The Bonan language (pronounced , ''Baonang''; Chinese: 保安语, ''Bǎo'ānyǔ''; Amdo Tibetan: ''Dorké'') is the

Mongolic language The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language f ...

of the

Bonan people The Bonan people ( zh, s=保安族, p=Bǎo'ānzú) are a distinct ethno-linguistic group from all other Mongolic peoples, living in Gansu and Qinghai provinces in Northwestern China. They are one of the " titular nationalities" of Gansu's Jishish ...

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 ...

. As of 1985, it was spoken by about 8,000 people, including about 75% of the total Bonan ethnic population and many ethnic

Monguor Mongour, formerly also known by various names including Tu and Dchiahour, may refer to: * Monguor people * Monguor language The Monguor language (; also written Mongour and Mongor) is a Mongolic language of its Shirongolic branch and is part of ...

, in

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

and

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

Provinces. There are several dialects, which are influenced to varying degrees — but always heavily — by

Chinese 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 ...

and

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

, while

bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

in Wutun is less common. The most commonly studied is the Tongren dialect. There is no writing system in use. The language is also referred to as "Manegacha", natively.

Phonology

Bonan phonology has been heavily influenced by Tibetan.

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 wit ...

s possess a voicedness contrast. Initial consonant clusters of mostly falling sonority are present in native words, as are heavy diphthongs, though the content of both is heavily restricted. The possible word-initial consonant clusters in Bonan are . Ñantoq Baoan has six vowels /a, e, ə, i, ɵ, u/, with long counterparts for all except /ə/.

Morphology

Bonan, like other

Mongolic languages The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language ...

, is agglutinative. There are five case markings for Bonan nouns:

Nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

, Accusative-Genitive, Dative-Locative, Ablative-Comparative, and Instrumentative. Verbal

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

is quite complex.

Evidentiality In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particul ...

is marked in the indicative mood as "definite" or "indefinite" with a specific suffix or with an auxiliary verb. The present definite is used to mark naturally occurring phenomena, while the present indefinite indicates the habits of animals. The indefinite may also mark volition. The future, continuous, and perfective suffixes also possess markers for evidentiality that are often used to mark negation.

Syntax

Bonan has a primary SOV (subject–object–verb), but topicalization of an object is common. It is known for its peculiar double marking of the copula. A Mongolic copula, of which there are several with different meanings, comes sentence-finally, following Bonan SOV word order, while a copula from Chinese "to be" appears between the copula's subject and complement, as in Chinese SVO word order. This Chinese copula is optional and is used to emphasize the subject. The definite, but not indefinite, copula can also act as a participle following some finite verbs. For example: Uniquely among Mongolic languages, adjectives follow the noun they modify. This is due to Tibetan influence.

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bonan Language Agglutinative languages Languages of China Southern Mongolic languages Subject–object–verb languages Bonans Mongolic languages