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A'ou Language
A'ou (阿欧方言) or Red Gelao (红仡佬语) is an endangered Gelao language spoken by fewer than 100 people in Guizhou, China. Only the Hongfeng (红丰) and Bigong (比贡) dialects are still spoken, each with only a few dozen speakers. Dialects The main dialects of A'ou, which all have limited mutual intelligibility, are: *Hongfeng (红丰) *Bigong (比贡) *Qiaoshang (桥上) (extinct) Only one elderly speaker of the Houzitian (猴子田) dialect was found in 2013, and it is likely now extinct. Mulao (木佬) is sometimes also included, in addition to Yi (羿), an extinct A'ou variety of Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ....Zhang Jimin 张済民. 1993. ''Gelao yu yan jiu 仡佬语研究 (A study of Gelao)''. Guiyang, China: Guizhou People's Press ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the south, Yunnan to the west, Sichuan to the northwest, the municipality of Chongqing to the north, and Hunan to the east. The population of Guizhou stands at 38.5 million, ranking 18th among the provinces in China. The Dian Kingdom, which inhabited the present-day area of Guizhou, was annexed by the Han dynasty in 106 BC. Guizhou was formally made a province in 1413 during the Ming dynasty. After the overthrow of the Qing in 1911 and following the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party took refuge in Guizhou during the Long March between 1934 and 1935. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong promoted the relocation of heavy industry into inland provinces such as Guizhou, to better protect them fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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'' comes from the word C "human" as reconstructed by Ostapirat (2000), which appears in various Kra languages as ''kra'', ''ka'', ''fa'' or ''ha''. Benedict (1942) used the term ''Kadai'' for the Kra and Hlai languages grouped together and the term ''Kra-Dai'' is proposed by Ostapirat (2000). The Kra branch was first identified as a unified group of languages by Liang (1990),Liang Min 梁敏. 1990Geyang yuqun de xishu wenti 仡央语群的系属问题/ On the affiliation of the Ge-Yang group of languages." In ''Minzu Yuwen'' 民族语文 1990(6): 1-8. who called it the ''Geyang'' 仡央 languages. ''Geyang'' 仡央 is a portmanteau of the first syllable of ''Ge''- in Gelao and the last syllable of -''yang'' in Buyang. The name ''Kra'' was propos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gelao Languages
Gelao (autonym: Kláo, Chinese: 仡佬 Gēlǎo, Vietnamese: Cờ Lao) is a cluster of Kra languages in the Kra–Dai language family. It is spoken by the Gelao people in southern China and northern Vietnam. Despite an ethnic population of 580,000 (2000 census of China), only a few thousand still speak Gelao in China. Estimates run from 3,000 in China by Li in 1999, of which 500 are monolinguals, to 7,900 by Edmondson in 2008. Edmondson (2002) estimates that the three Gelao varieties of Vietnam have only about 350 speakers altogether. External relationships Like Buyang, another Kra language, Gelao contains many words which are likely to be Austronesian cognates. (''See Austro-Tai languages''.) As noted by Li and Zhou,李锦芳/Li, Jinfang and 周国炎/Guoyan Zhou. 仡央语言探索/Geyang yu yan tan suo. Beijing, China: 中央民族大学出版社/Zhong yang min zu da xue chu ban she, 1999. Gelao shares much vocabulary with the Hlai and Ong Be languages, suggesting contac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguistics), variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum. Intelligibility Factors An individual's achievement of moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and practical application if the two l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mulao Language (Kra)
Mulao (), also known as Ayo, is a possibly extinct Kra language spoken in Guizhou, China. Spoken in Longli County and Majiang County in Guizhou, it is estimated that the language may be extinct or have only have a few living speakers. As of 2011, there are no newspapers, radio programs, or television broadcasts in the language, and it is not recognized by the government, nor taught in schools. Mulao speakers are classified as Gelao people by the government of China, but Mulao speakers do not understand the Gelao languages. It is closely related to A'ou. Demographics The Mulao number 28,000 people, and are distributed in Majiang, Kaili, Huangping, Duyun, Weng'an, Fuquan, and other counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ... of southeastern Guizhou. The Mulao ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (linguistics)
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, Marjorie and Janie Rees-Miller. (2001) "Language in social contexts." In W. O'Grady, J. Archibald, M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds) ''Contemporary Linguistics''. pp. 537-590. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. The use of the word "variety" to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term ''language'', which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term ''dialect'', which is often associated with non-standard varieties thought of as less prestigious or "correct" than the standard.Schilling-Estes, Natalies. (2006) "Dialect variation." In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor-Linton (eds) ''An Introduction to Language and Linguistics''. pp. 311-341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linguists speak of both standard and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west. In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for Qin Shi Huang's unification of China under the Qin dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Bei's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
