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Akha is the language spoken by the
Akha people The Akha are an ethnic group who live in small villages at higher elevations in the mountains of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Yunnan Province in China. They made their way from China into Southeast Asia during the early 20th century. Civil war i ...
of southern China ( Yunnan Province), eastern Burma ( Shan State), northern Laos, and
northern Thailand Northern Thailand, or more specifically Lanna, is geographically characterised by several mountain ranges, which continue from the Shan Hills in bordering Myanmar to Laos, and the river valleys which cut through them. Though like most of Thailand ...
. Western scholars group Akha,
Hani Hani may refer to: People * Hani (name) * Hani (producer), a record producer and remixer from New York City * Hani (singer), a South Korean singer and member of EXID * Hani people, an ethnic group of China and Vietnam Places * Hani, an island in ...
and Honi into the
Hani languages The Hani languages are a group of closely related but distinct languages of the Loloish (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic group. They are also referred to as the Hanoid languages by Lama (2012) and as the Akoid languages by Bradley (2 ...
, treating all three as separate mutually unintelligible, but closely related, languages. The Hani languages are, in turn, classified in the
Southern Loloish The Southern Loloish or Southern Ngwi languages, also known as the Hanoish (Hanish) languages, constitute a branch of the Loloish languages that includes Akha and Hani. Languages The branches included in Lama (2012), with languages from Bradle ...
subgroup of
Loloish The Loloish languages, also known as Yi in China and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of fifty to a hundred Sino-Tibetan languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of China. They are most closely related to Burmese and its rela ...
. Loloish and the Mru languages are closely related and are grouped within Tibeto-Burman as the
Lolo-Burmese languages The Lolo-Burmese languages (also Burmic languages) of Burma and Southern China form a coherent branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. Names Until ca. 1950, the endonym ''Lolo'' was written with derogatory characters in Chinese, and for this reas ...
. In accordance with China's official classification of ethnic groups, which groups all speakers of Hani languages into one ethnicity, Chinese linguists consider all Hani languages, including Akha, to be dialects of a single language. Speakers of Akha live in remote mountainous areas where it has developed into a wide-ranging dialect continuum. Dialects from villages separated by as little as ten kilometers may show marked differences. The isolated nature of Akha communities has also resulted in several villages with divergent dialects. Dialects from extreme ends of the continuum and the more divergent dialects are mutually unintelligible.


Phonology

The Akha language, along with the dialect spoken in Alu village, 55 kilometers northwest of
Chiang Rai Chiang Rai ( th, เชียงราย, ; nod, , เจียงฮาย, ) is the northernmost major city in Thailand, with a population of about 200,000 people. It is located in Mueang Chiang Rai District, Chiang Rai Province. Chiang Rai ...
city in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand is described below. Katsura conducted his study during the late 1960s. With a population of 400 it was, at the time, one of the largest Akha villages in Northern Thailand and was still growing as a result of cross-border migration from Burma. The Akha in Alu spoke no Standard Thai and communicated with outsiders using either Lahu Na or Shan. Standard Akha has 25 or 26 consonants, and the Alu dialect has 23 or 24 consonants depending on how the syllabic nasal is analyzed. The , realized variously as or , can be analyzed as a separate single consonant or as sequences of /ʔm/ and /hm/. Katsura chose the latter but listed the /m/ component of the syllabic consonant with the vowels. Any consonant may begin a syllable, but native Akha syllables which don't end in a vowel may only end in either -m or -ɔŋ. A few loan words have been noted that end in -aŋ or -aj. In the case of a nasal coda, some vowels become nasalized. Alu Akha distinguishes ten vowel qualities, contrasting rounded and unrounded back vowels at three heights while only the mid front vowels contrast roundness. Three vowels, , and , show marked nasalization when followed by a nasal consonant becoming , and , respectively.


Varieties


Laos

The table below lists the Akha varieties surveyed in Kingsada (1999), Shintani (2001), and Kato (2008), with autonyms and informant birth places given as well. All locations are in
Phongsaly Province Phongsaly province ( Lao ຜົ້ງສາລີ), also spelled ''Phôngsali'', is a province of Laos in the extreme north of the country. The capital of the province is the city of Phôngsali. Phongsaly is between Yunnan (China), and Điệ ...
, northern Laos. Akha Chicho, spoken in Ban Pasang village, Muang Sing district, Luang Namtha Province, is documented in Hayashi (2018).Hayashi, Norihiko. 2018
A Phonological Sketch of Akha Chicho: A Lolo-Burmese language of Luang Namtha, Laos
''Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018)''. Kyoto: Kyoto University.
Hayashi (2018: 8) reports that Akha Chicho is mutually intelligible with Akha Buli.


China

In
Jinghong Jinghong (; khb, ᨩ᩠ᨿᨦᩁᩩ᩵ᨦ; th, เชียงรุ่ง, , ; lo, ຊຽງຮຸ່ງ; also formerly romanised as ''Chiang Hung'', ''Chengrung'', ''Cheng Hung'', Jeng Hung, ''Jinghung'', ''Keng Hung'', ''Kiang Hung'' and ' ...
City and
Menghai County Menghai County (; Tai Lu: ᨾᩮᩨ᩠ᨦᩁᩣ᩠ᨿ ''Meng Haai'' lo, ເມືອງຮາຍ) is a county under the jurisdiction of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, in the far south of Yunnan, China, bordering Burma's Shan State to t ...
, the two major
Hani Hani may refer to: People * Hani (name) * Hani (producer), a record producer and remixer from New York City * Hani (singer), a South Korean singer and member of EXID * Hani people, an ethnic group of China and Vietnam Places * Hani, an island in ...
subgroups are Jiuwei 鸠为 and Jizuo 吉坐. The Jizuo 吉坐 are the largest Hani ethnic subgroup in Jinghong. The Jiuwei claim to have migrated from Honghe and
Mojiang Mojiang Hani Autonomous County (; Hani: ) is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of Pu'er City, in the south of Yunnan Province, China. Administrative divisions In the present, Mojiang Hani Autonomous County has 12 towns, 2 townships and ...
. The Jiuwei live in various villages in Jinghong, including: *Mengbozhai 勐波寨, Menghan Town 勐罕寨, Jinghong City *Agupu 阿古普 (also called Manwoke 曼窝科) in Leiwu 类吴, Mengsong Township 勐宋, Jinghong City *Napazhai 那帕寨 in Damenglong 大勐笼, Jinghong City *Baiya village 拜牙村 in Menghun 勐混, Menghai County (The
Ake Ake (or Aké in Spanish orthography) is an archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It's located in the municipality of Tixkokob, in the Mexican state of Yucatán; 40 km (25 mi) east of Mérida, Yucatán. The n ...
阿克 subgroup lives in Lougu 楼固村, located in Menghun 勐混 as well.) *Babingzhai 坝丙寨, Xidingshan 西定山, Menghai County There are also ethnic Hani that are locally called Aini 爱尼 living in 7 villages on Nanlin Mountain 南林山 of southwestern
Jinghong Jinghong (; khb, ᨩ᩠ᨿᨦᩁᩩ᩵ᨦ; th, เชียงรุ่ง, , ; lo, ຊຽງຮຸ່ງ; also formerly romanised as ''Chiang Hung'', ''Chengrung'', ''Cheng Hung'', Jeng Hung, ''Jinghung'', ''Keng Hung'', ''Kiang Hung'' and ' ...
, namely Manbage 曼八阁, Manjinglong 曼景龙, Manjingnan 曼景囡, Mangudu 曼固独, Manbaqi 曼把奇, Manbasan 曼巴伞, and Manjingmai 曼景卖.云南省编辑委员会编. 2009. "景洪县南林山哈尼族社会调查." In 哈尼族社会历史调查, p.109-119. 民族出版社.


See also

* Akha comparative vocabulary list (Wiktionary)


References


Further reading

* * * * ;Word lists for language varieties of Laos * Kingsadā, Thō̜ngphet, and Tadahiko Shintani. 1999. ''Basic Vocabularies of the Languages Spoken in Phongxaly, Lao P.D.R.'' Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). * Shintani, Tadahiko, Ryuichi Kosaka, and Takashi Kato. 2001. ''Linguistic Survey of Phongxaly, Lao P.D.R.'' Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). * Kato, Takashi. 2008. ''Linguistic Survey of Tibeto-Burman languages in Lao P.D.R.'' Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). *Hayashi, Norihiko. 2016
A Phonological Sketch of Akha Buli: A Lolo-Burmese language of Muang Sing, Laos
神戸市外国語大学外国学研究 obe University of Foreign Studies, Foreign Language Studies92: 67-98. *Hayashi, Norihiko. 2018
A Phonological Sketch of Akha Chicho: A Lolo-Burmese language of Luang Namtha, Laos
''Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018)''. Kyoto: Kyoto University.


External links

* ELAR archive o
Archaic Akha language documentation materials
{{authority control Southern Loloish languages Languages of China Languages of Laos Languages of Myanmar Languages of Thailand Languages of Vietnam