| caption: |
pronunciation and relationship terms |
| text: |
Remarkable is a sound which is difficult to pronounce. A peculiar way of combining the tongue 'r' with a gutteral. When Chingai pronounces it it is almost a pure 'rrr' which is less objected to by the Punkhung people than my attempt to pronounce it as a tongue 'r'. Among them however the 'r' is clear. The sound is usually used in place of a 'y' or a 'w' in the other languages. While investigating the relationship terms I discovered that in Punkhung too spouses do not address each other by name. First of all they avoid addressing each other at all and once they have children they call each other "father or mother of so and so". Chingai says that he does indeed call his wife by name because she is younger than he is but she addresses him as "father" of his son. |
