A Phonological Study of Rakhine Language Used in Manaung City in Rakhine State of Myanmar: A Case Study of Consonants and Vowel Sounds.

Abstract

This thesis was entitled “A Phonological Study of Rakhine Language Used in Manaung City in Rakhine State of Myanmar: A Case Study of Consonants and Vowel Sounds”. The objectives of this study were 1) to examine the word sound system of Rakhine language spoken in Manaung City in Rakhine state of Myanmar, and 2) to analyze the word sound system of Rakhine language based on the phonology spoken in Manaung City in Rakhine state of Myanmar.

             This research study employed a qualitative method in nature in order to study the word sound system of the Rakhine language spoken in Kyetyoe, Zaratkonekhin, Natepyin and Thitpone villages in Manaung City in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.  The population and sample of the study were 5 villagers from the mentioned earlier villages of Manaung City in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and the researcher selected 6 villagers among them for this research.

             The research tools were used books, informants, journals, and theses. The data used in this study were collected at the above-mentioned villages, Manaung City, Rakhine State of Myanmar from the speeches of Rakhine native speakers and the data analyses were Phonological word, syllable, phoneme, and assimilation.

             The result of this research was found that:

             The result of the study shows that the tones of the final syllable of a statement seem to cause to be falling or rising. There are 4 types of phonological words: monosyllabic words, disyllabic words, tri-syllabic words and tetra-syllabic words. There are 3 types of syllables: pre-syllable, minor syllable and major syllable. The structure of the syllable is C1 (C3) (C4) V1 (C2). The phonological system is composed of 34 consonant phonemes /b, p, ph, d, t, th, g, k, kh, ʔ, dʑ, tɕ, tɕh, θ, z, s, sh, ɕ, h, m, m̥, n, n̥, ɲ, ɲ̥, ŋ, ŋ̥, l, l̥, r, r̥, w, w̥, j/. There are 21 vowel phonemes which are divided into 3 sets: 1) six plain vowels: /i, e, a, u, o, ɔ/. 2) Eight glottal vowels: /iˀ, ɛˀ, aˀ, ɔˀ, eiˀ, ouˀ, aiˀ, auˀ/. And 3) seven nasal vowels: /ɛ̃, ã, ɔ̃, eĩ, oũ, aĩ, aũ/. There are four tones: (1) high-rising-falling, (2) high-falling and (3) high-rising ending with a glottal constriction of the breath (slow glottal closure).