Bolyu language
| Bolyu | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [pə˧ lju˩˧] |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Longlin County, Guangxi |
| Ethnicity | Bolyu 1,800 (2007)[1] |
Native speakers | 1,400 (2012)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ply |
| Glottolog | boly1239 |
| ELP | Bolyu |
The Bolyu language (autonym: [pə˧ lju˩˧]; Chinese: 巴琉语, 布流语; also known as Paliu, Palyu, or Lai 俫语, 徕语) is an Austroasiatic language of the Pakanic branch.[2]
Classification
[edit]Bolyu is related to the Bugan language, forming the Pakanic branch along with it. In 1984, Bolyu was first studied by Liang Min of the Nationalities Research Institute in Beijing. Liang was the first to suggest a Mon–Khmer affiliation of Bolyu, which was later confirmed by Western linguists such as Paul K. Benedict, Paul Sidwell, and Jerold A. Edmondson. However, the place of the Pakanic branch within the Mon–Khmer family is uncertain. Sidwell (1995) suggests that the Pakanic branch may be an Eastern Mon–Khmer branch, thus making it most closely related to the Vietic branch. However, Gérard Diffloth classifies Pakanic as Northern Mon–Khmer, making it most closely related to the Palaungic branch.[3] Paul Sidwell later classified Bolyu and Bugan together as forming a separate Pakanic branch within Austroasiatic, while Mang is excluded as yet another separate branch of Austroasiatic.[4]
Distribution
[edit]Bolyu speakers are found in the following locations in southern China.[5][6][7]
- Douhong 斗烘屯, Xinhe 新合村, Changfa township 长发, Longlin County, Guangxi (often living with Gelao neighbors). Also spoken in the nearby townships of Kechang 克长, De'e 德峨, and Changme 长么.[8]
- Xinhe 新合村 - Datiezhai 打铁寨, Changfajie 长发街: 50 speakers
- Xinhua 新华村 - Luowan 罗湾: 300; Kabao 卡保, Renshang 仁上: 160 speakers
- Villages with only Bolyu people: Muzi 亩子, Dazhai 大寨, Xiaozhai 小寨
- Guosha/Hengsha 过沙/亨沙, Wenya 文雅村, Puhe Miao Autonomous Township 普合苗族自治乡, Xilin County, Guangxi. Also spoken in Naya 那牙, Badahe Township 八大河乡.[8] 230 speakers total.
Li (1999) documents the Bolyu variety of Muzitun 亩子屯, Xinhe Village 新合村, Changfa Township 长发乡, Longlin County, Guangxi.
In the following villages, only elderly speakers of Bolyu remain.
- Zhelang township 者浪乡: Zhezhai 者寨, Langrong 郎荣, Linghao 岭好
- Kechang township 克场乡: Haichang 海长
- Shechang township 蛇场乡: Daguo 达果
1,400 Bolyu reside in Guangxi, and over 1,000 in Yunnan.[8] There are also some Bolyu in Guangnan County, Yunnan.[citation needed]
Phonology
[edit]Bolyu is a monosyllabic tonal language like the surrounding Tai–Kadai, Hmong-Mien and even Vietic languages. Unlike Bugan, Bolyu does not have a tense–lax voice quality distinction.
Consonants
[edit]The following phonemes in Bolyu is inferred by Hsiu (2016) from field trips conducted by Li Xulian (1999)'s documentation of the Muzitun (亩子屯) dialect of Bolyu spoken in Xinhe Village (新合村), Changfa Township (长发乡), Longlin County, Guangxi and Hsiu (2012) in Changfa, Longlin. The Bolyu informants state that the language has some internal differences but mostly in tones, and these dialects are still mutually intelligible with each other.[9]
Onsets
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) Palatal |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | sibilant | |||||||||||||||||
| plain | pal. | vel. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | lab. | |||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| Plosive/ | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | t͡s | t͡sʲ | tɕ | tɕʲ | tɕʷ | k | kʲ | kʷ | q | ʔ | ʔʲ | ʔʷ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | pʰʲ | tʰ | tʰʲ | t͡sʰ | tɕʰ | tɕʰʲ | tɕʰʷ | kʰ | kʰʲ | qʰ | |||||||
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ᵐbʲ | ⁿd | ⁿdʲ | ||||||||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | ɬ | ɬʲ | s | sʲ | ɕ | ɕʲ | ɕʷ | h | hʲ | hʷ | ||||||
| voiced | v | vʲ | vˠ | ʑ | ɣ | ɣʲ | ||||||||||||
| Approximant | l | lʲ | j | w | ||||||||||||||
The Bolyu variety reported by Yan (2012) does not have /tɕʲ tɕʷ tɕʰʲ tɕʰʷ/ onset clusters, but instead it has /tsʰv sw kʰw hˠ/.
Codas
[edit]| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Semivowel | u̯ | i̯ |
Vowels
[edit]The Bolyu vowel system contains eight vowels, in which some of them are contrastive in length.[11] However, Bugan's phonemic nasalization and tense-lax distinction are absent in Bolyu.[12]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | ɯ | u uː |
| Close-mid | e eː | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɔ | ||
| Open | a aː |
| Short | Long | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel | Example | Vowel | Example |
| a | ɕaŋ⁵⁵ 'green' | aː | qaːt̚³¹ 'to run' |
| i | ʑi¹¹ 'tree root' | iː | ɬiːt̚⁵³ 'to die' |
| e | nde⁵³ 'water' | eː | laːp̚³¹ qeːŋ⁵³ 'chin' |
| u | mbuŋ⁵⁵ 'skin' | uː | mbuːŋ⁵⁵ 'liver' |
| ɔ | ʑɔŋ⁵⁵ 'foot' | ||
| ə | tɕəŋ⁵⁵ 'ginger' | ||
| ɯ | tɯ³³ 'to shoot' | ||
| o | to⁵⁵ 'near' | ||
Suprasegmentals (tones)
[edit]The 6-tone system in Bolyu is divided into nine categories. Two tones /31, 53/ occur in checked syllables (syllables ending with stop codas /-p̚, -t̚, -k̚/). Another six tones are found distributed in syllables ending with either sonorant codas or vowels.[13]
| Tone | Contour | Tone letter | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| low level | 11 | ˩ | open syllables |
| low rising | 13 | ˩˧ | open syllables |
| mid falling | 31 | ˧˩ | checked (-p̚, -t̚, -k̚) & open syllables |
| mid level | 33 | ˧ | open syllables |
| high falling | 53 | ˥˧ | checked & open syllables |
| high level | 55 | ˥ | open syllables |
Morphosyntax
[edit]In Bolyu, there are certainly a number of prefixal elements that usually occur in some particular semantic class of words, although some of them do not seem to show the same semantic classification, at least not synchronically or transparently.
- An prefix mɔ- is often found in some broad categories of words, including body parts, fauna, and flora nomenclature with unclear meaning and function:[14] mɔ⁵³ qɔ⁵⁵ 'dog skin tree'; mɔ⁵³ tɕi³¹ 'walnut tree'; mɔ⁵³ ɣuːn¹³ 'bamboo'; mɔ⁵³ tshau⁵⁵ tshən⁵³ 'camphorwood tree'; mɔ⁵³ ljaːŋ³¹ 'eagle'.
- An unknown prefix ɬai- that may be found in some flora terms. Eg. ɬai⁵³ tjit̚⁵³ 'persimmon'; ɬai⁵³ kwe⁵⁵ 'chestnut'; ɬai⁵³ kek̚⁵³ 'pear tree'; ɬai⁵³ kaːm⁵⁵ 'orange tree'; ɬai⁵³ tən⁵³ 'melon'.
- A prefix lɔŋ-:[15] lɔŋ¹³ mi³¹ 'nose'; lɔŋ¹³ ʔi⁵³ 'butt hole'; lɔŋ¹³ mat̚⁵³ 'eye socket'.
The monosyllabic elements carrying lexical meanings also appear in lexicalized verb-noun compounds, i.e. noun incorporation, but some of them cannot manifest in free isolation. Eg. vɯŋ¹³qɔ⁵³ 'to catch fish'; tse³¹lei⁵⁵ 'to beat cow' (cf. kau¹¹lei⁵⁵ 'cow horn', lɔk⁵³lei⁵⁵ 'cowherd').[16] Similar lexicalized incorporation patterns are also found in Bugan, Munda, Nicobarese, Khasic, Vietic, Monic, Aslian as well, suggesting these systems being remnants of Proto-Austroasiatic morphosyntax.[17]
Notes
[edit]- 1 2 Bolyu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ↑ Sidwell (1995)
- ↑ Van Driem, George (2007). "Austroasiatic Phylogeny and the Austroasiatic Homeland in Light of Recent Population Genetic Studies" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 37: 1–14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
- ↑ Sidwell, Paul. 2015. "Austroasiatic classification." In Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell, eds (2015). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
- ↑ Edmondson (1995)
- ↑ 俫语使用人口稳定增长原因探究
- ↑ Li (1999)
- 1 2 3 Guangxi Minority Languages Orthography Committee (2008). Guǎngxī mínzú yǔyán fāng yīn cíhuì 广西民族语言方音词汇 [Vocabularies of Guangxi Ethnic Languages] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
- ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 7.
- ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 8.
- ↑ Sidwell 2021, p. 508.
- ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 17.
- ↑ Sidwell 1995.
- ↑ Anderson 2021, p. 36.
- ↑ Anderson 2014, p. 408.
- ↑ Anderson 2021, p. 37.
- ↑ Anderson 2021, pp. 37–38.
References
[edit]- Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2014). "Overview of the Munda languages". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 364–414. doi:10.1163/9789004283572_006. ISBN 978-90-04-28295-7.
- Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2021). "On the Role of Areal and Genetic Factors in the Development of the Word-Structure and Morphosyntax of the Munda Languages". In Mohan, Shailendra (ed.). Advances in Munda Linguistics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 22–77. ISBN 978-1527570474.
- Benedict, Paul K. (1990). "How to Tell Lai: An Exercise in Classification" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 13 (2): 1–26.
- Edmondson, Jerold A. (1995). "English-Bolyu Glossary" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 24: 133–159.
- Edmondson, Jerold A.; Gregerson, Kenneth J. (1996). "Bolyu Tone in Vietic Perspective" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 26: 117–133.
- Hsiu, Andrew (2016). "A Preliminary Reconstruction of Proto-Pakanic" (Final term paper for a Payap University graduate course). doi:10.5281/zenodo.1127812 – via Zenodo.
- Jiang, Jun 蒋俊 (2005). Cūnluò shìyě zhōng de zúqún yǔ mínzú: Guānyú lái rén de tiányě yánjiū 村落视野中的族群与民族：关于俫人的田野研究 [Ethnic Group and Nation in the Village Vision: Field Research About Lai People] (M.A. thesis) (in Chinese). Guangxi shifan daxue. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-10-10. http://www.docin.com/p-380721709.html
- Li, Xulian 李旭练 (1999). Láiyǔ yánjiū 倈语硏究 [A Study of Lai (Bolyu)] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe.
- 俫语使用人口稳定增长原因探究. In 中国少数民族语言使用现状及其演变研究.
- Qin, Xiaohang; Li, Fanglan (2011). "The Status Quo and Trend of Language Use by Lai People" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 40: 107–115. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-06-26.
- Sidwell, Paul (1995). "Bolyu is a Mon–khmer Language: Even if Benedict Says So!". La Trobe Working Papers in Linguistics. 8. hdl:1959.9/538289.
- Sidwell, Paul (2021). "Northern Austroasiatic languages of MSEA". The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. De Gruyter. pp. 499–546. doi:10.1515/9783110558142-023.
