Hezhang Buyi () or Shui is an endangered, divergent

Northern Tai The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand. Languages Ethnologue '' Ethnologue'' distingu ...

language spoken in

Hezhang County Hezhang () is a county in the northwest of Guizhou province, China, bordering Yunnan to the north. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Bijie. Ethnic groups The ''Hezhang County Gazetteer'' (2001:105-108) lists the follow ...

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

, China. It has a Kra

substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or su ...

. Like other

Kra languages The Kra languages (also known as the Geyang 仡央 or Kadai languages) are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in southern China ( Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan) and in northern Vietnam ( Hà Giang Province). Names The name ''Kra'' co ...

( Gelao and Buyang), Maza, and

Tujia Tujia may refer to: *the Tujia people *the Tujia language The Tujia language (Northern Tujia: Bifzivsar, ; Southern Tujia: Mongrzzirhof, ; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken natively by the Tujia people in Hunan Province, China. It is unclassif ...

, Hezhang Buyi displays circumfixal negation. Hezhang Buyi was only discovered in 2013.

Classification

Andrew Hsiu (2017) considers Hezhang Buyi to be an unknown Kra language that had become relexified by neighboring

Northern Tai languages The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand. Languages Ethnologue '' Ethnologue'' distin ...

. Although its autonym is ', it is highly divergent from the other Buyi dialects of Guizhou (Hsiu 2017). Hezhang Buyi has lost all final stop consonants. It shares lexical and phonological similarities with Buyi dialects spoken in

Zhijin County Zhijin County is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Bijie in west-central Guizhou province, China. History Zhijin has been inhabited since the Qin, populated mainly by the Gelao. After the Jin, the Yi moved i ...

and

Shuicheng County Shuicheng () is a district in the west of Guizhou province, China, bordering Yunnan province to the west. It is under the administration of Liupanshui Liupanshui () is a city in western Guizhou province, People's Republic of China. The name Liu ...

of western Guizhou, as well as with Gelao and Lachi. The substrate language of Hezhang Buyi cannot be traced to any modern-day Kra language, but appears to share similarities with various Gelao and Lachi

lect In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...

Distribution

Hezhang Buyi is spoken in Dazhai 大寨, Fuchu township 辅处乡, Hezhang County 赫章县, Guizhou, and may also be spoken in (Hsiu 2017): *Yuguo village 雨果村, Weining County *Zhuyuan 竹园, Kele Township 可乐乡,

*Tangbian 塘边, Zhuming Township 朱明乡,

References

*Hsiu, Andrew. 2013.
“Shui” varieties of western Guizhou and Yunnan
'. Presented at the 46th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL 46), Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States, August 7–10, 2013 (Session: Tai-Kadai Workshop). {{Tai-Kadai languages Tai languages Kra languages