A. Research Papers (Peer-Reviewed)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10524/91473

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    Language Vitality Reassessment and Revival Efforts for Bidayuh of Sarawak, Malaysia
    (2026) Ting, Su-Hie; Kayad, Florence Gilliam
    The Bidayuh language has been characterized as having stable vitality in some studies and shifting status in others. An Ethnologue update labels two Bidayuh dialects as endangered, but little is known about language use in the Bidayuh community and the community members’ awareness of their language’s vitality. This study reassesses the vitality of the Bidayuh language of Sarawak, Malaysia, based on survey responses from 467 Bidayuh respondents. The study confirms that Bidayuh is threatened, as most of the children no longer speak the language. The respondents in the survey are aware of the vulnerable status of Bidayuh and believe that parents should speak Bidayuh to their children to keep the language strong. The findings suggest that cultural immersion may be the key to making the Bidayuh language an inherent part of the life of younger Bidayuh people.
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    Understanding Tone Change: In Search of Stability-Induced Tonal Fusion in Southwestern Tai Languages
    (2026) Li-Naaijer, Juan
    Xishuangbanna Tai Lue (China) features six lexical tones and six emerging grammatical tones. Each grammatical tone arises through the fusion of two lexical tones, a process driven by tonal stability mechanism following segmental deletion. Among Southwestern Tai languages, only Tai Phake and Central Thai have also been reported to exhibit tonal stability behavior. Drawing primarily on fieldwork data, this paper outlines the principal properties of grammatical tones in Xishuangbanna Tai Lue and investigates why, in identical morphosyntactic contexts, stability-induced tonal fusion does not occur in Tai Phake, Central Thai, Northern Thai, and Lampang Tai Lue (Thailand). This absence is attributable to factors including word shape, differentiation of tonal functions, and language contact. Overall, the findings contribute to the documentation of emerging grammatical tone systems and advance our understanding of tone change by addressing the actuation problem—namely, why a given change occurs in one language but not in others, despite comparable structural conditions.