Social:Maonan language
| Maonan | |
|---|---|
| Native to | China |
| Region | Northern Guangxi, Southern Guizhou[1]:33 |
| Ethnicity | 107,000 (2000)[2] |
Native speakers | 30,000 (2005)[2] |
Kra–Dai
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mmd |
| Glottolog | maon1241[3] |
 Maonan is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The Maonan language (Chinese: 毛南语; pinyin: Máonán yǔ) is a Kam–Sui language spoken mainly in China by the Maonan people, specifically in northern Guangxi and southern Guizhou.[1]:33[4] Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Hechi, northern Guangxi, holds a concentrated number of speakers.[1]
Demographics
Approximately half of all Maonan people are capable of speaking Maonan. In addition to this, many Maonan also speak Chinese or a Zhuang language. About 1/3 of all people who self-identify as Maonan are concentrated in the southern Guizhou province. They speak a mutually unintelligible dialect commonly called Yanghuang, which is more commonly known as the Then language in Western literature. The Maonan do not have a writing system.
Other than Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County in Guangxi, Maonan is also spoken in the following locations.[4]
- Nandan County, Guangxi
- Du'an Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi
- Yizhou, Guangxi
- Libo County, Guizhou
- Pingtang County, Guizhou
Phonology
Maonan is a tonal language with 8 tones (Lu 2008:90–91),[1] featuring an SVO clause construction (Lu 2008:169).[1] (See Proto-Tai language for an explanation of the tone numbers.) For example:
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
Syntax
Maonan displays a head-first modification structure, i.e. the modifier occurring after the word being modified (Lu 2008:170).[1] For example:
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
Occasionally, a head-final modification structure is also possible with the involvement of a possessive particle (P.P.) ti5. For example:
Script error: No such module "Interlinear". (cf. the more common bo4 jaːn1 ndaːu1) (Lu 2008:173-174).[1]
Writing system
The Maonan writing system was established in 2010. It is based on 26 Latin letters to facilitate standard keyboard input.[5] The letters z, j, x, s, h are attached to the end of each syllable as tonal markers, representing tones 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 respectively. The first tone is not written. Syllables ending in -b, -d, -g, -p, -t, -k do not distinguish tone either. The writing system is being used among a limited number of Maonan intellectuals.[6] For example:
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".
See also
- Maonan people
Further reading
- Zhang, Jingni 张景霓 (2017). Huanjiang Maonanzu yuyan shiyong xianzhuang ji qi yanbian 环江毛南族语言使用现状及其演变. Beijing: Science Press 科学出版社. OCLC 1050506673.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Lu, Tian Qiao (2008). A Grammar of Maonan. Boca Raton, Florida: Universal Publishers. ISBN:978-1-59942-971-7.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Maonan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Maonan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/maon1241.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Guangxi Minority Languages Orthography Committee. 2008. Vocabularies of Guangxi ethnic languages [广西民族语言方音词汇]. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House [民族出版社].
- ↑ Maonan website: http://maonan.org/wenzi/HagLeaMauhnanh.asp?boardid=24
- ↑ Maonan website: http://maonan.org/wenzi/shengdiao.asp
External links
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