Hlai languages

The Hlai languages (Chinese: 黎语; pinyin: Líyǔ) are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquial name for the Leizhou branch of Min Chinese (Chinese: 黎话; pinyin: Líhuà). They include Cun, whose speakers are ethnically distinct.[2] A quarter of Hlai speakers are monolingual. None of the Hlai languages had a writing system until the 1950s, when the Latin script was adopted for Ha.

Hlai
Li
Native toChina
RegionHainan
EthnicityHlai
Native speakers
667,000 (1999)[1]
Early form
Proto-Hlai (reconstructed)
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
lic – Hlai
cuq – Cun
Glottolognucl1241

Classification

Norquest (2007) classifies the Hlai languages as follows.[3] Individual languages are highlighted in bold. There are some 750,000 Hlai speakers.

  • Proto-Hlai
    • Bouhin (Heitu 黑土) – 73,000
    • Greater Hlai
      • Ha Em 哈炎 (Zhongsha 中沙) – 193,000
      • Central Hlai
        • East Central Hlai – 344,000
          • Lauhut (Baoding 保定) – 166,000, the basis of the literary language
          • Qi 杞 (also known as Gei) – 178,000
            • Tongzha (Tongshi 通什) – 125,000
            • Zandui (Qiandui 堑对) – 29,000
            • Baoting 保亭 – 24,000
        • North Central Hlai – 136,500
          • Northwest Central Hlai – 62,500
            • Cun 村语 (Ngan Fon, Gelong 仡隆) – 60,000
            • Nadou 那斗 (Dongfang 东方) – 2,500
          • Northeast Central Hlai – 74,000
            • Meifu 美孚 (Moifau) – 30,000
              • Changjiang 昌江
              • Moyfaw (Xifang 西方)
            • Run 润 (Zwn; also known as Bendi 本地) – 44,000
              • Baisha 白沙 – 36,000
              • Yuanmen 元门 – 8,000

Nadou is spoken by approximately 4,000 people in the two villages of Nadou 那斗村 (in Xinlong Town 新龙镇) and Yue 月村 (in Basuo Town 八所镇), in Dongfang, Hainan. Speakers refer to themselves as lai¹¹ and are officially classified by the Chinese government as ethnic Han Chinese.[4]

Jiamao 加茂 (52,000 speakers) is a divergent Kra-Dai language with a Hlai superstratum and a non-Hlai substratum.[3]

Reconstruction
Main article: Proto-Hlai language

The Proto-Hlai language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hlai languages. Proto-Hlai reconstructions include those of Matisoff (1988), Thurgood (1991), Ostapirat (2004), and Norquest (2007).

Phonology

The following displays the phonological features of the modern Hlai dialects:[5][6][7]

Consonants
Bilabial Labio-
dental		 Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal		 Velar Glottal
plain lab. plain lab. pal.
Plosive voiceless p t ȶ k kʷ ʔ
aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ kʰʷ
voiced ɡ ɡʷ
implosive ɓ ɗ
Affricate voiceless t͡s
aspirated t͡sʰ
Fricative voiceless f s x h hʷ hʲ
voiced v z ɣ
lateral ɬ
Nasal m (ɱ) n ȵ ŋ ŋʷ
Trill r
Approximant l ˀj ˀw
  • [ɬ], [f] mainly occur word-initially among various dialects. [ɬ] may also be realized as [tɬ].
  • [x], [ɣ] mainly occur among the Xifang dialects.
  • [ɣ] can also occur as an allophone of /ɡ/.
  • /t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /z/ are pronounced as alveolo-palatal sounds [t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], [ɕ], among other various dialects.
  • /r/ can have allophones as [ɾ, dɾ].
  • For a brief period of time Yuanmen distinguished /m/ and /ɱ/ after */ŋw/ became /ɱ/ which soon merged with /m/.[8]


Vowels
Front Central Back
High i ɯ u
Mid e ə o
ɛ ɔ
Low a
  • Among other Hlai dialects, /a, i, e, o/ can have allophones of [ɐ, ɪ, ɛ, ɔ].
  • Vowel sounds /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are common among the Baisha and Jiamao dialects.
  • /ə/ occurs among some dialects.

History

Liang & Zhang (1996:18-21)[9] conclude that the original homeland of the Hlai languages was the Leizhou Peninsula, and estimate that the Hlai had migrated across the Hainan Strait to Hainan island about 4,000 years before present.[9]

See also

Notes
  1. Hlai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Cun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Ethnologue mistakenly lists Cun among the Kra languages.
  3. Norquest, Peter K. (2007). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai (Ph.D. thesis). University of Arizona. hdl:10150/194203.
  4. Fu, Changzhong 符昌忠 (2020). Nadouyu yanjiu 那斗语研究. Beijing: Minzu chubanshe 民族出版社. OCLC 1294545717.
  5. Ostapirat, Weera (2008). "The Hlai Language". In Diller, Anthony V. N.; Edmondson, Jerold A.; Luo, Yongxian (eds.). The Tai-Kadai Languages. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 623–652.
  6. Yuan, Zhongshu 苑中树, ed. (1994). Líyǔ yǔfǎ gāngyào 黎语语法纲要 [An Outline of Li Grammar] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe. pp. 1–10.
  7. Ouyang, Jueya 欧阳觉亚 (1980). Líyǔ jiǎnzhì 黎语简志 [Description of the Li language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
  8. Norquest (2007), p. 106
  9. Liang, Min 梁敏; Zhang, Junru 张均如 (1996). Dòng tái yǔzú gàilùn 侗台语族概论 [An Introduction to the Kam–Tai Languages] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. ISBN 9787500416814.

References
  • Ostapirat, Weera (2005). "The Cun Language, by Ouyang Jueya. Shanghai Far East Publishers. 1998" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 28 (1): 99–105.
  • Ouyang, Jueya 欧阳觉亚; Zheng, Yiqing 郑贻青 (1983). Líyǔ diàochá yánjiū 黎语调查研究 [Li Language Investigation and Research] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.

Further reading
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