Kensiu (Kensiw) is an Austroasiatic language of the Jahaic (Northern Aslian) subbranch.
The Thai Maniq and the Malaysian Semang are reportedly the first modern humans to enter the Malay Peninsula.
[5] The Maniq settle around the mountainous jungle areas in Southern Thailand and Northern Malaysia.
[6] Kensiu has also been referred to as Belubn, Kense, Kenseu, Kensieu, Kensiw, Maniq, Mawas, Mendi, Mengo, Meni, Menik, Moni, Monik, Moniq, Mos, Ngok Pa, Orang Bukit, Orang Liar, Sakai, and Tiong.
Front, central and back vowels at a tongue height intermediate to the close-mid and open-mid positions (i.e. true-mid) are also present.
The close-mid vowels /e̝, ɚ, ẽ̝/ have a slightly higher tongue height than their mid counterparts /e, ə, o/.
[4] Kensiu has fixed non-contrastive primary stress which falls on the final syllable of the lexeme.
In addition, minor syllables may be either completely unstressed or secondarily stressed, depending on the presence of reduplication.
In addition, occasional initial consonant clusters may be found in the second syllable but not in the first, e.g. [pʌt.plit] pʌtplit 'to blink quickly, repeatedly'.
Other general observations regarding reduplication include a high incidence of nasal vowels and of final /ɸ/ in these forms.
Modifiers follow the head as in the following examples:[9] ʔuʔʔuʔheŋɔkňóksitʔepʔepLOCbə'lɰʔbə'lųʔlegjɛʔjéʔIʔuʔ ŋɔk ʔep bə'lɰʔ jɛʔʔuʔ ňók ʔep bə'lųʔ jéʔhe sit LOC leg I'He sits in my lap.
This principle also helped to simplify the Kensiu alphabet, so that it would be easier for a reader to transfer reading skills between the two languages.
A Pali dot was also used to differentiate these contrasting heights in the front, central and back vowels.
This was meant to reflect the stress-timing where the major syllable always has primary stress, resulting in a perceived lengthened vowel.
In these cases, the Thai symbol that was chosen historically bore the same features as the Kensiu consonant.
As a result, <ฟ> was chosen to represent /ɸ/ due to its similarity in point and manner of articulation.
<ร> was chosen to represent /ɣ/ as /ɣ/ is the Kensiu pronunciation of /ɻ/ found in Malay words that have been borrowed.
[6] The pre-stopped nasals /bm/, /dn/, /ɟɲ/ and /gŋ/ contrast with /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ in the final syllable position, resulting in the need to distinguish between these consonants in the orthography.
The unaspirated stops were initially used to represent the pre-stopped nasals but the reader was unable to decode the word.
Writing in this manner allows the reader to recognize the consonant cluster as the representation of the pre-stopped nasal.
Kensiu is not a tonal language even though there are some words that have a contrastive high tone and a normative pitch or mid-tone.
There are also exchanges in lexicon between Kensiu and languages such as Mendriq, Mintil, Bateg Nong, Jehai and Che Wong.