Ba-Shu Chinese (; Sichuanese Pinyin: Ba¹su²yu³; ), or Old Sichuanese (or Old Szechwanese; ), is an extinct

Sinitic language The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...

formerly spoken in what is now

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of t ...

and

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Co ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. This language is first attested in '' Fangyan'' during the

Western Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...

(206 BCE–8 CE) and represents one of the earliest splits from

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...

Early Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The S ...

. It started to disappear during the late South Song dynasty period due to the Mongolian conquest which resulted in a massacre throughout the Sichuan Basin. At that time the language was supplanted by

Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese language spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the nort ...

after settlement by people from other parts of China, mostly from present-day

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The p ...

and

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangx ...

. Phonological aspects of Ba-Shu Chinese are preserved in the Minjiang dialect of Sichuanese Mandarin and there is debate on whether it is a variant of Southwestern Mandarin or a modern-day descendant of Ba-Shu.

Phonology

Song dynasty

Though the Ba-shu language is extinct, some phonology features of rhymes are able to be found by researching the local literaries and poets' use of rhymes in their works. Liu Xiaonan assumed that they write verses in Standard Chinese of the Song dynasty, but because their

mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...

was Ba-shu, they unconsciously wrote with a Ba-shu accent of the time, which was reflected in the rhymes.

Codas Merger

According to Liu's research, there is enough evidence to assume a significant number of codas mergers had taken place or were taking place in Ba-shu language during the Song dynasty. * * and often merged as (真侵部合併) . * * and often merged as (真青部合併), this progress can be abbreviated as /*im/ > /*in/ < /*iŋ/. * * and sometimes merged as . * * and sometimes merged as . ** Ditto, which can be abbreviated as /*am/ > /*an/ < /*aŋ/. * *, * and * quite probably all merged as , then further be dropped (especially in west of Sichuan Basin).

Vocabulary

Ba-shu language had some unique words probably identified as substrate from Old Shu language by scholars.

Notable speakers of Ba-shu language

Three Sū(s) (三蘇, sān sū)

* Sū Shì (蘇軾), who was from Meízhōu (眉州), Chéngdū circuit (成都府路). * Sū Zhé (蘇轍), Sū Shì's younger brother. * Sū Xún (蘇洵), Sū Shì and Sū Zhé's father.

References

Varieties of Chinese Extinct languages of Asia Languages attested from the 1st millennium BC Languages extinct in the 2nd millennium {{St-lang-stub