Cun (; meaning "village language/speech"), also known as Gelong (仡隆语 / 哥隆语) or Ngan-Fon, is a Kra–Dai language spoken on

Hainan Island Hainan is an island province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally means "South of the Sea ...

. It is a part of the

Hlai languages The Hlai languages ( zh, s=黎语, p=Líyǔ) are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai languages, Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquia ...

branch and has a lexical similarity with standard Hlai at 40%. The language has approximately 80,000 speakers, 47,200 of which are monolingual. Cun is a

tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasi ...

with 10 tones, used depending on whether a syllable is checked or unchecked. The speakers of this language are classified by the Chinese government as ethnic Han; in Hainan, Nadou and

Lingao Língāo County (formerly romanised as Limko or Limkao) is an administrative district in Hainan province, China. It is one of the 4 counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 571800, and in 1999, its population was 399,057 people, who mainly speak t ...

speakers are also classified as ethnic Han. The Cun are descended from Han Chinese migrants to Hainan Island who intermarried with the local

Li people The Hlai, also known as Li or Lizu, are a Kra–Dai-speaking ethnic group, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. The vast majority live off the southern coast of China on Hainan Island, where th ...

. As a result, Cun has more Chinese loanwords than other Hlai languages. Nearby, the Fuma (Chinese: 付马话, 府玛话, or 富马话) dialect, a variety of Chinese similar to

Gan The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places * Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated '' ...

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

that has been strongly influenced by Cun, is spoken in Fuma Village 付马村, Sigeng Town 四更镇, Dongfang City. It had about 800 speakers in 1994.

Phonology

The tables below show the vowel and consonant phonemes of Cun:

Vowels

Diphthongs

Cun has many

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...

s. With : , . With : , . With : , , , , , , . With : , , , , , , , , .

Consonants

Tones

Cun is a

with ten tones. Five of the tones occur only in syllables ending with a consonant: , , or .Ni 1990, p. 178.

References

*http://www.language-archives.org/language/cuq {{Tai-Kadai languages Languages of Hainan Hlai languages