The U language, or P'uman (), is spoken by 40,000 people in the Yunnan Province of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and possibly
Myanmar
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...
. It is classified as an
Austroasiatic language
The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
in the
Palaungic branch. In China, U speakers are classified as ethnic
Bulang.
Locations
U is spoken in
Shuangjiang County of Yunnan and other nearby counties.
*Wang & Chen (1981) covers the dialect of Pengpan 碰拚, Dafengshan Township 大凤山乡,
Shuangjiang County.
*Zhou & Yan (1983) covers the dialect of Pangpin 胖品, Yongge Township 永革乡,
Shuangjiang County.
*Yan & Zhou (2012) cover U of Gantang 甘塘,
Yongde County
Yongde County () is a county in the west of Yunnan province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city
A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of ...
as well as U of Pangpin 胖品.
*Svantesson (1991:67) documents the U dialect of Pã Xɛp (Bangxie, 邦协), Shahe Township 沙河乡,
Shuangjiang County.
There two main dialects of U in
Shuangjiang County: one spoken in Gongnong (公弄, now part of Mengku Town, 勐库镇) and one spoken in Bangbing (邦丙) and Dawen Mangga (大文乡忙嘎); the Dawen dialect is reportedly mutually intelligible with that of
Shidian County
Shidian County () is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Baoshan, in the west of Yunnan
Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population o ...
(''Shuangjiang County Ethnic Gazetteer'' 1995:160).
Avala (
autonym
Autonym may refer to:
* Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym
* Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name
See also
* Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...
: ''a21 va21 la21'') is spoken in Bangliu (邦六), Manghuai Township (芒怀乡), Yun County (云县), Yunnan, China.
Phonology
U has four tones, ''high'', ''low'', ''rising'', ''falling'', which developed from vowel length and the nature of final consonants.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Gazetteers and other Chinese government sources with lexical data
*Nanjian County Gazetteer Commission
��涧县志编纂委员会编(ed). 1993. ''Nanjian County Gazetteer''
��涧彝族自治县志 Chengdu: Sichuan Reference Press
��川辞书出版社
*Na Ruzhen
��汝珍 et al. (eds). 1994. ''Zhenkang County Ethnic Gazetteer''
��康县民族志 Kunming: Yunnan People's Press
��南民族出版社
*Simao Prefecture Ethnic Minority Affairs Bureau
��茅行暑民族事务委员会(ed). 1990. ''A study of the Bulang people''
��朗族研究 m.s.
*Xiao Dehua
��德虎 et al. (eds). 1992. ''Zhenkang County Gazetteer''
��康县志 1992. Chengdu: Sichuan People's Press
��川民族出版社
*Yunnan Gazetteer Commission
��南省地方志编纂委员会(ed). 1998. ''Yunnan Provincial Gazetteer, Vol. 59: Minority Languages Orthographies Gazetteer''
��南省志. 卷五十九, 少数民族语言文字志 Kunming: Yunnan People's Press
��南人民出版社
External links
RWAAI , ProjectsRWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
*
http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-67B4-3@view U in RWAAI Digital Archive
{{Austro-Asiatic languages
Palaungic languages
Languages of Yunnan