The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund or Amdo sprachbund is a

sprachbund A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...

in the plateau traversed by the upper

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

, including northeastern

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

and southern

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

. This has long been an area of interaction between speakers of northwestern varieties of

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

Amdo Tibetan Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects. Amdo is one of the three branches of tradition ...

and Mongolic and

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

. These families feature contrasting typologies, which spread between languages in the region. The languages have come to share many features, and differ significantly from their relatives outside the region.

Languages

The languages involved include *Chinese **

Hezhou Hezhou () is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. Geography and climate Hezhou is located in northeastern Guangxi. It borders Hunan to the north and Guangdong to the east. ...

, the language of the

Hui people The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Islam in China, Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the Northwest China, northwestern provinces and in the Zhongy ...

Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture ( zh, s=临夏回族自治州 , t=臨夏回族自治州 , p=Línxià Huízú Zìzhìzhōu, Xiao'erjing: ), formerly known as Hezhou (河州) and Baohan (枹罕), is located in Gansu, Gansu Province, south of the pro ...

(Gansu) and

Tongren Tongren ( zh, s=铜仁 , t=銅仁 , p=Tóngrén) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guizhou province, People's Republic of China, located within a tobacco planting and crop agricultural area. Tongren was known as Tongren Prefecture () until Nov ...

Xunhua Xunhua Salar Autonomous County is an autonomous county in the southeast of Haidong Prefecture, in Qinghai province, China. The autonomous county has an area of around , and a population of approximately 161,600 inhabitants per a 2022 government ...

, Minhe, Ledu and

Datong Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province, China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 census, it had a population o ...

counties of Qinghai. ** Gangou, spoken in Minhe county (Qinghai). ** Tangwang, spoken in northeastern

Dongxiang Autonomous County Dongxiang Autonomous County (; Santa language, Santa: Dunxianzu Zizhixien) is an autonomous county in the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, province of Gansu of the China, People's Republic of China. It was established as a Dongxiang ethnic autono ...

(Gansu). ** Wutun, spoken in the Upper and Lower Wutun villages, Tongren county (Qinghai). * Tibetic **

, the Tibetic language of Qinghai, varies considerably across the region. * Mongolic ** Monguor (Tu) has two major varieties, often treated as separate languages: Mangghuer in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County and Mongghul in

Huzhu Tu Autonomous County Huzhu Tu Autonomous County (; Monguor: ), or in short Huzhu County (), is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province, China, bordering Gansu province to the northeast. It h ...

. ** Eastern Yugur, spoken in

Sunan Yugur Autonomous County Sunan Yugur Autonomous County ( zh, s=肃南裕固族自治县) is an autonomous county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhangye, Gansu Province, China, bordering Qinghai province to the south. It is home to the majority o ...

(Gansu) ** Bonan (Bao'an) is spoken in

Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County is an autonomous county of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, in Gansu province, China. It is located in the mostly mountainous area to the south of the Yellow River, near Gansu's border wit ...

(Gansu) and Tongren County (Qinghai). **

Santa Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christma ...

(Dongxiang), centred on

(Gansu) ** Kangjia, spoken in Jianzha County (Qinghai). * Turkic ** Salar, spoken in Xunhua county (Qinghai) ** Western Yugur, spoken in Sunan county (Gansu) More mainstream varieties of northwestern Mandarin are spoken in the provincial capitals,

Xining Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...

and

Lanzhou Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu province in northwestern China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. His ...

. All these languages are subject to a superstrate influence from

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...

. These languages belong to families with three sharply contrasting typologies: The Mandarin varieties have acquired such features as spirantized voiceless stops,

SOV word order SOV may refer to: * SOV, a former ticker symbol for Sovereign Bank * SOV, a legal cryptocurrency created by the Sovereign Currency Act of 2018 of the Republic of the Marshall Islands * SOV, the National Rail station code for Southend Victoria rail ...

and

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

markers. The

Wutun language The Wutun language () is a Mandarin–Amdo– Bonan creole language. It is spoken by about 4,000 people, most of whom are classified as Monguor (Tu) by the Chinese government. Wutun speakers reside in two villages (Upper Wutun 上五屯 and Lo ...

of Tongren county, Qinghai, is a highly divergent Mandarin variety, with phonological and grammatical structures resembling Amdo Tibetan. In some cases, the changes progress through the speaker population in a few decades, so that they can be observed in progress. A common pattern is to add a borrowed structure beside an indigenous structure with the same function, after which the indigenous structure loses its function and eventually disappears, leaving a changed syntactic pattern. For example, the indigenous Bonan comparative structure was N-''si'', where the noun N represents the standard being compared against. Bonan added the equivalent Mandarin structure, ''bi''+N, yielding a composite ''bi''+N-''si''. The original suffix was then lost, leaving a transformed syntactic pattern.

Languages

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

Further reading