Sak language explained

Sak
Also Known As:	Cak
States:	Myanmar, Bangladesh
Region:	Northwestern Rakhine State
Ethnicity:	Chak
Date:	2007
Ref:	e25
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam2:	Tibeto-Burman
Fam3:	Sal
Fam4:	Jingpho–Luish
Fam5:	Luish
Iso3:	ckh
Glotto:	sakk1239
Glottorefname:	Luish

Sak (also known as Cak, Chak, or Tsak) is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Sal branch spoken in Bangladesh and Myanmar by the Chak people.

Geographical distribution

Cak is spoken in Bangladesh by about 3,000 people and in Rakhine State, Burma by about 1,000 people according to Ethnologue. In Bangladesh, Cak is spoken in Baishari, Naikhyongchari, and Dochari (Huziwara 2018). In Rakhine State, Burma, Sak is spoken in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, and Mrauk U townships (Huziwara 2018). The Baishari dialect is the most conservative one (Huziwara 2018).^[1]

According to Ethnologue, in Bangladesh, Chak is spoken in 14 villages in:

• Chittagong Division

Baishari, Bandarban, Bishar Chokpra

• Southern Naikhongchari area in the Arakan Blue Mountains

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	aspirated	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		(pronounced as /link/)
	voiced	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	implosive	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Affricate	voiceless		pronounced as /link/
	aspirated		(pronounced as /link/)
	voiced		pronounced as /link/
Fricative	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	voiced	pronounced as /link/
Tap			pronounced as /link/
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)	pronounced as /link/
Approximant		(pronounced as /link/)	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/

• Sounds /tsʰ, kʰ, w/ mainly occur from loanwords.
• /ts, tsʰ, dz/ is also heard as [tʃ, tʃʰ, dʒ] among other dialects.
• [ɲ] occurs as a realization of the consonant sequence /ŋj/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)	pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/

• [ə] only occurs in minor syllables or as a result of vowel reduction of /a/.^{[2] [3]}

Numerals

Sak uses a decimal-based numeral system.^[4] Sak uses two sets of numerals: an indigenous system, and another system borrowed from Arakanese, often used for numbers beyond ten.

Further reading

• 10.2307/2717775. 2717775. Semantic Differentiation in Indo-Chinese. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 4. 3/4. 213–229. 1939. Benedict. Paul K..
• 10.1017/S0041977X00005528. The Proto-Tibeto-Burman verbal agreement system. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 56. 2. 292–334. 1993. Van Driem. George. 162552967 .
• Glottolog 2.7 - Sak. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2016 http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/sakk1239
• 10.1017/S0041977X00101818. Kadu and its Relatives. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 2. 39–42. 1921. Grierson. George. 143921185 .
• Huziwara, Keisuke. 2002. “Chakku-go no onsei ni kansuru koosatu” [A phonetic analysis of Cak]. Kyoto University Linguistic Research [Kyooto Daigaku Gengogaku Kenkyuu] 21:217–73.
• Huziwara, Keisuke. 2008. Chakku-go no kizyutu gengogakuteki kenkyuu [A descriptive linguistic study of the Cak language]. Doctoral dissertation, Kyoto University. lix + 942 pp.
• 10.3329/dujl.v1i2.3714. Cak numerals. Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics. 1. 2. 1–10. 1970. Keisuke. Huziwara. free.
• Huziwara, Keisuke. 2010. “Cak prefixes.” In Dai Zhongming and James A. Matisoff, eds., Zang-Mian-yu yanjiu sishi nian [Forty Years of Sino-Tibetan Studies], pp. 130–45. Harbin: Heilongjiang University Press.
• 10.2307/594419. 594419. The Vocalism of Sino-Tibetan. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 60. 3. 302–337. 1940. Shafer. Robert.
• Thurgood, G., & LaPolla, R. J. (2003). The Sino-Tibetan languages.
• Voegelin, C. F., & Voegelin, F. M. (1965). Languages of the world: Sino-Tibetan fascicle five. Anthropological Linguistics, 7(6), 1-58. Retrieved February 12, 2016

External links

• Samples of Spoken Sak/Chak from a Missionary Project

Notes and References

1. Huziwara, Keisuke (2018). Varieties of Cak dialects. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, held May 17-19, 2018 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
2. Book: Huziwara, Keisuke. A sketch of Cak grammar. Kyoto: The Hakubi Project of Kyoto University. 2019.
3. Book: Huziwara, Keisuke. チャック語の音声に関する考察 [A phonetic analysis of Cak]. Kyoto University. 2002. 京都大学言語学研究 [Kyoto University Linguistic Research] 21. 217–273.
4. Web site: Chak . 2024-01-07 . lingweb.eva.mpg.de.