Taz is a dialect of
Northeastern Mandarin
Northeastern Mandarin ( or / ''Dōngběiguānhuà'' "Northeast Mandarin") is the subgroup of Mandarin varieties spoken in Northeast China with the exception of the Liaodong Peninsula and few enclaves along Amur and Ussuri rivers. The classifica ...
formerly spoken by the
Taz people of the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
.
There are a few loanwords from
Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...
, but no obvious Tungusic effect on the grammar.
[
Taz is not a distinct language. In 1992, some Chinese bought ginseng from the Taz. They spoke Standard Chinese and Taz, respectively, and could understand one other. What they did not understand were mainly place names and social terms.][
]
History
The Taz are descendants of the intermarriage of Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...
immigrants and local Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia and Northeast Asia.
The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or ...
. In the early to middle 19th century, Han Chinese from Northeast China moved to the Ussuri River
The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the S ...
basin and engaged in ginseng
Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus '' Panax'', such as Korean ginseng ('' P. ginseng''), South China ginseng ('' P. notoginseng''), and American ginseng ('' P. quinquefolius''), typically characterized by the presence of ginsenosides ...
harvesting, fishing and hunting. The immigrants were mostly men, and they married the local Udege and Nanai peoples. Their language, while remaining completely Chinese grammatically, adopted some loan words from Nanai and Udege.
Phonology
Taz is a typical Northeastern Mandarin dialect. There is no retroflex
A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...
series, but there is ''erhua
Erhua ( ); also called erization or rhotacization of syllable finals) is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "er" (注音：, common words: 、、) sound (transcribed in IPA as ) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. Erhuayin () i ...
''. Words with an ''r'' initial of Standard Chinese (MSC) have an initial ''y'' in Taz, and some words with an initial ''f'' in MSC have an initial ''h'' in Taz. The MSC finals ''-ai'' and ''-ou'' are pronounced ''-ei'' and ''-u'' in Taz, whereas nasal finals are mostly realized as nasal vowels. Taz has the four lexical tones and the neutral tone
This article summarizes the phonology (the sound system, or in more general terms, the pronunciation) of Standard Chinese (Standard Mandarin).
Standard Chinese phonology is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Actual production varies wide ...
of MSC and Northeast Mandarin. The ''yin ping'' tone (tone 1) is lower than in MSC, and ''yang ping'' (tone 2) 为降升调. The distinction between ''yang ping'' and ''shang'' tone (tone 3) is not obvious. The pitch drops at the end of a sentence, and can sound like a ''shang'' or ''qu'' tone.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary is typical of Northeastern Mandarin, with such characteristic words as 俺們 for 'we', дэй3фань4 ''dei3fan4'' for 'food' and 日頭 for 'sun'. There are a few loanwords from Tungusic languages, such as араки ''ar'aki'' 'wine', яцзига ''yajiga'' 'daughter' (Udege ''ajiga''), etc. Исима ''yixima'' 'rainbow trout' may be from Oroch.[
]
Sample texts
Listed below are some Taz sentences.[ They are transcribed in standard Russian Cyrillicized Chinese.
]
References
Bibliography
* Belikov, Vladimir and Elena Perexval’skaja. 1994. "Tazov jazyk he language of the Taz, in Vladimir Neroznak (ed.) ''Krasnaja kniga jazykov narodov Rossii. Enciklopedičeskij slovar’-spravočnik'' he Red Book of languages of Russia. Encyclopedic dictionary Moscow: Academia, 50–51.
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Languages of Russia
Mandarin Chinese