Yei Zhuang is a
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 complex spoken in
Wenshan Prefecture,
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...
,
China. Its speakers are also known as the
Sha (沙族).
Distribution
In
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...
, Yei Zhuang dialects are spoken in
Funing and
Guangnan counties (also in
Guangxi to the east and north), as well as
Qiubei (probably also in
Qujing
Qujing () is a prefecture-level city in the east of Yunnan province, China, bordering Guizhou province to the east and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to the southeast; thus, it was called "Key between Yunnan and Guizhou" () and "Throat of Yu ...
Municipality to the north). The largest concentrations of Yei Zhuang speakers are found in Qiubei (80% of total Zhuang population) and Funing (50% of total Zhuang population) counties (Johnson 2011a:43).
Po-ai, a
Tai language of Funing County described by
Fang-kuei Li in the mid-1900s, was determined by Johnson (2011b) to be a Yei Zhuang dialect.
Names
Below are various names (both
autonyms and exonyms) for speakers of Yei Zhuang (Johnson 2011a:43).
*pu Nong (濮侬)
* (Qiubei)
*bu Yai (布雅衣)
*bu Yei (布依, 布瑞, 布越)
*Shazu (沙族) or Sharen (沙人)
*Baisha (白沙)
*Nongqianbeng (侬迁绷)
*Zhongjia (仲家)
Many of these are names of
Bouyei as well.
Characteristics
There are no
palatalized consonants in
Qiubei Zhuang. /pj/ in
standard Zhuang is /p/, as in /pja1/ "fish", pjak7 "vegetable" is /pa/1, /pak/7.
[See Proto-Tai_language#Tones for an explanation of the tone codes.] /mj/ is m or n，for example mjaːk3 "slippery", mjaːi2 "saliva" as /ma6/, /naːi2/. /kj/ is merged into k or t，for example kjaːŋ1 "middle", kja4(orphan) is /kaːŋ3/, /tsa4/. The
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
k before i, e is changed to ts, for instance ki3 "several", kiːŋ2 (triangular cooker), ke5 "old" as /tʃi1/, /tʃiːŋ2/, /tʃes/.
References
* Johnson, Eric C. 2011a.
The Southern Zhuang Languages of Yunnan Province's Wenshan Prefecture from a Sociolinguistic Perspective"
orking paper S.l.: s.n. 49 pages.
* Johnson, Eric C. 2011b.
A Lexical and Phonological Comparison of the Central Taic Languages of Wenshan Prefecture, China: Getting More Out of Language Survey Wordlists Than Just Lexical Similarity Percentages. SIL Electronic Working Papers 2011-005: 170.
{{Tai-Kadai languages
Tai languages