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Minyue Language
The Old Yue language ( zh, c=古越語, p=''Gu Yueyu'') is an unknown unclassified language (or many different languages). It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. It can also refer to the variety of different languages spoken by the Baiyue. Possible languages spoken by them may have been of Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and other origins. Knowledge of Yue speech is limited to fragmentary references and possible loanwords in other languages, principally Chinese. The longest attestation is the ''Song of the Yue Boatman'', a short song transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC and included, with a Chinese version, in the ''Garden of Stories'' compiled by Liu Xiang five centuries later. Native Nanyue people likely spoke Old Yue, while Han settlers and government officials spoke Old Chinese. Some suggest that the descendants of the Nanyue spoke Austroasiatic languages. Others suggest a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Plain 5c
Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of various ethnicities in contemporary China ** Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world and the majority ethnic group in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore ** Ethnic minorities in China, people of non-Han Chinese ethnicities in modern China ** Ethnic groups in Chinese history, people of various ethnicities in historical China ** Nationals of the People's Republic of China ** Nationals of the Republic of China ** Overseas Chinese, Chinese people residing outside the territories of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan * Sinitic languages, the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family ** Chinese language, a group of related languages spoken predominantly in China, sharing a written script (Chinese c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhuang People
The Zhuang (; ; za, Bouxcuengh, italic=yes; ) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. With the Bouyei, Nùng, Tày, and other Northern Tai speakers, they are sometimes known as the Rau or Rao people. Their population, estimated at 18 million people, makes them the largest minority in China, followed by the Hui and Manchu. Etymology The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times. Their autonym, "Cuengh" in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the graphic pejorative , (or ''tóng'', referring to a variety of wild dog).漢典.獞. Chinese. Accessed 14 August 2011. 新华字典, via 中华昌龙网. 字典频道.". Chinese. Accessed 14 August 2011. Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yangtze
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the seventh-largest river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The prosperous Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of historical GDP of China, China's GDP. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the list of the largest hydroelectric power stations, largest hydro-electric power station in the world that is in use. In mid-2014, the Chine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Zhengzhang Shangfang (; ; 9 August 1933 – 19 May 2018) was a Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese. Zhengzhang was born as Zheng Xiangfang ( ; ) in Yongjia County, on the outskirts of Wenzhou. As and have the same pronunciation in the Wenzhou dialect, his personal name became Shangfang ( ). While he was in high school, his parents changed his family name to Zhengzhang ( ), a combination of the parents' surnames (Zheng (surname), Zhèng and Zhang (surname), Zhāng). At this time, he became interested in historical phonology and studied the works of Yuen Ren Chao, Wang Li (linguist), Wang Li and others at Wenzhou's library. In 1954, unable to enter university to study linguistics, he began geological work in the Beijing area. In his spare time, he continued to develop his own ideas on Old Chinese phonology, particularly the finals and vowel system. In the 1960s and 1970s, he undertook dialect survey work in Wenzhou for Lü Shuxiang until he was sent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang (autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation is based on that of the Yongbei Zhuang dialect of Shuangqiao Town in Wuming District, Guangxi with some influence from Fuliang, also in Wuming District, while its vocabulary is based mainly on northern dialects. The official standard covers both spoken and written Zhuang. It is the national standard of the Zhuang languages, though in Yunnan a local standard is used. Phonology The following displays the phonological features of the Wuming and northern dialects of Zhuang: Consonants Among other northern dialects of Zhuang, may be heard as a or sound. Absent consonant produces . An unusual and rare feature that Zhuang possesses is the lack of /s/, which is a common fricative among most languages that have them (one other notable exception is in the Australian languages), and yet Zhuang ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly larger, is claimed but not controlled by the PRC. It is instead controlled by the Republic of China, a ''de facto'' separate country. makes up the vast majority (97%) of the province. The name means "south of the sea", reflecting the island's position south of the Qiongzhou Strait, which separates it from Leizhou Peninsula. The province has a land area of , of which Hainan the island is and the rest is over 200 islands scattered across three archipelagos: Zhongsha, Xisha and Nansha. It was part of Guangdong from 1950–88, after which it resumed as a top-tier entity and almost immediately made the largest Special Economic Zone by Deng Xiaoping as part of the then-ongoing Chinese economic reform program. Indigenous peoples like th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy LaPolla
Randy John LaPolla () is a professor and former Head of Division at thDivision of Linguistics and Multilingual Studiesin Nanyang Technological University. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, elected 2008. He is currently Professor of Linguistics at the Center for Language Sciences at Beijing Normal University's Zhuhai campus, and Associate Fellow of CLASS, Nanyang Technological University. LaPolla has done research in various areas of linguistics. He has worked on the typology and morphosyntactic patterns of Sino-Tibetan languages, examined methodology for carrying out linguistic work in these languages and also done language documentation in Qiang and Dulong/Rawang. He is well known as the author of a grammar of Qiang (LaPolla and Huang 2003) and as the coauthor of Van Valin and LaPolla (1997), a major work in Role and Reference Grammar. As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, LaPolla was part of James Matisoff's STEDT pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainland Southeast Asia Linguistic Area
The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar typological features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion. James Matisoff referred to this area as the "Sinosphere", contrasted with the "Indosphere", but viewed it as a zone of mutual influence in the ancient period. Language distribution The Austroasiatic languages include Vietnamese and Khmer, as well as many other languages spoken in scattered pockets as far afield as Malaya and eastern India. Most linguists believe that Austroasiatic languages once ranged continuously across southeast Asia and that their scattered distribution today is the result of the subsequent migration of speakers of other language groups from southern China. Chinese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietic Languages
The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by the Vietic peoples in Laos and Vietnam. The branch was once referred to by the terms ''Việt–Mường'', ''Annamese–Muong'', and ''Vietnamuong''; the term ''Vietic'' was proposed by La Vaughn Hayes, who proposed to redefine ''Việt–Mường'' as referring to a sub-branch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Mường. Many of the Vietic languages have tonal or phonational systems intermediate between that of Viet–Muong and other branches of Austroasiatic that have not had significant Chinese or Tai influence. Vietnamese, today, has had significant Chinese influence especially in vocabulary and tonal system. Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary accounts for about 30–60% of Vietnamese vocabulary, not including calques from Chinese. Origins The ancestor of the Vietic language is traditionally assumed to have been located in today's North Vietnam. However, the origin of the Vietic languages rem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Austroasiatic
Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austroasiatic languages. Proto-Mon–Khmer (i.e., all Austroasiatic branches except for Munda) has been reconstructed in Harry L. Shorto's ''Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary'', while a new Proto-Austroasiatic reconstruction is currently being undertaken by Paul Sidwell. Scholars generally date the ancestral language to 5,000-4,000 B.P. (i.e. 3,000-2,000 BCE) with a homeland in southern China or the Mekong River valley. Sidwell (2022) proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the Red River Delta area about 4,000-4,500 years before present. Phonology Shorto (2006) The Proto-Mon–Khmer language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Mon–Khmer languages, a purported primary branch of the Austroasiatic language family. However, Mon–Khmer as a taxon has been abandoned in recent classifications, making Proto-Mon–Khmer synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic;Sidwell, Paul (2009)The Austroasiatic Central Riveri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify 3,500–4,000 BCE on Taiwan. Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian. Phonology Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed by constructing sets of correspondences among consonants in the various Austronesian languages, according to the comparative method. Although in theory the result should be unambiguous, in practice given the large number of languages there are numerous disagreements, with various scholars differing significantly on the number and nature of the phonemes in Proto-Austronesian. In the past, some disagreements concerned whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
