Vocabulary of Traditional Material Culture in Languages of Southeast Asia

Abstract

The article presents some findings of the research project "Traditional Material Culture Realia in Southeast Asia Languages and Folklore Texts". The main goal of the project is to show how the common for various South-East Asia populations material-culture elements are reflected in the areal languages — primarily, in their vocabulary. As an example of the research under the project, the article proposes an analysis of two lexemes for ‘gong’ and ‘cymbal’, respectively. Our research traces the “migration” of the corresponding terms bet­ween languages belonging to the various language families of the area (Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, and Kra-Tai). Hypotheses on the ways of these lexemes’ distribution across the region are proposed. The article also describes the main results of our 2022 expedition to the north of Cambodia (a region inhabited by indigenous peoples of the Austroasiatic language family).