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The Bai language (Bai: ; ) is a language spoken in China, primarily in
Yunnan Province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...
, by the Bai people. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three or four main
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 linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
s. Bai syllables are always open, with a rich set of
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s and eight tones. The tones are divided into two groups with modal and non-modal ( tense, harsh or breathy) phonation. There is a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, Bowen (), as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation using the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
. The origins of Bai have been obscured by intensive Chinese influence of an extended period. Different scholars have proposed that it is an early offshoot or sister language of Chinese, part of the Loloish branch or a separate group within the Sino-Tibetan family.


Varieties

Xu and Zhao (1984) divided Bai into three dialects, which may actually be distinct languages:
Jianchuan Jianchuan County () is a county in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in the western part of Yunnan Province, China. The county is about southwest of Lijiang and north of Dali. The historical town of Shaxi in the southeast of the coun ...
(Central), Dali (Southern) and Bijiang (Northern). Bijiang County has since been renamed as Lushui County. Jianchuan and Dali are closely related and speakers are reported to be able to understand one another after living together for a month. The more divergent Northern dialects are spoken by about 15,000 Laemae (', Lemei, Lama), a clan numbering about 50,000 people who are partly submerged within the
Lisu Lisu may refer to: *Lisu people, an ethnic group of Southeast Asia *Lisu language, spoken by the Lisu people * Old Lisu Alphabet or Fraser Alphabet *Lisu syllabary * Lisu (Unicode block), the block of Unicode characters for the Lisu language. *Lisu ...
. They are now designated as two languages by
ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
: * Panyi, spoken by people called ''Lemo'' () on the Nu River (upper Salween) in Lushui County. * Lama, spoken by people called ''Lama'' () on the Lancang River (upper
Mekong The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...
) in
Lanping County Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County (; Bai: Ketdant Baifcuf Pupmipcuf zibzibxiand) is located in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. Administrative divisions Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County has 4 towns and 4 tow ...
and Weixi County. Wang Feng (2012) provides the following classification for nine Bai dialects: ;Bai *Western **Gongxing (),
Lanping County Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County (; Bai: Ketdant Baifcuf Pupmipcuf zibzibxiand) is located in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. Administrative divisions Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County has 4 towns and 4 tow ...
**(''core branch'') ***Enqi (),
Lanping County Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County (; Bai: Ketdant Baifcuf Pupmipcuf zibzibxiand) is located in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. Administrative divisions Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County has 4 towns and 4 tow ...
; Jinman (金满), Lushui County ***Tuoluo (), Weixi County ***Ega (), Lushui County *Eastern **Mazhelong (),
Qiubei County Qiubei County () is under the administration of the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in southeast Yunnan province, China. Administrative divisions In the present, Qiubei County has 3 towns, 4 townships and 5 ethnic townships. ;3 to ...
**(''core branch'') ***Jinxing (),
Jianchuan County Jianchuan County () is a county in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in the western part of Yunnan Province, China. The county is about southwest of Lijiang and north of Dali. The historical town of Shaxi in the southeast of the coun ...
***Dashi (),
Heqing County Heqing County () is a county in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in the northwest of Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a pop ...
***Zhoucheng (),
Dali City Dali City () is the county-level seat of the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Yunnan. Dali City is administered through 12 township-level districts, two of which are also commonly referred to as Dali. Xiaguan () formerly ...
Wang (2012) also documents a Bai dialect in Xicun, Dacun Village, Shalang Township, Kunming City (昆明市沙朗乡大村西村).


Classification

The affiliation of Bai is obscured by over two millennia of influence from
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ma ...
, leaving most of its lexicon related to Chinese etyma of various periods. To determine its origin, researchers must first identify and remove from consideration the various layers of
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s and then examine the residue. In his survey of the field, Wang (2006) notes that early work was hampered by a lack of data on Bai and uncertainties in the reconstruction of early forms of Chinese. Recent authors have suggested that Bai is an early offshoot from Chinese, a sister language to Chinese, or more distantly related (though usually still Sino-Tibetan). There are different tonal correspondences in the various layers. Many words can be identified as later Chinese loans because they display Chinese sound changes from the last two millennia: *
labiodental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Labiodental consonants in the IPA The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s, which developed from earlier labial stops in certain environments. *
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
affricates from earlier
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
stops in palatal environments. * aspirated stops from earlier voiced stops in words having the
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
level tone. * the initial , which developed from
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
*r-. Some of these changes date back to the first centuries AD. The oldest layer of Bai vocabulary with Chinese cognates, of which Wang lists some 250 words, includes common Bai words that were also common in
Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
, but are not used in modern
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ma ...
. Its features have been compared with current ideas on Old Chinese phonology: * The voiceless nasals and lateral postulated for Old Chinese are absent, though in some cases the reflexes match those in western dialects of Han Chinese, rather than those of eastern dialects from which
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
and most modern varieties are descended. * Where Middle Chinese has ''l-'', believed to be a reflex of Old Chinese *r, Bai varieties have before , before a nasal final, and elsewhere. However, in words where Middle Chinese ''l-'' corresponds to in inland
Min dialects Min (; BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaoshan ...
, Bai often has a stop initial, providing support for Baxter and Sagart's suggestion that such initials derive from clusters. * Old Chinese *l- generally has similar palatal and dental reflexes in Bai and Middle Chinese, but seems to be preserved in a few Bai words. * The Old Chinese finals *-aw and *-u merged in Middle Chinese syllables without a palatal medial by the 4th century AD, but are still distinguished in Bai. * Several words with Old Chinese *-ts, which developed to ''-j'' with the departing tone in Middle Chinese, produce tonal reflexes in Bai corresponding to an original stop coda.
Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...
suggests that these facts indicate a split from mainstream Chinese around the 2nd century BC, corresponding to the
Western Han The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...
period. Wang argues that a few of the correspondences between his reconstructed Proto-Bai and Old Chinese cannot be explained by the Old Chinese forms, and that Chinese and Bai therefore form a Sino-Bai group. However, Gong suggests that at least some of these cases can be accounted for by refining the Proto-Bai reconstruction to take account of
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...
within Bai. Starostin and
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 ...
have separately argued that the oldest Chinese layer accounts for all but an insignificant residue of Bai vocabulary, and that Bai is therefore an early branching from Chinese. On the other hand, Lee and Sagart (1998) argued that the various layers of Chinese vocabulary are loans, and that when they are removed, a significant non-Chinese residue remains, including 15 entries from the 100-word
Swadesh list The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatednes ...
of basic vocabulary. They suggest that this residue shows similarities with Proto-Loloish. James Matisoff (2001) argued that the comparison with Loloish is less persuasive when considering other Bai varieties than the Jianchuan dialect used by Lee and Sagart, and that it is safer to consider Bai as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan, though perhaps close to the neighbouring Loloish. Lee and Sagart (2008) refined their analysis, presenting the residue as a non-Chinese form of Sino-Tibetan, though not necessarily Loloish. They also note that this residue includes the Bai vocabulary relating to pig rearing and rice agriculture. Lee and Sagart's analysis has been further discussed by List (2009). Gong (2015) suggests that the residual layer may be Qiangic, pointing out that the Bai, like the Qiang, call themselves "white", whereas the Lolo use "black".


Phonology

The Jianchuan dialect has the following consonants, all of which are restricted to syllable-initial position: The Gongxing and Tuolou dialects retain an older 3-way distinction for stop and affricate initials between voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and voiced. In the core eastern group, including the standard form of Dali, the voiced initials have become voiceless unaspirated, while other dialects show partial loss of voicing, conditioned by tone in different ways. Some varieties also have an additional
uvular nasal The voiced uvular nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital version of the Latin letter n; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbo ...
that contrasts phonemically with . Jianchuan finals comprise: * pure vowels: * diphthongs: * triphthong: All but , and have contrasting
nasalized In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internationa ...
variants. Dali Bai lacks nasal vowels. Some other varieties retain nasal codas instead of nasalization, though only the Gongxing and Tuolou dialects have a contrast between and . Jianchuan has eight tones, divided between those with modal and non-modal phonation. Some of the western varieties have fewer tones.


Syntax

Bai has a basic subject–verb–object ( SVO) order. However, SOV can be found in interrogative and negative sentences.


Writing system


Latin script

The old Bai script used modified
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
, but its use was limited. A new script based on the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
was designed in 1958, based on the speech of the urban centre of Xiaguan, even though it was not a typical Southern dialect. The idea of romanization was controversial among Bai elites and the system saw little use. In a renewed attempt in 1982, language planners used the Jianchuan dialect as a base, because it represented an area with a significant population, almost all of whom spoke Bai. The new script was popular in the Jianchuan area, but was rejected in the more economically advanced area of Dali, which also had the largest number of speakers, albeit living alongside a large number of speakers of Chinese. The script was revised extensively in 1993 to define two variants, representing Jianchuan and Dali respectively and has since been more widely used. The retroflex initials ''zh'', ''ch'', ''sh'' and ''r'' are used only in recent loanwords from Standard Chinese or for other Bai varieties. The 1993 revision introduced variants ''ai''/''er'' etc, with the former to be used for Jianchuan Bai and the latter for Dali Bai. In Jianchuan, all vowels but ''ao'', ''iao'', ''uo'', ''ou'' and ''iou'' have nasalized counterparts, denoted by a suffixed ''n''. Dali Bai lacks nasalized vowels. Suffixed letters indicate tone contours and modal or non-modal phonation. This was the most radical aspect of the 1993 revision:


Bowen script

Bowen script (), also known as Square Bai Script (), Hanzi Bai Script (), Hanzi-style Bai Script (), or Ancient Bai Script (), was a
logographic script In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
formerly used by the Bai people, adapted from Hanzi to fit the Bai language. The script was used from the
Nanzhao Nanzhao (, also spelled Nanchao, ) was a dynastic kingdom that flourished in what is now southern China and northern Southeast Asia during the 8th and 9th centuries. It was centered on present-day Yunnan in China. History Origins Nanzh ...
period to the beginning of the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
. The Shanhua tablet (山花碑), from
Dali Town Dali Town () is a township-level division in Dali City, in the northwest of Yunnan province, China. The town contains the historic centre of the county-level city of Dali and is also commonly known as Dali Old Town (). The modern centre of ...
in
Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
, contains a poem written using Bowen text from the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
by the Bai poet Yang fu (杨黼), 《詞記山花·詠蒼洱境》.


Examples

Nge, no – I
Ne, no – you Cai ho – red flower
Gei bo – rooster
A de gei bo – a rooster Ne mian e ain hain? – What's your name?
Ngo mian e A Lu Gai. – My name is A Lu Gai.
Ngo ze ne san se yin a biu. – I don't recognize you. Ngo ye can. – I'm eating.
Ne can ye la ma? – Have you eaten?
Ne ze a ma yin? – Who are you?
Ne ze nge mo a bio. – You are not my mother.
Ngo zei pi ne gan. – I'm taller than you.
Ne nge no hha si bei. – You won't let me go.


Notes


References

Works cited * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Allen, Bryan and Zhang Xia. 2004. ''Bai Dialect Survey''. Yunnan Nationalities Publishing House.
CLDF
Dataset a
Zenodo
. * *Wāng, Fēng. 2013. Báiyǔ yǔ báizú de liúbiàn: Duōjiǎodù jiéhé de shìyě 白語與白族的流變:多角度結合的視野. In Fēng Shí and Gāng Péng, editors, Dàjiāng Dōngqù: Wāng Shìyuán Jiàoshòu Bāshísuì Hèshòu Wénjí. 大江東去:王士元教授八十歲賀壽文集. City University of Hong Kong Press. *Xú, Lín and Yǎnsūn Zhào. 1984. Báiyǔ Jiǎnzhì 白语简志. Mínzú Chūbǎnshè. *Yuán, Míngjūn. 2006. Hànbáiyǔ diàochá yánjiū 汉白语调查研究. Zhōngguó Wénshǐ Chūbǎnshè. *Zhào, Yǎnsūn and Lín Xú. 1996. Bái-Hàn Cídiǎn 白汉词典. Sìchuān Mínzú Chūbǎnshè. *Dali Prefecture Bai Cultural Studies Editorical Committee ��理白族自治洲白族文化研究所编 2008.'' Dali series: Bai language, vol. 3: Vocabulary of the dialects of the Bai people'' ��理丛书·白语篇 卷3 白族方言词汇 Kunming: Yunnan People's Press ��南民族出版社 ontains word lists of 33 Bai language datapoints.


External links


Bai basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{authority control Sino-Tibetan languages Tonal languages Subject–verb–object languages Languages of Yunnan