Longjia (autonym: ') is a

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

language of

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 t ...

, China related to Caijia and Luren.Hölzl, Andreas. 2021
Longjia (China) - Language Contexts
''Language Documentation and Description'' 20, 13-34. Longjia may already be extinct (Zhao 2011). The

Longjia people The Longjia (; sometimes also known as the Nanjingren 南京人) are an unofficially recognized ethnic group of western Guizhou province, China. They are officially classified as Bai by the Chinese government.Hölzl, Andreas. 2021Longjia (China) ...

now speak

Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese language spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northe ...

, though they used to speak their own language, and have had a long presence in western

. According to the ''Guizhou Ethnic Gazetteer'' (2002),Guizhou Province Gazetteer: Ethnic Gazetteer ��州省志. 民族志(2002). Guiyang: Guizhou Ethnic Publishing House ��州民族出版社 the Longjia language was spoken in

Dafang County Dafang (), called Dading () until 1958, is a county of Guizhou province, China. It is under the administration of Bijie Bijie () is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Guizhou Province, China, bordering Sichuan to the north and Yunnan to the ...

, Qianxi County (Zhongping District 中坪区; Xinfacun 新发村 of Pojiao District 坡脚区), and

Puding County Puding County () is a county in west-central Guizhou province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Anshun. Etymology The name "Puding" () can be traced back to the Mongolian-rule Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)， ...

(Jiangyizhai 讲义寨 of Baiyan Township 白岩乡). It is reportedly most similar to Caijia, and has many

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

loanwords.''Dafang County Almanac'' (1996:150-152)

Classification

Guizhou (1984) shows that Longjia is closely related to Caijia and Luren. However, the classification of Caijia within Sino-Tibetan is uncertain. Zhengzhang (2010)Zhèngzhāng Shàngfāng ��张尚芳 2010. Càijiāhuà Báiyǔ guānxì jí cígēn bǐjiào ��家话白语关系及词根比较 In Pān Wǔyún and Shěn Zhōngwěi ��悟云、沈钟伟(eds.). Yánjūzhī Lè, The Joy of Research ��究之乐-庆祝王士元先生七十五寿辰学术论文集 II, 389–400. Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Publishing House. suggests that Caijia and Bai are

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

languages, while Sagart argues that Caijia is Sinitic and a close relative of Waxiang.Sagart, Laurent. 2011
Classifying Chinese dialects/Sinitic languages on shared innovations
Talk given at Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie orientale, Norgent sur Marne.

Dialects

The following dialects of Longjia have been described. *Pojiao District 坡脚区,

, GuizhouGuizhou provincial ethnic classification commission ��州省民族识别工作队 1984. ''Report on ethnic classification issues of the Nanlong people (Nanjing-Longjia)'' ��龙人（南京-龙家）族别问题调查报告 m.s. (Pojiao District now comprises Maochang 猫场镇, Dingxin 鼎新彝族苗族乡, and Lütang 绿塘乡 townships of southwestern

.) *Huaxi Village 花溪大队, Zhongping District 中坪区, Qianxi County (now Huaxi Township 花溪彝族苗族乡) *Jiangyizhai 讲义寨,

*Caiguan Town 蔡官镇,

Anshun City Anshun () is a prefecture-level city located in southwestern Guizhou province, southwest China, near the Huangguoshu Waterfall, the tallest in China. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 2,297,339. The city proper had a population of ...

, Guizhou The following comparative word list of three Longjia dialects is from Guizhou (1984:2-3). Guizhou (1984) notes that the dialect of Jiangyizhai 讲义寨 (

) is divergent, while the dialects of Pojiao 坡脚 (

) and Huaxi 花溪 ( Qianxi County) are more closely related to each other.

Phonology

The ''Puding County Almanac'' (1999) reports that the Longjia language (autonym: ''Songnibao'' 松泥保) has 38 onsets and 22 rimes (8 simple, 14 complex). The ''Bijie County Almanac'' (1996:143) reports that there are many prenasalized onsets. In Dafang County, the autonym is ''Songlibao'' 松立保. The most extensive lexical data of Longjia can be found in Zhang & Li (1982).

Nanjinghua

The Nanjing people (南京人) have usually been classified with the

, and claim to be descendants of soldiers from the

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

area who had intermarried with the local Longjia in Guizhou.Zhao Weifeng ��卫峰 2011. ''History of the Bai people of Guizhou'' ��州白族史略 Yinchuan, China: Ningxia People's Press ��夏人民出版社 Their language is known as ''Nanjinghua'' (南京话; "Nanjing speech"), which is probably now functionally extinct. In Jianxinhe village 建新河村, Kunzhai Township 昆寨乡,

Nayong County Nayong County () is a county in the west of Guizhou province, China. It is under the administration of Bijie city. It is rich in natural resources: coal, lead, zinc, marble, sulfur, iron, fluorite, dolomite, limestone and others. A significant port ...

, Guizhou Province, the phrase ''suo55 mu33'' ‘eat rice’ was elicited from an elderly rememberer of Nanjinghua.Hsiu, Andrew. 2013.
New endangered Tibeto-Burman languages of southwestern China: Mondzish, Longjia, Pherbu, and others
'. Presented at ICSTLL 46, Dartmouth College. As ''suo55'' is derived from

Proto-Tibeto-Burman Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by ...

*dzya ‘to eat’, this points to Nanjinghua having an

SVO word order SVO may refer to: * Saturn Valley Online, an EarthBound MMORPG * Sheremetyevo International Airport, one three major airports serving Moscow, Russia, IATA Airport Code * Social value orientations, a psychological construct * Sparse voxel octree, an ...

like Caijia, Longjia, Bai, and

Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...

References

External links

Longjia field notes
(2013) {{Sino-Tibetan branches Cai–Long languages