Baima language
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Baima (
autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...
: ') is a language spoken by 10,000 Baima people, of Tibetan ethnicity, in north-central
Sichuan Province 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 ...
and
Gansu Province 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 Tibeta ...
, China. Baima is passed on from parents to children in Baima villages. It is spoken within the home domain and is not used in any media of mass communication. Baima uses subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, word-initial consonant clusters and is tonal. It is unclassified within Sino-Tibetan; there are multiple layers of borrowings from
Amdo Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...
,
Khams Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
, and Zhongu Tibetan, as well as lexical and grammatical connections with
Qiangic languages Qiangic (''Ch'iang, Kyang, Tsiang'', Chinese: 羌語支, "''Qiang'' language group"; formerly known as Dzorgaic) is a group of related languages within the Sino-Tibetan language family. They are spoken mainly in Southwest China, including Sichua ...
. Basic vocabulary is about 85% Tibetic and 15% Qiangic, and the Tibetic words do not link to any established group of Tibetic languages. Chirkova (2008) suggests that the Qiangic vocabulary "might be a retention from the language originally spoken by the Báimǎ before their shift to a form of
Tibetic The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptiv ...
in the 7th century." She accepts Baima as Tibetan, but as an isolate within the Tibetic languages.Katia Chirkova, 2008, "On the position of Báimǎ within Tibetan", in Lubotsky et al (eds), ''Evidence and Counter-Evidence'', vol. 2.


History

Baima speakers number around 10,000 and have lived for generations in the mountainous region spanning the borders 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 ...
and
Gansu Province 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 Tibeta ...
s. After the establishment of the
People's Republic of 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 ...
in 1949, Baima speakers have requested to grant them recognition as an independent ethnic group on many occasions. Translated from Chinese, Historians believe that the Baima are descendants of the ancient Di people in China. Chinese records from 551 AD mention that The Di are also called Baima. One historian states, "The Baima tribe was the largest tribe of the Di nationality, which lived in Gansu, Sichuan and Shaanxi during the Three Kingdoms Period (220–265 AD)." Tibetans invaded the Di territory in the 7th century and assimilated the local population, which probably subsequently shifted into a form of Tibetan spoken by the invaders. Linguists consider Baima to be an independent language of the Tibetan branch but the language itself has been greatly influenced by Tibetan. In addition, DNA specialists have discovered that the Baima are genetically closer to the Qiang people than to the Tibetans.


Dialects

There are distinctions within the Baima language itself. Baima is mainly divided into three dialect groups: Southern Baima (Pingwu Baima), Northern Baima (Wenxian Baima), Western Baima (Jiuzhaigou Baima, Songpan Baima). The Baima spoken in Jiuzhaigou and surrounding areas differs from that spoken in Songpan County in the Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Wenxian County in Gansu Province. Sun Hongkai, et al. (2007)Sun Hongkai, et al. (2007). ''Baimayu yanjiu'' 白马语研究. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House 民族出版社. document the following three dialects of Baima. *
Pingwu County Pingwu County () is a county located in the north of Sichuan province, China, bordering Gansu province to the north. It is the northernmost county-level division of the prefecture-level city of Mianyang. It has an area of and a population of 18 ...
,
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 ...
* (铁楼藏族乡),
Wen County, Gansu Wen County or Wenxian () is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Longnan, in the southeast of Gansu province, China, bordering Sichuan province to the south and west. It has a land area of 4,994 square kilometers, and ...
* (),
Jiuzhaigou County Jiuzhaigou County (; ) is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Formerly called Nanping County (), it was renamed in 1998 to reflect the fact that the Jiuzhaigou Va ...
,
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 ...


Classification

The classification of Baima has caused controversy among linguists. Baima is provisionally classified with the
Khams Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
group, although it also has a number of
Amdo Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...
characteristics. Reasons for this are presumably the drastic simplification of the syllable structure, the elimination of ancient Tibetan syllables codas and the presence of tones. While many scholars (Song Hongkai, Nishida Tatsuo, and Katia Chirkova) believe that Baima is a separate
Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...
subgroup in its own right, others believe that it should be identified as a Tibetan dialect. In fact, the differences between Baima and Tibetan far exceeded those existing between the three main Tibetan dialects spoken within Chinese territory.


Decline due to classification

Although the Baima people have sought after their claims as an independent ethnic group since the 1960s, the Baima language remained classified as a Tibetan dialect. As such, their ethnic minority rights are "hostile taken over" by the Tibetans and the Lhasa Tibetan language. As Chirkova noted, "Reclassification of ethnic groups listed as Tibetans remains a sensitive issue in the
PRC 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 ...
, and is considered by many Tibetans as an attack on Tibetan identity by the Chinese government." As a result, the Baima language remains poorly documented to this day and continues to raise the question of language in the role of cultural survival. The use of Baima is limited to religious ceremonies and intercommunication between Baima villages, which significantly furthered the endangerment of Baima language. Additionally, the language of communication with neighboring communities throughout all Baima-inhabited areas is Sichuan Mandarin.


Geographic distribution

According to the
Endangered Languages Project The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between indigenous language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foundation of the proj ...
, the Baima language is spoken in four
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 ...
:
Jiuzhaigou County Jiuzhaigou County (; ) is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Formerly called Nanping County (), it was renamed in 1998 to reflect the fact that the Jiuzhaigou Va ...
,
Songpan County Songpan; former Songzhou, is a county of northwestern Sichuan province, China, and is one of the 13 counties administered by the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. It has an area of , and a population of approximately 68,000 composed ...
,
Pingwu County Pingwu County () is a county located in the north of Sichuan province, China, bordering Gansu province to the north. It is the northernmost county-level division of the prefecture-level city of Mianyang. It has an area of and a population of 18 ...
, and Wen County. Baima is spoken in in Jiuzhaigou County. Baima is spoken in
Baima Tibetan Ethnic Township Baima Tibetan Ethnic Township () is an ethnic township for Tibetan people under the administration of Pingwu County in northern Sichuan province, China. The Baima language, a threatened language with approximately 10,000 speakers, is spoken in t ...
() in Pingwu County. Within Wen County, Baima is spoken in , and Baimaguhe ().


Vocabulary

Overall, Baima vocabulary is highly heterogeneous. It consists predominantly of transparent Tibetan provenance and appears to combine features of
Khams Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
and
Amdo Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...
.Ekaterina Chirkova. On the Position of Baima within Tibetan: A Look from Basic Vocabulary. Alexander Lubotsky, Jos Schaeken and Jeroen Wiedenhof. Rodopi, pp.23, 2008, Evidence and counter-evidence: Festschrift F. Kortlandt. However, sound correspondences between the sound system of ancient Tibetan, as reflected in standard Written Tibetan orthography and Baima, are less regular than those between Written Tibetan orthography and established groups of Modern Tibetan dialects. Baima vocabulary also exhibits two features that are not present in all other dialects: first, voicing of voiceless aspirated stops and affricates after nasal prefixes; and second, the treatment of written Tibetan orthography. Furthermore, Baima has some words that are of unclear etymology, even in its basic vocabulary. The proportion of these words has never been estimated, nor has basic vocabulary ever been the topic of detailed investigation. In Ekaterina Chirkova's article, "On the Position of Baima within Tibetan: A Look from Basic Vocabulary", she examined 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 ...
for Baima, as the layer of lexicon which is arguably least resistible to change and which therefore can shed light on the genetic affiliation of this language. She then discovered that the 100-word Swadesh list for Báimǎ contains 84 words of Tibetan origin, 15 words of unclear origin and another 7 words with partial cognation, in which one element is of unidentified origin. 4 words are doublets, most of which combine one word of unclear origin with a word of Tibetan origin. According to her analysis, Baima has a simple syllable structure. All Baima syllables are open an have the (n)(C)V makeup, where "n" stands for prenasalization and is homorganic with the following consonant. Most Baima verbs have two stems, the imperfective, marked by prenasalization and mostly the high falling tone, and the perfective/imperative, marked by the high rising tone. Baima verbs have directional aspect, with different prefixes combining with verbs to represent progression of an action in a specific direction. Using prefixes to show directional aspect is an important and unique feature in Baima language. In sum, Chirkova concluded that Baima diverge significantly in lexicon and phonology from the established groups of Tibetan dialects.


Grammar

* Baima dual and plural pronouns for the first person have inclusive an exclusive forms. Baima singular personal pronouns have nominative accusative forms, which are expressed by inflectional changes in the vowels. The forms of Baima pronouns for the third person, whether singular, dual, or plural, are very different from those in the Tibetan dialects. * In comparison to Tibetan, Baima has many more classifiers. Among the over 3,000 common lexical items included in A Study of the Baima lexicon transcribed in Tibetan and Chinese, there were over 110 specific or loan classifiers. For instance, in Baima, there are many different words for the numeral "one" which can combine with classifiers and the reason for it is unclear. An increasing number of classifiers also led to an increase in their function in Baima grammar, while the ways in which they are used are also changing. * Directionality is an important grammatical feature in Baima. * Baima has a large number of case-marking articles, which perform very important syntactic functions.


Phonology

The phonology of Baima is very similar to that of the Khams Tibetan language. They have both retained a voiced–voiceless contrast and have 4–5 contrastive tones as opposed to Amdo dialect.
Affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
: four sets of affricates exist in the Baima language. They are apical, retroflex, laminal and pre-laminal.
Rhymes A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
: Baima rhymes are very similar to the Khams Tibetan language but its vowel system is much more complex. Codas have essentially been lost and vowels show considerable differentiation, with the appearance of many back
diphthongs A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
. In general, the number of tones in Baima is also similar to Khams Tibetan. But the correspondences between Baima tones, onsets, and rhymes with written Tibetan are not as clear as those between Khams Tibetan and written Tibetan.


References

{{authority control Qiangic languages Languages of China Unclassified Sino-Tibetan languages Bodish languages Tibetan language Endangered Sino-Tibetan languages