Sak language

This article is about the Sino-Tibetan language of Myanmar and Bangladesh. For the Algonquian language of the US and Mexico sometimes called Sac or Sauk, see Fox language.

Sak
Cak
Native to	Bangladesh, Myanmar
Region	Chittagong Hill Tracts Northwestern Rakhine State
Ethnicity	Chak
Native speakers	4,000 (2007)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Sal Jingpho–Luish Luish Sak
Writing system	Cak script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ckh
Glottolog	sakk1239
ELP

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).

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

File:Traditional song in Chak language 01.webm

Sak language traditional song

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		(kʰ)
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Affricate	voiceless		ts
	aspirated		(tsʰ)
	voiced		dz
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ		h
	voiced	v
Tap			ɾ
Nasal		m	n	(ɲ)	ŋ
Approximant		(w)	l	j

• 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	i	ɨ	ɯ	u
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open		a

• [ə] only occurs in minor syllables or as a result of vowel reduction of /a/.

Numerals

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

Writing system

A new script for the Sak language was devised by Mong Mong Cak and disseminated in 2013. Previously, Bengali and Burmese scripts were used on an ad hoc basis. The Cak script is a Brahmic-style abugida with 33 consonants and 11 vowels represented.

Further reading

• Glottolog 2.7 - Sak. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2016 [1]
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 JSTOR 30022507

External links

• Samples of Spoken Sak/Chak from a Missionary Project
• Draft Unicode proposal for the Chak script