Namuyi (Namuzi; autonym: ') is a poorly attested

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 ...

and more specifically

Naic Naic, officially the Municipality of Naic ( tgl, Bayan ng Naic), is a 1st class municipality in the province of Cavite, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 160,987 people. Naic has a land area of 76.24 square kilo ...

language 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 t ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

. It has also been classified as Qiangic by Sun Hongkai (2001) and

Guillaume Jacques Guillaume Jacques (, b. 1979) is a French linguist who specializes in the study of Sino-Tibetan languages: Old Chinese, Tangut, Tibetan, Gyalrongic and Kiranti languages. He also performs research on the Algonquian and Siouan language families ...

(2011). The eastern and western dialects have low mutual intelligibility. In

, it is spoken in Muli County and

Mianning County Mianning County () is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. History Mianning County has a long history of being a multi-ethnic region. The Annals of Mianning County (), pu ...

. The language is

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

and the number of speakers with fluency is decreasing year by year, as most teenagers do not speak the language, instead speaking the Sichuan dialect of Chinese.

Geographical distribution

Namuyi is a language spoken in the following four

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

of southern

: *' (Namuyi name): Dàshuǐ Village 大水村, Mínshèng Township 民胜鄉, Xīchāng City (80 ethnic Namuyi) *' (Namuyi name): Хiǎngshuǐ Village 響水村, Xiǎngshuǐ Township 響水鄉, Xīchāng City (800 ethnic Namuyi) *' (Namuyi name): Dōngfēng Village 東風村, Zéyuǎn, Township 澤遠鄉, Miǎnníng County (560 ethnic Namuyi) *' (Namuyi name): Lǎoyā Village 老鴉村, Shābà Town, 沙壩鎮, Miǎnníng County (290 ethnic Namuyi) It is also spoken in Muli and Yanyuan of the Liangshan Autonomous Prefecture and Jiulong County in the Ganzi Autonomous Prefecture.

Dialects

The Namuyi language is subdivided into two different

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 ...

s, the dialect of spoken by the people around Muli, and the dialect of those spoken in Mianning. The dialects differ mainly in

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, where the Mianning and Yanyuan dialect have few

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

s as opposed to the Mianning and Xichang dialect.

Phonology

There are 40 single-consonant initials in the Namuyi language. Namuyi also has ten phonemic vowels, /i/ for /e/ for /ɛ/ for � /ɨ/ for �,ɯ/ʉ/ for /ə/ for � /a/ for /u/ for /o/ for and /ɔ/ for � There is no phonological

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...

, though speakers can lengthen a vowel in the first syllable at times to emphasize a word.

References

External links

* ELAR archive o
Namuyi language documentation materials
Loloish languages Qiangic languages Languages of China {{st-lang-stub