The Kraol Sociolinguistic questionnaires: Within the varieties

4.2 Sociolinguistic questionnaires: Within the varieties

This section addresses each Bahnaric ethnolinguistic group individually, first the Kraol, then the Khaonh, Mel, Stieng, Ra’ong, Thmon and, finally, Bunong. The variety codes in parentheses, such as V14, correspond to the variety codes in the lexical similarity matrices in figures 3 and 4. They have no significant meaning, other than being the number we assigned to each individual wordlist. The reader should keep in mind that the purpose of this survey was merely to obtain a broad overview of sociolinguistic situation of the Bahnaric language-speaking people of Cambodia. We traveled to many locations, but a single individual in each village, often the village chief, reported the most information. However, the following village descriptions help form preliminary hypotheses. Further in-depth research would be needed to confirm the information reported for each ethnolinguistic group. The research questions and their corresponding SLQ question numbers are as follows; they pertain to how members of each language community identify themselves and their language, and who else they perceive as being the same: • What are the vernacular language varieties spoken in Mondul Kiri and Kratie provinces? Questions 21, 25, 26, 37 • Where are these varieties spoken and by whom? Questions 38–42, 44, 45, 61h • What are the groupings of Bahnaric varieties based on intelligibility? • How do speakers of the Bahnaric varieties in Cambodia perceive the groupings of Bahnaric varieties? Questions 33, 34, 40, 44–47, 50, 51 • What are the types, natures, and extents of interactions within the Bahnaric groups? Questions 35, 56, 57

4.2.1 The Kraol

We met two groups of Kraol people. One group lives in Roya village in Kaoh Nheaek, the northernmost district of Mondul Kiri province and the other group lives in eastern Sambour district in northern Kratie province, near the border of Mondul Kiri. Roya village We interviewed the head of the commune in Roya village V14; he reported that the vast majority of people in the commune are Kraol people, speaking the Kraol language. When asked about nearby villages, he listed three: Memom - , 10km away, which is a Bunong and Thmon village with some Kraol residents using the Bunong language almost exclusively; Ktaoy 4 , a Kraol village, 73km away; and Rovak H , an almost pure Kraol village, 15km away. According to this commune chief, the Kraol people as a whole originally came from Kaoh Nheaek. Many have moved to Kratie province, but some stayed in Kaoh Nheaek. The Kraol people of Roya speak Kraol more than any other language, both in the home and out in the village. The commune head told us that the villages of Roya, Rovak, and Ktaoy all call their language “Kraol” and speak it the same way. People from Roya travel to Srae Sap, Srae Chis, and Srae Rung in Kratie province; people from those villages also travel to Roya. They reportedly all use Kraol with each other. Srae Sap and Srae Rung are not included on the list of villages and communes obtained from the provincial office of the Ministry of Planning. Ampok village Ampok village V30 is located in Sambour district, Kratie province, very near the Kraol village of Srae Chis, one of the villages visited by Kraol residents of Roya commune. Wordlists from Ampok and Srae Chis were 95 percent similar to each other. Over 100 Kraol families and ten Bunong families live in Ampok. According to the village chief, the Kraol people living there originally came from Srae Chhuk village, Roluos Mean Chey commune, Sambour district. They moved to Ampok looking for land; they still travel back and forth between Srae Chhuk and Ampok. They also visit Ktaoy village in Kaoh Nheaek, a fact that the commune head of Roya also mentioned. The government’s population list for Srae Chhuk village does not include any Kraol people. The Kraol language is very strong in Ampok village, 23 although they also speak Khmer. They say that all Kraol people in their village speak Kraol the same; they could not provide names for any villages that speak Kraol differently. People from Ampok village and Ktaoy and Rovak villages in Kaoh Nheaek district of Mondul Kiri again, the same villages the commune head in Roya mentioned visit each other back and forth and reportedly speak Kraol the same; Ampok’s village chief made no mention of Roya village. The 70-year-old man from whom we elicited the wordlist is originally from Roya, but he has lived in Ampok for the last 40 years.

4.2.2 The Khaonh and the Mel