A Linguistic Description of Qiangic Language

A Linguistic Description of Qiangic Language

1. Introduction and Language Demographics

   As one of the oldest nation in China, Qiang has its unique language and the language belongs to a branch of Tibeto-Burman language. According to a Chinese official report in 2000, Qiang mainly lived in the areas of Si Chuan Province, such as Tibetan Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, Mao county, Wen Chuan, Li county, Bei Chuan and Wu Ping county, and its population was approximately three hundred and six thousand (Huang 2007). Qiang people called their language as “Mu Ya” or “Zha Ba”. As for the dialects, Qiangic language has twelve current dialects and can be divided into southern and northern dialects. And the Tibetan branch imposes heavy effect on the northern dialect and Yi branch profoundly influences the southern dialect. Qiang implements bilingualism so both Chinese and Qiangic language are used there. Based on the survey of China’s ethnic minority language, there were 100 thousand people who used Qiangic language, which took percentage of 97.3 of the entire Qiang population in 1982 (Sun 1981). Another survey from Chinese social and scientific ethnic research organization and International Language Planning center in Canada Laval University, it argued that there was 6.9% of L1 speakers who used Qiang completely and 55.37% of them used Chinese and Qiang in 1982 (Sun 1981). But with the rapid development of economy in China, Qiang got an increasing chance to have more contact with other regions. Therefore, many Qiang L1 speakers began to use Chinese and rendered severe consequence that only 33.3% of speakers used Qiangic language (Huang 2007). But among these 33.3% of speakers, they were few of them who could speak Qiangic language frequently (Huang 2007). Although Qiangic language has its writing system, its language status becomes very dangerous because of the influence of Chinese and the earthquake in Wenchuan as well. After the Wenchuan earthquake, a few of the people could speak Qiangic language.

2. Phonology

   Qiangic language has 26 letters, among which there were 41 single consonant initials and 8 pure vowel finals (Ma 2011). Compared to vowels, consonants in Qiangic language are much more complex.

   2.1. Consonants

   (Ma 2011)

   From the diagram above, it can be seen that Qiangic language has four kinds of plosives, namely, bilabial, alveolar, palatal and uvular. And the former three kinds possess the features with aspirated consonant or unaspirated consonant and voiceless consonant or voiced consonant. The following are some examples based on minimal pairs.

1. Bilabial

   /p/ tSa Pa  donkey  /ph/ pha   tree     /b/ ba  right

2. Blade-alveolar

   /t/ to  show auxiliary word  /th/ tho bucket   /d/ do door

3. Blade-palatal

   /k/ kua hoe   /kh/ khua grass   /g/ gue  bend

4. Uvular

   /q/ qa I     /qh/ qha  bitterness (Ma 2011)

Besides, Qiangic language has three systems of affricate consonants, namely, dental, palatal and front dorsal. The examples of minimal pairs are as follows:

1. Dental

   /ts/ tsua  hit           /tsh/ tshua    trample         /dz/   dzj  heavy

2. Palatal

/ts/ tSa pa  donkey     /tsh/ I sj  tshj   cheap       /dz/   dza   smile

1. Front dorsal

   /tc/ tci   old house    /tch/ tci tchi   new house    /dz/ dzi  foot (Ma 2011)

Three systems of nasal and one lateral sound are showed in Qiangic language. Minimal pairs of nasal and lateral sound are as following:

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