Social:E language
E | |
---|---|
Wuse | |
Kjang E | |
Region | Guangxi, China |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2016)[1] |
mixed Tai–Pinghua | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | eee |
Glottolog | eeee1240 [2] |
![]() Guangxi, of which E is spoken in a small area | |
![]() Wuse is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |
E (IPA: [ɛ55]) or Wuse/Wusehua (simplified Chinese: 五色话; traditional Chinese: 五色話; pinyin: Wǔsèhuà; literally: 'Colored Language') is a Tai–Chinese mixed language spoken primarily in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Guangxi, China . It contains features of both Tai and Chinese varieties, generally adopting Chinese vocabulary into Tai grammar. E is a tonal language—distinguishing between seven tones—and contains a few rare phonemes: voiceless versions of the more common nasal consonants and alveolar lateral approximant.
Etymology
The E language's unusual pinyin-transliterated name, which is also an autonym, consists of a single letter e.[3] The character, which is written "诶" in Simplified Chinese and "誒" in Traditional Chinese, usually denotes an expression of affirmation.[4] The language's speakers also refer to their language as Kjang E [kiaŋ55 ɛ55].[3] Wusehua is a derogatory name for E.[5]
Geographical distribution
In 1992, E was spoken by about 30,000 people,[6][3] but by 2008 this number had dwindled to 9,000.[7] Gao (2016) reported that there were 5,000 speakers of E.[1] Most E speakers are classified as Zhuang by the Chinese government. E speakers live in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County and border areas of Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County in Guangxi. In Rongshui County, the three main villages inhabited by E speakers are Xiatan 下覃村, Simo 四莫村, and Xinglong 兴隆村 in Yongle Township 永乐乡.[1] E speakers' most commonly spoken other languages are the Liujia dialect (六甲话) of Yue Chinese and the Guiliu variant of Southwestern Mandarin.[1]
Phonology
E's consonant and vowel inventories are mostly similar to those of its parent languages. However, it contains a few unusual consonants: the voiceless nasal consonants [n̥], [ŋ̥], [m̥], and the voiceless alveolar lateral approximant [l̥]. All are voiceless versions of consonants that, in most languages, are always voiced. E allows syllabic consonants and diphthongs.[7]
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | sibilant | plain | labialized | |||||
Nasal | voiced | m | n | ŋ | ||||
voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ŋ̥ | |||||
Plosive | unaspirated | p | t | t͡s | k | kʷ | ||
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t͡sʰ | kʰ | ||||
Fricative | f | s | ɕ | h | ||||
Approximant | voiced | l | j | w | ||||
voiceless | l̥ |
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | i | y | u | |
Mid | e | ə | o | |
Open | ɛ | a |
Like most Southeast Asian languages, including Tai and the varieties of Chinese, E is tonal.[8] The language is described as having seven tones, with the seventh varying allophonically with the length of the vowel it is attached to. With numbers ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest tone and 5 the highest, the contours of the various tones in E are as follows.[7]
Number | Contour | Tone letter | |
---|---|---|---|
1. | 42 | ˦˨ | |
2. | 231 | ˨˧˩ | |
3. | 44 | ˦ | |
4. | 35 | ˧˥ | |
5. | 24 | ˨˦ | |
6. | 55 | ˥ | |
7. | short | 24 | ˨˦ |
long | 22 | ˨ |
Grammar and lexicon
E is usually classified as a mixed language deriving ultimately from the Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan families, which both inhabit southern China and Southeast Asia.[5] Some non-Chinese scholars, however, consider it a Tai-Kadai language with Chinese influence.[9] Whatever its classification, the grammar resembles that of the Tai branch of Tai-Kadai. E's grammatical features appear to be a mix of Northern Zhuang, Mulam, and Kam.[1][8] The Caolan language of Vietnam also displays many similarities with E.[8]
The vocabulary, however, is mostly Chinese, based on Guiliu and the Tuguai variant of Pinghua.[1][8] Out of the 2,000 most commonly used E words, only about 200 are of Tai-Kadai origin.[10] E also inherits elements of these Chinese dialects' phonology and compound word formation.[1] E morphology is primarily analytic, with concepts such as negation expressed with auxiliary words (pat6, m2) and no pronominal agreement.[7]
In its pronouns, E distinguishes for person between first, second, and third; in number between singular and plural; and, in the case of the first-person plural, between inclusive and exclusive we. E does not, however, make distinctions for grammatical gender.[7]
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Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Gao, Huan 高欢. 2016. Guangxi Ronghsui Aihua yanjiu 广西融水诶话研究. Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Academy Press 中国社会科学出版社.
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "E". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/eeee1240.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Edmondson 1992, p. 138.
- ↑ Unihan Database 1991.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Encyclopedia of Linguistics 2003, p. 207.
- ↑ E language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Greenhill, Blust & Gray 2008.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Edmondson 1992, pp. 135–144.
- ↑ Moseley 2012, p. 72.
- ↑ Sun, Hu & Huang 2007, pp. 2596–2620.
References
- Edmondson, Jerold A. (1992). "Fusion and Diffusion in E, Guangxi Province, China". in Dutton, Tom (in en). The Language Game: Papers in Memory of Donald C. Laycock. Canberra: Australian National University. pp. 135–144.
- Gao, Huan 高欢. 2016. Guangxi Ronghsui Aihua yanjiu 广西融水诶话研究. Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Academy Press 中国社会科学出版社.
- Greenhill, S. J.; Blust, R.; Gray, R. D. (2008). "The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics – Language: Wusehua (Rongshui)" (in en). University of Auckland. http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/language.php?id=935.
- Sun, Hongkai 孙宏开, ed (2007) (in zh). Zhōngguó de yǔyán. Shangwu yinshuguan. ISBN 978-7100043632.
- Moseley, Christopher (2012) (in en). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 978-0-956-60524-5.
- (in en) International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: AAVE–Esperanto. 1. Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-195-16783-2.
- "Unihan Data for U+8A92" (in en). Unicode.org. https://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=8A92.
- Wei, Maofan 韦茂繁 (2011) (in zh). Beijing Shi: Minzu chubanshe. ISBN 978-7-105-11365-1.
![]() | Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E language.
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