Hlai language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hlai | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | People's Republic of China |
| Region | Hainan |
| Native speakers | 750,000 (1999) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: lic – Hlai cuq – Cun |
Hlai is one of two languages of the Hlai or Li people, the other being the Jiamao "dialect". It is spoken by 600,000 people (not counting Jiamao), a quarter of them monolingual, in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan Island. It forms one of the primary branches of the family of Tai–Kadai languages.
Hlai has several dialects, some perhaps divergent enough to be considered separate languages. The main divisions are Ha 哈 (the prestige dialect), Qi aka Gei 杞, Meifu aka Moifau 美孚, and Bendi aka Zwn, in addition to Jiamao aka Kamau 加茂, which is not mutually intelligible with the others.
Hlai did not have a writing system until the 1950s, when the Latin script was adopted.
[edit] Dialects
Main article: Hlai languages#Classification
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Entry for Hlai at Rosetta Project
- Hlai-language Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
- ABVD: Proto-Hlai word list
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