The U language or P'uman (), is spoken by 40,000 people in the Yunnan Province 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 ...

and possibly

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. It is classified as an

Austroasiatic language The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

in the Palaungic branch. In China, U speakers are classified as ethnic Bulang.

Locations

U is spoken in

Shuangjiang County Shuangjiang Lahu, Va, Blang and Dai Autonomous County () is a county in the southwest of Yunnan province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Lincang. Administrative divisions Shuangjiang Lahu, Va, Bulang and Da ...

of Yunnan and other nearby counties. *Wang & Chen (1981) covers the dialect of Pengpan 碰拚, Dafengshan Township 大凤山乡,

. *Zhou & Yan (1983) covers the dialect of Pangpin 胖品, Yongge Township 永革乡,

. *Yan & Zhou (2012) cover U of Gantang 甘塘,

Yongde County Yongde County () is a county in the west of Yunnan province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Lincang. Administrative divisions Yongde County has 3 towns, 5 townships and 2 ethnic townships. ;3 towns * Dedan ...

as well as U of Pangpin 胖品. *Svantesson (1991:67) documents the U dialect of Paɑ̃ Xɛp (Bangxie, 邦协), Shahe Township 沙河乡,

. There two main dialects of U in

: one spoken in Gongnong (公弄, now part of Mengku Town, 勐库镇) and one spoken in Bangbing (邦丙) and Dawen Mangga (大文乡忙嘎); the Dawen dialect is reportedly mutually intelligible with that of

Shidian County Shidian County () is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Baoshan, in the west of Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The ...

(''Shuangjiang County Ethnic Gazetteer'' 1995:160). Avala (

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 ...

: ''a21 va21 la21'') is spoken in Bangliu (邦六), Manghuai Township (芒怀乡), Yun County (云县), Yunnan, China.

Phonology

U has four tones, ''high'', ''low'', ''rising'', ''falling'', which developed from vowel length and the nature of final consonants.

References

* * * * * * * Gazetteers and other Chinese government sources with lexical data *Nanjian County Gazetteer Commission ��涧县志编纂委员会编(ed). 1993. ''Nanjian County Gazetteer'' ��涧彝族自治县志 Chengdu: Sichuan Reference Press ��川辞书出版社 *Na Ruzhen ��汝珍 et al. (eds). 1994. ''Zhenkang County Ethnic Gazetteer'' ��康县民族志 Kunming: Yunnan People's Press ��南民族出版社 *Simao Prefecture Ethnic Minority Affairs Bureau ��茅行暑民族事务委员会(ed). 1990. ''A study of the Bulang people'' ��朗族研究 m.s. *Xiao Dehua ��德虎 et al. (eds). 1992. ''Zhenkang County Gazetteer'' ��康县志 1992. Chengdu: Sichuan People's Press ��川民族出版社 *Yunnan Gazetteer Commission ��南省地方志编纂委员会(ed). 1998. ''Yunnan Provincial Gazetteer, Vol. 59: Minority Languages Orthographies Gazetteer'' ��南省志. 卷五十九, 少数民族语言文字志 Kunming: Yunnan People's Press ��南人民出版社

External links

RWAAI , Projects
RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) * http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-67B4-3@view U in RWAAI Digital Archive Palaungic languages Languages of China {{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub

Locations

Phonology

References

Further reading

External links