connection to the prehistoric site. Instead, they stress the historical origin by the upper
Nam Ou and the corresponding relationship with the Lao (or Tai Lue?) court. The Phong Laanpeople who were moved to the Vientiane area during the war claim that they originate from aplace called Laan Xieng. The name of the last son of Tao Khun Lo, himself the son of the first
Tai Dam ancestor to descend from the heaven, was Laan Cheuang (Chamberlain 1992). The
historical sound changes needed to produce Xieng from Cheuang are not rare. This may be
another Phong claim to elite descent, bridging the heavens and earth, as well as Tai and Kha,
although such a Tai Dam link may be a counter-current to the proposal that the Phong were notin close contact with Tai Dam and Tai Daeng people.
Arguably, meuang relations are more significant for Phong identity than any “Zomian”
exaggerations of difference. Phong ethnohistory and linguistic evidence force us to rethink
schematic interpretations of the Tai/Kha binary. This relation is dynamic and contingent. It isfurther complicated by the internal cultural and linguistic diversity of the Phong ethnic category– as actually in the case of many other Austroasiatic groups such as the Khmu – that is verymuch linked to historical trajectories of migration, conflict, and exchange in the multicultural
setting of upland Laos. Critical to this proposal is the recognition of the ethnolinguistic
boundaries that exist within the world that is often refered to simply as “Tai.”
The internal linguistic diversity found within the Phong language is the norm, rather
than an exception for ethnic groups in the uplands, from Houaphan to the upper Nam Ou. This
challenges our simplistic ideas of clear and clean mappings of a language to an ethnic group.
As we have seen with the Phong, neither has cut-and-dry boundaries or definitions when37

examined from the inside out. Yet, looking seriously at this linguistic variation can giveimportant hints about not only the history of an imagined community, but of a region that has
multiple imaginings that sometimes overlap and sometimes contradict each other. But in thecase of the Phong, there is a sense of group solidarity within the people that call themselves‘we people’ and others known by different names. The term Phong, seems to have its origin in
a toponym or level of governance, but provides a sense of political ethnicity, even as an exonym.
The term K’niang, although heard in many places, does not present itself as the compelling“autonym”, and unlike the Khmu and others, they have not adopted a native form of the word
‘person’ as an ethnonym.
This must be related to the fact that the Phong do not “fit” into the local social structure
as it has been understood to date. The Phong cannot be placed comfortably within the systemabstracted by Condominas, and by the same token, the ethnoscape hierarchy as they explain it
requires a view of history that has not made it, despite the efforts of people like Lagrèze, outof the oral realm into the accepted realm of “official” written history. Their history is wrapped
up with a larger social history of Austroasiatic people and their movements around landscapes
now dominated by Tai versions of history. The linguistic ideologies of these people are hiddenby the fact that they often speak Tai languages well and are adept at participating in cultural
norms. Their skill at “cultural shapeshifting” may account for the fact that the Carte
Linguistique (1949) listed the “Thai Phong” as being Tai speakers (Chamberlain 1986).
Nonetheless, they maintain “difference” from others as a way of being in these larger social
structures. Even as they assert a higher civilizational rank because of their Lao-influenced
Buddhist ways, their linguistic strategies to innovate counting systems to bolster their positionin negotiations with other Tai peoples suggest that the power relations in these multiethnic
mosaics are complex and dynamic. The closest identification within local society is with the“outsider” Thay people they call rii. In other words, the rii are the farthest from their
Austroasiatic heritage, yet the closest in terms of their own image of their position in the local
hierarchies. By extending this hierarchy to the local frame of interethnic relationships imposedby the neighboring Tai polities, they build a social ladder of identification to reorder their world.
From a methodological point of view, working in multiple local languages is esstential topiecing together these relationships. While the Phong Lao-language narratives tend to use theword “Lao” in speaking of the cultural influences they have taken on, in Phong languages such
as Laan, the phrase ʔarii-ʔalaaw, which we can translate as ‘Thay and Lao’, shows a finer setof identifications and relationships within the Buddhist world they know.
Neither Tai nor Kha, nor Lao, the Phong may have seemed a promising group throughwhich they could govern the less accessible areas outside of Sam Neua. Currently, intimate
knowledge of Khmu language seems minimal or non-existent among the Phong, and there is
no record of their linguistic practices prior to the French. Their oral memories stress a “Lao”
connection, which would keep them above the Khmu in the local social hierarchy. Yet theirposition between the animist Tai and the Buddhist Thay of the region upsets such a hierarchy.
More research is needed on Phong culture as practiced today by the diverse sub-groups tounderstand the range and depth of influence from different Tai and Thay groups: Whatanimistic elements of Buddhist practice exist and how to they reflect cultural contact? Whatpatterns of multilingualism exist in the present and past? How might borrowed words andgrammatical structures shine a light on multiple sources of linguistic influence? How donarratives of Self and Other index historical interethnic, and possibly intraethnic relations in
the Phong world?

38

So, why the French-Phong-Kha dictionary? Aside from being an interesting work of
ethnography and language documentation, did the French see a way of taking advantage of the
Phong liminal position within the local landscape, which spoke to loftier conceptions ofgovernance and local identity? Regardless of our interpretation of this possibility, the Phong
present an alternative angle from which to question the regional structures of power,
identification, and memory, while at the same time deepening our understanding of how
language and legend shape ethnically diverse environments.

39

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45

Appendix I
Sample pages from the 1925 Dictionnaire Kha - Pong compiled by Antoine Lagrèze (Fondsde la Résidence supérieur au Laos, Série Z, Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-enProvence, FR ANOM RSL/Z)

46

47

48

49

50

Appendix II: Comparative Phong Wordlist
Data sources:

Badenoch. N. 2006-2010. Field notes.
Bui K. T. 1973. The Phong Language of the Ethnic Phong Which Live Near the Melhir
Muong Pon Megalith in Laos. Translation and condensed version of Vietnamese
paper published by Hanoi University.
Kato T. 2013. Linguistic Survey of Phong Language in Lao P.D.R. Tokyo: Research Institutefor Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Lagrèze, A. 1925. Dictionnaire Kha Pong. Fonds de la Résidence supérieur au Laos, Série Z,
Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, FR ANOM RSL/Z

51

1 body hair
2 skin3 bone4 blood
5 tears
6 sweat
7 head7 head8 hair
9 face10 eyebrow
11 eyes
12 ear
13 nose14 mouth
15 tongue
16 teeth
17 beard
18 neck
19 shoulder
20 hand
21 right hand
22 left hand
23 arm24 elbow
25 palm
26 finger
27 fingernail
28 breast
29 nipple
30 waist
31 belly
32 navel
33 buttocks

52

Salui
Samnua, HP
PIAT
kniəŋ
ksɔk
ktɔh
siʔiiŋ
miim
ʔaŋ mat
trʔɔh
klii
ʔɔɔk
ksɔk klii
ruup
kpɨr
mat
kɤt
mɔh
paaŋ
taak
riiŋ
ksɔk paaŋ
kluul
knaaŋ
tɨɨi
tɨɨi bɨŋ samtɨɨi bɨŋ duok
waak
ktaŋ
tpɔh tɨɨi
rmuəs
kɨr
ʔɔɔɛ
kɔɔɛ
pul
srpuu
luur

KATO 2013
Naa Ngiu
Pa Kha Tai
That
Hua Muang, HP Hua Muang, HP Hua Muang, HP
TAPUANG
PUNG
PHAEN
kniəŋ
kniəŋ
kniəŋ
ksɔʔ
ksɔʔ
ksɔʔ
ktɔɔh
ktoəh
ktɔh
siʔiiŋ
siʔiiŋ
siʔiiŋ
miim
miim
miim
paʔaŋ matpaʔaŋ matpaʔaŋ mat
srʔot
hɨə
srʔɔt
kluu
ʔoʔ
ʔɔʔ
ksɔʔ klii
ksɔʔ kluu
ksɔʔ ʔɔʔ
roop
roop
roop
tpɨr matkpɨr matgnɨŋ mat
mat
mat
mat
kət
kət
kɤt
mɔɔh
moh
moh
paaŋ
paaŋ
paaŋ
taaʔ
taaʔ
taaʔ
riiŋ
riiŋ
riiŋ
ksɔʔ paaŋ
ksɔʔ paaŋ
ksɔʔ wɛɲ
kruu
kroʔ
rɔŋɔʔ
waaʔ
waaʔ
waʔ
tɨɨi
tɨɨi
tɨɨi
bɨŋ samtɨɨi bɨəŋ khɨɨitaŋ khɨɨibɨŋ doʔtɨɨi bɨəŋ doʔ
taŋ wii
tliio
treeo
triio
toŋ tasktaŋkhɛn sɔɔkrpaaŋ tɨɨitrpaaŋ tɨɨitrpaaŋ tɨɨi
rmuus
rmuəs
rmoos
kɨr
kiər
kiər
tɔɔh
plɛɛ tuut
tuutcɔɔŋ tɔɔhcoəŋ tuutcɔɔŋ tuut
ʔɛɛo
ʔɛɛo
ʔɛɛo
pul
pɨl
pɨl
srpuu
srpuu
srpuu
luu
plɛɛ luu
plɛɛ luu

NB FIELD (2006-2010)
Huai Khun
Hua Muang, HP
LAAN
KHAMI
LAAN
kniəŋ
kneeŋ
ksɔʔ
ksɔʔ
ksɔʔ
ktɔɔh
ktɔh
ktɔh
siʔiiŋ
sʔiiŋ
sʔiiŋ
miim
miim
miim
kmaa matʔaŋ matkhmaa matrɨəharʔɔhrɨəklii(kluu)
ʔɔɔʔʔɔɔʔksɔʔ ʔɔɔʔ
ksɔk klii
ksɔʔ ʔɔɔʔ
ruup
ruup
ruup
ŋɨnɨŋ mattpur mat
ŋnɨŋ
mat
mat
mat
kɤt
kət
kɔt
moh
mɔh
mɔh
paaŋ
paaŋ
paaŋ
ntaaʔ
taak
ʔantaaʔ
riiŋ
riiŋ
riiŋ
ksɔʔ wooŋ
nuətksɔʔ voŋ
tkɔɔh
klool
takɔɔ
sowaʔ
knaaŋ
swaʔ
tɨɨi
təəy
tɨɨy
bɨŋ sambɨəŋ khɨɨybɨəŋ sambɨŋ wiibɨəŋ dookbɨəŋ vii
khanaaŋ
vaak
kʰanaaŋ
kɛn sɔʔ
khɛɛn sɔɔkkhɛɛn sɔʔtrpaaŋ tɨɨitliŋ təəytarpaaŋ tɨɨyluih moih
niw təəyniw tɨɨyŋkiərkər
ʔaŋgɛrpe ʔuʔ
ʔɔypee ʔuʔtnɔh ʔuʔcɔɔm ʔɔytnɔh ʔuʔndəpʔɛɛw
ʔandap
pɨl
pul
pɨl
srpuu
srpuu
tpuu
duh
roor
duh

BUI 1973

Lagreze 1925

ksɔʔ
ktɔh
sʔiŋ
mim

tơu
kh'to-kh's'ĩngmìmpa ang màt
puc
cli

ʔɔʔ
ksɔʔ kluu
gnɯŋ
măt
kət
mɔh
paŋ
taʔ
hriŋ

tơu climàtkh'pưnr'mãtkơt
mo-kh'
pang
h'tac
rìng
kh'so-k pâng

grɔʔ
vaʔ
təj
tăŋ kʰəjtăŋ vitriew
ken sɔʔ

thétang sạm
tang duâr-kh'

rmos təj

ru mu es'plɛɛ tuut
cwan
ʔɛw
pɯl
srpu
plɛɛ luụpùnl'

34 feces
35 to defecate
36 urine
37 to urinate
38 to fart
39 to give birth
40 leg
41 foot
42 back
43 to see
43 to look
44 to hear
44 to listen
45 to eat46 to drink
47 to bite48 to hold in hand
49 to put, to place
50 to push
51 to pull
52 to throw
53 to pick up
54 to ladle
54 to ladle
55 to run
56 to sit
57 to stand up
58 to cough
59 1
60 2
61 3
62 4
63 5
64 6
65 7
66 8
67 9
68 10
69 11
70 12
71 sky

ʔiək

ʔiəʔ

ʔiəʔ

ʔiəʔ

ʔɛʔ

ʔiək

ʔɛʔ

ʔiəʔ

irk

nom

prdɨɨmprʔəəmprʔɨɨm

brɨɨm

nom

brɨɨm

prʔəm

prơ ơmpom
kɨɨt kuən
plɨɨo
ksaŋ
knduui
mɔh
bɨɨŋ
diəm
taŋal
saa
siəŋ
jah
raŋ
dɨɨi
ɲuu
kndɛɲ
dɔh
ʔaat
bat ʔaŋ

pomkɨɨt kuunpləəorpaaŋ ɟiŋ
kndooi
moh
kat
buət
faŋ
saa
siəŋ
jah
been, raŋ
waaŋ
knɲul
kndom
doh
ʔaat
bat paʔaŋtaʔ paʔaŋpasɟɨɨʔ
liiʔ ɲɔɔŋtoorba ʔan
sɔɔŋ
saam
sii
haa
hok
cet
pɛɛt
kao
sip
sip ʔetsip sɔɔŋtooŋpomkɨɨt koonɟuŋɟuŋ
kndooi
muh
bəəŋ
buət
faŋ
saa
sɨɨn
ras
cap
waaŋ
ɲuu
kthɔʔ
dəəs
ʔaat

pom
kɨɨt koon
ɟuŋ
ɟuŋ
kndoŋ
muh

pom
kɨɨt koon
talaaŋ
ɟuŋ
grooŋ
muh
toon
diəm
smoor
saa
sɨɨn
kiət
sap
plaʔ
ɲuu
kthɔk
ndɨɨm
ɟup
bat kmaapomkəət kuan
pleew
kasaŋ
kanduuy
moh
bəəŋ
diəm
taŋal
saa
siəŋ
toyh
been
dee
ɲuu
roc
dɔh
ʔaat
bat
tak ʔaŋ
payh
yəək
ɲɔŋ
toor
baʔ ʔan
baar
saam
sii
haa
hok
cet
pɛɛt
kaw
sip
sip ʔetsip sɔɔŋ
hartooŋ

pom
kɨɨt
tlaaŋ
ɟuŋ
grooŋ
muh
toon
dɛm
smoor
saa
sɨɨn
kiat
sap
plaʔ, doʔɲuuktɔkʔandɨɨm
ɟup
bat

kəət
yuŋ
rpaŋ yuŋkơtplơuhưn yes
kun dồimô-khcàtt'yong

pas
ɟɨɨk
ɲɔŋ
tuur
baʔ ʔan
baar
piə
pon
baʔ bɨəŋ tɨɨibopʔuə
bəɟiətbətetboprombaar bɨəŋ tɨɨirtuoŋ

tak paʔaŋ
pas
ɟɨɨʔ
ɲoəŋ
tgɔʔ
nɨŋ
sɔɔŋ
saam
sii
haa
hok
cet
pɛɛt
kao
sip
sip ʔetsip sɔɔŋ
toŋ

boot
saa
sɨɨn
jah
ɟup
waaŋ
ɲuu
kthoʔ
sŋdɨɨmroos
bat paʔaŋ
pas
ɟɨʔ
liʔ
tgɔʔ
nɨŋ
sɔɔŋ
saam
sii
haa
hok
cet
pɛɛt
kao
sip
sip ʔetsip sɔɔŋtoŋsoŋ goəc
ɟɨɨʔ
sar
dgɔʔ
baar

toŋ

ʔaŋgoc
ɟiaʔ
sar
dgɔʔ
baʔ ʔan
baar
paj
sii
haa
hok
cet
pɛɛt
kaw
sip
sip ʔetsip sɔɔŋ
toŋ

muh
bəŋ
făŋ
sa
sən
gə̆t
doʔ
ktʰɔh
dəs

sa
sieng
ya'kh'
nhú ờngkưn dễnh
dô-kh'

păt păʔăŋ
pas
yəʔ
ɲɔŋ
tgɔʔ
bo
bar
băj
pon

toŋ

yơc
lưc
tuar'
môy
bar'
sãm
pon
hả
hôc
chêt
pet
káo
sip
tuang

53

72 sun
73 moon74 star
75 wind76 rain77 it rains
78 lightning strikes
79 it thunders
80 soil, earth
81 stone
82 hill, mountain83 water84 lake
85 river86 fire87 smoke88 house
89 roof90 pillar
91 mat92 comforter
93 pillow
94 mosquito net
95 knife
96 to cut
97 tail
98 horn
99 tiger
100 elephant
101 mouse
102 bird
103 to fly
104 egg
105 crow
106 buffalo
107 cattle
108 pig
109 horse
110 dog
111 cat
112 chicken

54pasŋeepakikoŋ
paklucwɨɨr
ɟarɟar kmiiphii pdaa sahtrɔɔŋ kɨɨr
ptiə
kliiŋ
knɨɨŋ
ʔaŋ
tmboŋ
rɔɔŋ
ʔɔs
tɨwɨl
ɟɨŋ
kndɔh ɟɨŋ
sraŋ
laat
situk
tŋgiil
sut
raa
sikam
ktaa
ktuoŋ
rwaai
tijaaŋ
kniə
som
par
plee
ʔaak
slɨɨo
sŋgoo
siɲ
rmaa
suə
ŋeo
ʔiər

sŋai
kii
kluc
wɨɨr
ɟar
ɟar kmiiphii bdaa sahtrɔɔŋ kɨɨr
tpɨi
kliiŋ
guuŋ
paʔaŋ
slɔɔŋ
rɔɔŋ paʔaŋʔosptuəʔ ʔosɟiiŋkooŋ ɟiiŋ
sraŋ
laat
ktuʔ
tŋgeel
sut
raa
kap
raam
ktooŋ
rwaai
dɟaaŋ
knɨi
som
baŋ
plai
ʔaaʔ
sləəo
sŋgɔɔ
siɲ
rmaa
soo
mɛɛo
ʔiər

sŋai
kii
kluc
wɨɨr
ɟar kmiiphii prdaa sahtrɔɔŋ kɨɨr
tpai
kliiŋ
rkoon
paʔaŋ
paʔaŋ ruurɔɔŋ paʔaŋʔɔsptuʔ ʔɔs
ɟiiŋ
kooŋ
sraŋ
saat
stuʔ
tŋgool
muŋ
krɨɨi
kap
ktaa
ktoŋ
rwaai
tɟaaŋ
khanai
som
mbaŋ
plɛɛ
ʔaaʔ
sləəo
sŋgɔɔ
siɲ
rmaa
sɔɔ
meəo
ʔiər

sŋai
kii
smɛɲ
wɨɨr
ɟar
ɟar kmiithee wa daa sahtrɔɔŋ kmii
ptai
kliiŋ
guuŋ
paʔaŋ mattmboŋpaʔaŋ ruu
ʔɔsptuʔ ʔɔs
ɟiiŋ
kooŋ
sraŋ
saat
kɟɨʔ
kon kluu
muŋ
miit
kap
ktaa
ktoŋ
rwaai
saɟaaŋ
knai
som
par
plɛɛ
ʔaʔ
traʔ
ɟləəo
siɲ
rmaa
sɔɔ
mɛɛo
ʔiər

sŋai
kii
smɛɲ
ʔəmpoŋ
ɟarklɔh ɟarphii bdaa sahtrɔɔŋ kmii
ptai
kliiŋ
psəh
kmaa
muur kmaa
kpɔh meekʔoəihptoʔ ʔoeihɟiiŋkooŋ ɟiiŋ
sraŋ
saat
stuk
gool kluu
muŋ
miit
kap
ktaa
ktoŋ
rwaai
saɟaaŋ
khanai
som
mpar
plee
klʔaaʔ
traaʔ
ɟileeo
siɲ
rmaa
sɔɔ
meəo
ʔiər

pasiə
pakii
kluc
vəər
ɟar
ɟar khamee
hartooŋ sahthrɔɔŋ kɨr
patiə
kliiŋ
khanəəŋʔaŋslɔŋ
looc ʔaŋ
ʔoyh
ptuak
ɟɨŋ
pɛɛ ɟɨŋsanraŋsaatsatuktaŋgeel
sut
raa
gat
ktaa
ktooŋ
harvaay
toyaaŋ
khaniə
som
par
plɛɛ
ʔaak
thriiksleew
siɲ
harmaa
suə
ŋɛɛw
ʔiər

sŋay
kii
smeɲ
ʔampoŋ
ɟar
ɟarphiivadaa psahtrɔɔŋ kʰmii
ptay
kliiŋ
psəh
kʰmaa
moor kʰmaa
kʰmaa
ʔoyh
ptaw ʔoyhɟiiŋkooŋ ɟiiŋ
sraŋ
saat
stuk
gol gluusutkrɨɨyh
kap
ktaa
ktoŋ
ruay
syaaŋ
kʰnay
som
ʔamparplee
galʔaaʔ
traaʔ
ɟliiw
siɲ
ʔarmaa
sɔɔ
mɛɛw
ʔɛr

sŋăj
ki
smeɲ
vər

sa ngayba ky
cl'uitch'
vơr'
yanr'
yar kmiclo'kh' cami
pip p'da sâ-kh'trɔŋ kmitrôngkơr'
ptej
th'pê
kon kliŋ
cling
guŋ
g'ung
păʔăŋpa angtôm bông
yə̆w păʔăŋ pa ang
ʔosôst
ph'tuâr'yiŋyưngkə̆n dɔŋ yiŋ kưn dô-kh' yưngkɛns'rangkyəʔ
kon klus'rư nưm
tưng g'ienr'

ʔara
tăp

crê
kap
rang
tuang
r'vay rôngt'yángca nê, k'nêsômhưm bang
plạy

ktɔŋ
rvaj
syaŋ
knɛj
som
par
plɛ
ʔaʔ
trăʔ
yləw
siŋ
rma
sɔ
mɛw
ʔir

s'lơu
sưng go
sìng
r'má
cho
ngao
h'ir'

113 duck
114 bee
115 fly
116 mosquito
117 ant
118 snake119 fish
120 shrimp
121 crab
122 frog
123 to fish with rod
124 to kill
125 seed
126 tree
127 leaf
128 flower
129 bean
130 bamboo
131 paddy plant
132 rice
133 sesame
134 ginger
135 banana
136 sugar cane
138 to plant
139 plow
140 irrigated field
141 upland filed
142 oil
143 salt
144 sugar
145 chilli
146 tea
146 tea
146 tea
147 wine
148 cigarette
149 to cook rice
150 firewood
151 pot
152 to boil

kaap
buut
muəs
ŋɔɔŋ
moc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
baraapkopɟɔŋ tbas
kmbɨɨlkluəŋ
lam sʔoŋtɨɨo sʔoŋplaaŋ sʔoŋtaai
mai phailam paa
paa
lŋaa
kiɲ
praat
klmii
tɨɨl
thai
ktiiŋ
lɛɲ
ŋaar
ʔiɲ
ʔaŋ klmii
pree
saa
cɛɛ
miəŋ
puui
ɟaa duutʔuul paa
pan ʔɔstəluok
tom

kaap
buut
muəs
ŋɔɔŋ
moc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
gdaʔ
ɟɔŋ dbas
kmbɨɨlkluəŋ
kok suʔuŋtəəo suʔuŋplaaŋ suʔuŋ
plai ʔamrmɨɨ
kok paa
paa
lŋaa
kiɲ
praat
klmii
tɨɨl
sɨɨh naa
naa
lɛɲ
tkaal
piʔiɲ
paʔaŋ kmii
prai
miəŋ
pɨi
ɟaa duutʔool paa
pan ʔos
tlooʔ
tom

kaap
buut
muəs
ŋoəŋ
moc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
krɔɔ
ɟoəŋ tbas
kmbəəlklooŋ
lam sʔuŋtəəo sʔuŋplaaŋ sʔuŋplɛɛ ʔampoʔooɟuŋ paa
paa
lŋaa
kiɲ
praat
klmii
tɨɨl
thai
naa
leeŋ
ŋaar
piʔiɲ
nam ʔɔɔi
prai
saa
cɛɛ
miəŋ
pii
ɟaa duutʔool paa
pən ʔɔs
tlɔʔ
tom

kaap
buut
moos
ŋɔɔŋ
mɛc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
kdaʔ
tɨk betkmbəəlklooŋ
lam sʔuŋtəəo sʔuŋplaaŋ sooiplɛɛ ʔammai phai
kok paa
paa
lŋaa
kuŋ
praat
glmii
tɨɨl
thai
naa
leeŋ
skaal
pʔiɲ
nam ʔɔɔi
prai
saa
cɛɛ
miəŋ
pii
ɟaa duutgʔɔh paa
pən ʔɔs
tloʔ
tom

ʔaap
buut
muuih
ʔiʔ ŋɔɔŋ
mɛc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
gdaʔ
thɨk bet
gmbɨɨlklooŋ
lam sʔuŋtiiu sʔuŋplaaŋ sʔuŋ
plee doəih
mai phailam paa
paa
lŋaa
kuŋ
praat
sɔʔɔɔm
tɨɨl
thai
naa
leeŋ
skaal
peʔeɲ
nam ʔɔɔi
prai
saa

kaap
buut
mɨəyh
ŋɔɔŋ
mec
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
kadak
sit betkmbəəlkluəŋ
lam saʔuŋ
teew saʔuŋplaaŋ sooyplɛɛ ʔammay phaylam paapaaplɛɛ lŋaa
kiɲ
phraatkharmii
təəl
thai
na
leɲ
ŋaar
ʔiɲ
namtaanpanree
saa

ʔaap
buut
muayh
ʔii ŋɔɔŋ
məc
mar
kaa
kuŋ
raap
gdaʔ
tɨk betʔambɨɨlklooŋ
lam sʔuŋtiiw sʔuŋplaaŋplee doayh
may phaylam paapaa
ʔalŋaa
kuŋ
praat
sʔɔɔm
tɨɨl
thay
naa
leeŋ
skaal
ʔiɲ
nam ʔɔɔy
pray
saa

kap
yə̆w but
mos
ŋɔŋ
mec
mar
ka
pa kuŋ
hrap
kdaʔ

braai
ɟaa duutgɔʔɔh paapnʔoəih
tlɔk
tom

pooy
ɟaa duutʔool pah
ʔoyh
tlook
tom

braay
ɟaa duutʔɔhpnʔuəyh
tɔlɔk
tom

kbəl
kloŋ
lăm sʔuŋtəwplaŋplɛ ʔăm

câp
yâu bùt
mu-ês'
ngong
mô-êt
manr'
cạ
cung
rãp
kr'lo
yong ta bas'
cam bơnl'cluangying s'ung
tơu s'ungplang suayplạy ammáy phài

pa
lŋa
kuŋ
prak
kə̆lmi
təl
tʰaj
na
leɲ
skaal
pɛ ʔiɲ
năm tamprajpaplạy ngacɛ

pa ang chepipuy
ya dutgʔɔh papə̆n ʔos
tloh
tɔm

pràt
kưn mytơnlthãi kh'tingkh'tinglêngngar'
pa ingpa ang kưnl' myplạy praypan ôsttốm kưn

55

153 to roast
154 cloth
155 to sew
156 needle
157 thread
158 to wash clothes
159 clothes
160 to wear
160 to wear
161 to undress
161 to undress
162 road
163 village
164 to buy
165 to sell
166 market
167 money
167 to speak
168 to speak
169 to ask
170 to answer
171 to call
172 language
173 to write
174 paper
175 to stick
176 to play
177 song
178 to get tired
179 to rest
180 to sleep
181 to die
182 age
183 to be ill
184 painful
185 to hiccough
186 to burp
187 louse
188 medicine
189 bow
190 arrow

56

tkaap
phɛɛn phɛɛswiis
srmuuipan swiispɔhkrɨəŋ tɔk sat
baʔ

kruŋ
duəŋ
leək
suok
talaat
ŋɨɨn
maai

tkaap
phɛɛn
swees
smmos
prsaʔ sweespohbaʔ sat
baʔ
sat
wit
tɨs
kruuŋ
duəŋ
lɛɛʔ
sooʔ
talaat
ŋɨɨn
kee

tɨɨn
tɔɔp
plduoŋ
maai
khiən
ciə
patet
kwaa
khap
ʔit
phak phɔɔn
jɨɨp
bɨɨl
ʔaɲuʔ
pɨh
soo
saʔək
kndɨr
see
rɔk mai
snaa
kam

saŋ
tɔɔp
giiʔ
maai
khiən
ciə
ptit
ʔeeo
khaap
soʔ
phak
jɨɨp
bɨɨl
ʔaɲuu
lɔh pɨɨh
sao
lɔɔʔ
gdɨr
sai
jaa
snaa
kam

wit

tkaap
phɛɛn
swiəs
srmos
psaʔ sŋwiəspuhbaʔ sat
baʔ
sat
wit
təs
kruŋ
blooŋ
lɛɛʔ
sooʔ
talaat
ŋəən
maai
wao
saŋ
tɔɔp
giiʔ
maai
khiən
ciə
tit
kan ɟɨr
khap
sɔʔ
phak
taʔ
bəəl
ʔaɲuʔ
lɔh pɔhsao
ʔəl lɔɔ
kdɨr
sai
ɟaa
snaa
kam

piiŋ
phɛɛn
sweeh
srmos
prsaʔ
puh
baʔ sat
baʔ
sat
wit
təs
kruuŋ
blooŋ
lɛʔ
soʔ
talaat
ŋɨɨn
maai

piiŋ
pheən
srɨŋ
srmɛh
saʔ srɨŋsakbaʔ sat
baʔ
sat
bən
tɛh
kruŋ
blooŋ
lɛʔ
paaɲ
talaat
ŋən
maai

saŋ
tɔɔp
truu
maai
khiən
ciə
tit
kwaa
khap
soʔ
sao ʔit
taʔ
bəəl
ʔaɲuʔ
poh
sao
sʔɨk
ʔɨəm
sai
ɟaa
snaa
kam

saŋ
tɔɔp
truu
maai
khiən
ciə
tit
rɨɨi
khap
ʔit
laao ʔit
taaʔ
bɨɨl
ʔaɲuʔ
sɔʔ riusaosəŋgəkknʔɨək
sai
ɟaa
snaa
kam

tkaap
phɛɛn
soyh
sarmooypharsakpohkhrɨəŋ
tɔk
sat
vic
toyh
khruŋ
duəŋ
lɛʔ
sook
tlaat
ŋɨɨn
maay
vɔɔ
təən
tɔɔp
plooŋ
maay
khiən
ciə
tit
ɲaay
khap
mɨay
saw məəy
yeep
bəəl
ʔaɲuʔ
pɨh
sɔɔ
lɔk
kandɨrsee
yaa rok may
snaa
kam

piiŋ
phɛɛn
srɨŋ
sarmɛhpsaʔ srɨŋpuhkhrɨəŋ baʔ sat
baʔ
sat
bən
tɛh
kruŋ
blooŋ
lɛʔ
paaɲ
talaat
ŋəən
maay
saŋ
tɔɔp
truu
panmaay
khiən
ciə
tit
rɨɨy
khap
ʔit
phak
taʔ
bɨɨl
ʔaɲuʔ
pɔh
saw
saŋgɔkkanʔɨəʔ
say
hak may
snaa
kam

tkap
pʰɛn
svɛh
srmos
psăʔ
puh
baʔ
vit
kruŋ
lɛʔ
sɔʔ
talat
ŋən
tmaj

tru
kʰiən
ciə
rəj
kʰăp
ʔit
taʔ
bəl
pɔh
sə̆w
sə̆j
snah
kăm

th'kappèns'viêsssôm most
pr'sackrừơng nùng
[sum]
sàt
vitch
crung
duang
lék
suárk
lát
ngơn
cay
tơnl'
top
g'i-icpha sã
khĩen
chiá
tit
ta buamth'kièn
yưc ta kieu
yơp
bơnl
a nhụ
pơh
sâu
s'ợ
sảy
khong yas'nà
câm

191 name
192 father
193 mother194 husband
195 wife
196 son197 daughter
198 child
199 male/man
200 female/woman
201 man / human
202 people
203 to meet with
204 to wait for
205 to give to
206 to use
207 to look for
208 to laugh209 to love
210 to fear
211 to be frightened
212 to know
213 to remember
214 to forget
215 cold
216 hot
217 hot
217 hungry

pnii
juoŋ
nuu
mɔh juoŋ
kuui
kuən knɔh juoŋkuən knɔh kuui
kuənknɔh juoŋ
knɔh kuui
pram
thai
cuəp
kom
maa
səh
sɔʔ bɨɨŋ
kriis
hak
tuŋ
ktan
diəm
cɨɨ
jɛt
ɟen
taat

pnnuu
jooŋ
ʔuuʔ
juŋ
kii
koon juŋ
koon kii
koon
koon juŋ
koon kii
pram
thai
cuəp
kuum
maa
səəh
sɔɔʔ
kriis
hak
tuŋ
ktan
diəm
cɨɨ
jɛt
ɟen
ʔao

prnuu
jəŋ
ʔuʔ
juŋ
kii
kon juŋ
kon kii
koon
kon juŋ
kon kii
pram
thai
cuəp
kuum
maa
səə
sɔɔʔ
kriih
phɛɛŋ
tuuŋ
kndiiŋ
diəmcɨɨ
kelweel
ɟen
taat

rnuu
ɟɔɔŋ
ɟiɔ
ʔah ɟoŋ
ʔah kii
koon ʔah ɟoŋkoon ʔah kii
koon lɨkkoon ʔah ɟoŋkoon ʔah kii
pram
thai
cuəp
kuum
maa
sɨh
sɔʔ
krih
pheəŋ
tuŋ
təlal
diəm
cɨɨ
kelweelɟenpuuʔ

soo paa

pnii
jooŋ
ʔuuʔ
haʔ jooŋ
haʔ kuuikuun knoh jooŋkuun knoh kuuikuunknoh jooŋ
knoh kuui
pram
pram
moh
kom
maa
raŋ
sɔɔʔ
kriis
pheeŋ
tuuŋ
ktan
diəm
cɨɨ
ɲɨt
ɟɨn
taat
srʔot
sao saa paa

sao paasoo ʔaŋ
ʔiir
ceəp
siɔ
sat
ʔiim
khem
krɨəŋ
tuui
kɔɔn
suuŋ
tam

sao siəŋ paʔaŋ
ʔeer
cɛɛp
siəo
sat
prai
khem
krɨəŋ
roŋ
dɛɛt
ɟɔɔh
tam

sao paʔaŋ
ʔoor
ceəp
siəo
sat
tiis
khem
krɨəŋ
ruu
leəp
suuŋ
tam

sao paajooc paa
sao sɨɨn paʔaŋ
ʔoor
cɛɛp
sio
sat
prai
khem
krɨəŋ
ruu
lɛɛp
suuŋ
tam

ɟooc paa
caat sɨɨn kmaa
ʔoor
ɟeəp
siəo
sat
prai
khem
krɨəŋ
meek
ʔeet
suuŋ
tam

218 thirsty
219 drunk
220 delicious
221 sweet
222 sour223 pepper-hot
224 salty
225 thing
226 big
227 small
228 tall, high229 low

pnii
yooŋ
yɔɔ
kuən yooŋ
kuən kuuy
kuan kun yooŋkuən kun kuuy
kuən
kuən yooŋ
kuən kuuy
phram
thai
cuəp
kom
maa
sɨh
sɔɔk
khrih
phɛɛŋ
tuŋ
ktan
diəm
cɨɨ
yokvaalyentaatsɔɔ paasɔɔ ʔaŋ
ʔɛɛr
ɟɛɛp
siəw
sat
tih
khem ʔiɲkhrɨəŋ
ruu
lɛɛp
suuŋ
tam

parnuuɟɔɔŋɟiəw
ʔah yuŋ
ʔah kii
koon ʔah yuŋkoon ʔah kii
koon lɨkkon ʔah yuŋ
kon ʔah kii
pram
thai
cuəp
kuum
maa
parsuu
sɔʔ
krih
phɛɛŋ
tuŋ
tlɔl
dɛm
cɨɨ
kelveelyenpuuʔpưn niyang
ba yâua hi yuang
aquykuan sa ky
kuan ka mơnkonkuan
kon ʔah yəŋ cô-ônhkon ʔah ki a-cuy
prăm
pram
yəŋ
ʔuʔ
ʔah yuŋ
ʔaki

kum
sɔʔ
krih
pʰɛn
tuŋ
diəm
kel vel
yen
tat

ɲɟuəc
yuəc
caat sɨɨn khmaa
ʔɔɔrʔɔr pi
ɟɛɛp
cɛp
siəw
siəw
sat
săt
pray
prɛj
kʰem
kʰɛm
khrɨəŋ
meek
ru
ʔeet
lɛp
suuŋ
duə
tam
tăm

tứng g'ơm
kôm
ma
cli
kan ào
tứng
diem
chừ
yơt
yên

sâu pa ang
ʔir'
siaô
sát
pray
khêm
krương
rông
dêt
sũng
tàm

57

230 long
231 short
232 broad, wide
233 narrow
234 thick235 thin
236 deep237 shallow
238 round239 color
240 red241 yellow
242 blue
243 white
244 black245 green
246 sound, noise
247 light weight248 heavy
249 dry
250 wet251 soft
251 soft
252 hard
253 full
254 new
255 old
255 old
256 raw
257 done, ripe
258 good
259 bad260 difficult
261 easy
262 expensive
263 cheap
264 clean
265 dirty
266 quick, fast
267 slow
268 fat

58

liəŋ
kɛc
kwaaŋ
khɛɛp
ban
kdaa
lək
tɨɨn
ʔum lum
sii
ksor
ksaai
ksɨɨŋ
luk
jam
ksɨɨŋ
siəŋ
kɟiil
kɟɨh
pah
bɔk
kɟɨɨm
kraŋ
kbiə
tmiə
prom

leeŋ
kɛc
kwaaŋ
khɛɛp
tmɨɨl
gdaa
ləʔ
gdal
dbɨr
sii
ksor
ksaai
sii ʔit
luuʔ
jam
ksɨɨŋ
siəŋ
gɟal
gɟɨɨh
pah
bɔɔʔ
piəʔ
ʔuuc
kɛɛn
gbəi
tmmɨi
prom

ris
kɨn
lɨɨi
sree
lmbaak
ŋaai
kɟɨh
kɟiil
saʔaat
pɨən
wai
ʔɨŋ
tuui

ris
kɨn
ɟat
sree
lmbaaʔ
ŋaai
phɛɛŋ
thɨɨʔ
saʔaatkabuuʔ
wai
ʔɨŋ
miəs

looŋ
kɛɛʔ
kwaaŋ
kheəp
ban
kdaa
ləʔ
tɨɨn
tbɨr
sii
ksor
ksaai
ksɨɨŋ
luuʔ
jam
ksɨɨŋ
siəŋ
kɟool
kɟuh
pah
sum
kɟəəm

looŋ
kiəʔ
kwaaŋ
khɛɛp
tmɨɨl
kdaa
lək
tɨɨn
tbɨr
sii
ksor
ksaai
ksɨɨŋ
luuʔ
jam
ksɨɨŋ
siəŋ
kɟool
kɟuh
pah
bɔʔ
piəʔ

looŋ
kɛʔ
kwaaŋ
kheəp
ktɔn
ŋənaa
lɤk
tɨɨn
dbɨr
sii
ksor
ksaai
lee
luuʔ
ŋɛɲ
kciəo
siəŋ
gɟool
gɟuh
pah
bɔʔ
piəʔ

leeŋ
kec
kwaaŋ
khɛɛp
ban
kadaa
lək
tɨɨn
ʔɔm-lɔɔm
sii
ksor
ksaay
ksəəŋ
luk
yam
ksəəŋ
siəŋ
kayəəl
kayɨh
pah
bɔk
kayəəm

looŋ
kɛʔ
kwaaŋ
khɛɛp
ktən
ŋnaa
lɔk
tɨn
dbɨr
sii
ksor
ksaay
sii faa
luuʔ
ŋeɲ
kciəw
siəŋ
gɟool
gɟoh
pah
bɔʔ
piəʔ

loŋ
kɛʔ
kwaŋ
kʰɛp
tməl
kda
ləʔ
tɯn
tbɯr

lieng
kếtch
kuáng

ksɔr
ksaj
ksəŋ
luʔ
yăm
ksəŋ

kh'sơr'kh' saysĩ khĩao
lucyamk'sơngsĩengk'yiènl'k'yơ-kh'

kraŋ
kbai
tmməi
prom
sɨr
kəəo
kɨn
ɟat
sree
ɲaaʔ
ŋaai
phɛɛŋ
thɨɨk
saʔaat
pɨən
wai
ʔəŋ
miəs

kɛɛn
kbai
trmai
prom

keən
gbai
trmai
prom

khraŋ
kabiə
thmiə
phrom

kɛn
gbay
tarmay
prom

kɛn
gɔŋ
trməj
prom

rɨs
kɨn
ɟat
suə
lmbaʔ
ŋaai
phɛɛŋ
thɨɨk
saʔaat
pɨən
wai
ʔɨŋ
miəs

rih
kɨn
ɟat
sua
ɲaaʔ
ŋaai
pheəŋ
thɨɨk
ŋaam
smbuur
wai
ʔɨŋ
bloŋ

rih
kɨn
ləəy
sua
yaak
ŋaay
phɛɛŋ
thɨɨk
ŋaam saʔaat
pɨən
vai
ʔɨŋ
tuy

rih
kɨn
ɟat
sray
ɲaaʔ
ŋaay
phɛɛŋ
thɨk
saʔaatsmbuur
vay
ʔɨŋ
bloŋ

rɯs
kɯn
yac
sre
lăm baʔ
ŋaj
pʰɛŋ
yoh
săʔătsă lɯm
vɛj
ɲɯʔ
miəs

kyɔl
kyuh
pah
bɔh
kmaʔ

k'da
lừc
tứn
t'bơnr'

bo-k'
crang
ka bê
tưm mềprơmlê, lô
barkngày

sa rề
vai
p'oi p'ưng
mi-es'

269 thin
270 old aged
271 young
272 year
273 this year
274 last year
275 next year
276 month
277 this month
278 last month
279 next month
280 today
281 yesterday
282 tomorrow
283 morning
284 noon
285 evening
286 night
287 above
288 below
289 far
290 near
291 to come
292 to go
293 to enter
294 to exit
295 I
296 you
297 he, she
298 we299 you pl
300 theynegatorto have
Lao peope

guor
riəh
nɨm
pii
lwaaŋ ʔeeŋɔl waaŋ
ʔɔl waaŋ
dɨən
dɨən meedɨən kiildɨən tmiə
mai tɨɨ
tisiŋeerooŋ ʔuəstɔɔn ʔuəsʔasiŋeekarsoɲ
ʔaasoɲ
taŋ tultaŋ sul
liəŋ
kdiəh
wɨɨt
ɲaan
doo
lɔh
ɲɔɔ
mɨɨ
dɛɛ
ʔaʔiə
biə
ɟii
ʔuui

goor
riəh
num
pii
mai lawaaŋ
naa lawaaŋ
ʔuul lawaaŋ
dɨən
dɨən beʔeedɨən kiildɨən tmmɨi
mai dɨɨ
naan ʔeetɨʔ ʔuəskhaʔ ʔuəs
tii sŋai
kraŋ kasəɲ
tii səɲ
too tooisɨɨ sɨɨo
leeŋ
gdiəh
wɨɨt
mɨr
dao
loh
ɲee
məə
nam
cuʔ ʔəicuʔ bəə
cuʔ ʔah
cii
ʔuui

goor
riəh
num
pii
lwaaŋ naitɛɛ mɨl waaŋʔool waaŋ
dɨən
dɨən naidɨən kiildɨən tlɔhʔii ʔoontɛɛ tʔaitʔai
saŋ ʔoossaŋ sŋai
saŋ krboo
saŋ bootaŋ tɨltaŋ sɨl
geeŋ
kdiəh
wəət
mɨr
dao
ləəs
ʔaɲ
mɔɔ
ʔah
muət ʔeebuət beemuət ʔah
tha
ʔii
rii

goor
briəh
num
pii
lwaaŋ hainɛɛl waaŋ
ʔool waaŋ
dɨən
dɨən haidɨən kiildɨən naa
ʔii ʔoontai tʔai
paa tʔaiptuʔ ʔoosnɛɛl sŋai
ʔoor boonɛɛl bootaŋ tɨltaŋ sɨl
geeŋ
kdiəh
wɨɨt
mɨr
dao
ləəs
ʔaɲ
mɔɔ
cuʔ ʔeecuʔ bee
ci
ʔii

goor
thao
num
pii
waaŋ niəhnɛɛl waaŋ
ʔol waaŋ
dɨən
dɨən nɛɛdɨən ʔɔk klaaidɨən tɨl ʔɛɛʔaʔoontɛɛ tniəhpniəhnɛl ʔuəihnɛl sŋai
nɛl baonɛl sabao
kntɨl
knsɨl
klaai
gdiəh
wɨt
mɨr
dao
lih
ʔɛɲ
mɔɔ
nɨɨ nɛɛ
ʔah ʔaicuʔ baicuʔ ʔii
ci
ʔii
rii

kadɔɔyriəhnumpiivaaŋ ʔɛɛ
ŋalvaaŋ
ʔuər vaaŋ
dɨən
dɨən mɛɛdɨən mom dihdɨən thamiə
mɛɛ təə
tasiərŋʔuəyhʔuəyhpasiə taɲɔŋsoɲ
ŋan soɲtaŋtuultaŋsɨɨlleeŋ
kadiəh
vəət
ɲaan
dɔɔ
loh
ɲɔɔ
mɨɨ
nɨɨ

ʔii
ʔuuy
rii

goor
yɔj gɔr
brɛɛh
briəh
num
num
pii
lvan
pii nɛɛhpii phaan maa
pii ʔalvaaŋ may
dɨən
dɯən
dɨən nɛɛdɨən skildɨən məəʔaʔoonʔiʔontɛɛ tnɛɛhʔi tʔɛjpniəhpăʔ tʔɛjnɛɛl ʔuəyhtɛʔ ʔɔsnɛɛl sŋay
ɲam pa ʔɔsnɛɛl baw
ɲam bonɛɛl sbawnɛl bokantɨltăŋ tɯlkansɨltaŋ sɯl
geeŋ
geeŋ
gdɛh
kdiəh
vət
lɔh
mɨr
mɯr
daw
də̆w
lih
ləs
ʔɛɲ
ʔeɲ
mɔɔ
mɔ
nɨɨ
nə, nɯ
cuʔ ayʔecuʔ bay
ʔãh
ɟii
ci
ʔii
ʔi
rii
ri

g'uar'
a'kh' riar-kh
nùm
pi

dươn

may tota-ê
p'ta-ê
sang u-es'
nham tra day
kar-suẽnhsang sô-ênh
tang tũnl'tang sũnl'lieng
k'dir-kh'
plong
mưnr'
dâu
lô-kh'
nhia
mo
no
ê
bê
nó
tạ-kh
uy
ry

59

Appendix III: Photos from Ban Saleuy (Houaphan province, Lao PDR, Oliver Tappe,
2019)

Photo 1: Main road of Ban Saleuy (copy of the Sam Neua monument on the left)

Photo 2: Silk weaving

60

Photo 3: House front

Photo 4: Buddhist temple in Ban Saleuy

61

Photo 5: Phong-style silk scarf

62