Jiarongic languages

Jiarongic
rGyalrongic
Geographic distribution:	China
Linguistic classification:	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Jiarongic
Subdivisions:	Gyarung Lavrung Horpa

The Jiarongic or rGyalrongic languages constitute a branch of the Tibeto-Burman family of uncertain affiliation. They are spoken in the province of Sichuan in the People's Republic of China, mainly in the autonomous Tibetan/Qiang prefectures of Kar-mdzes (Garzê 甘孜) and Rnga-ba (Ngawa 阿坝). These languages are distinguished by their conservative morphology and their phonological archaisms, which make them valuable for historical linguistics.

Rgyalrongic languages are classified to three groups: Lavrung, the Horpa languages, and Jiarong proper, which in turn constitutes four mutually unintelligible varieties: Eastern Rgyalrong (in Chinese Situ 四土话, which is a more precise designation), Japhug (in Chinese Chabao 茶堡), Tshobdun (Caodeng 草登) and Showu (Zbu or Ribu 日部). Lavrung and Horpa are classified by Lin 1993 as "western dialect" of Rgyalrong, along with Eastern Rgyalrong and the "northwestern dialect" (Japhug, Tshobdun and Showu). Otherwise, the scholarly consensus deems the distance between them and Rgyalrong proper too great for them to be classified under a single branch, but still recognizes a special relationship, notably in verbal morphology. For example, Ethnologue reports 75% exical similarity between Situ and Japhug, 60% between Japhug and Tshobdun, but only 13% between Situ and Horpa.

Most early studies on Rgyalrong languages (Jin 1949, Nagano 1984, Lin 1993) have focused on various dialects of Situ, and the three other languages have not been studied in detail until the last decade of the 20th century.

To illustrate the differences between the four languages, we present here a table of cognates. The data from Situ is taken from Huang and Sun 2002, the Japhug and Showu data from Jacques (2004, 2008) and the Tshobdun data from Sun (1998, 2006).

meaning	Situ	Japhug	Tshobdun	Showu
sheep	kəjó	qaʑo	ʁiɐʔ	qɐɟjiʔ
badger	pə́s	βɣɯs	ɣves	təvîs
dream	ta-rmô	tɯ-jmŋo	tɐ-jmiʔ	tɐ-lmɐʔ
I saw		pɯ-mtó-t-a	nɐ-mti-aŋ

Rgyalrong languages, unlike most Sino-Tibetan languages, are polysynthetic languages and present typologically interesting features, such as inverse marking (Sun and Shi 2002, Jacques 2010), ideophones (Sun 2004, Jacques 2008), verbal stem alternations (Sun 2000, 2004, Jacques 2004, 2008).

References

• Huang Liangrong 黄良荣, Sun Hongkai 孙红开 2002. 汉嘉戎语词典 [A Chinese–rGyalrong dictionary] Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.

• Jacques, Guillaume 2004. Phonologie et morphologie du Japhug (rGyalrong), thèse de doctorat, Université Paris VII.

• Jacques, Guillaume 2008. 《嘉绒语研究》[A study on the rGyalrong language] Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.

• Jacques, Guillaume 向柏霖 2010. The inverse in Japhug Rgyalrong, Language & Linguistics 11.1:127-157.

• Jin Peng 金鹏 1949 Etude sur le Jyarung, Han hiue 汉学 3.3-4.

• Lin Youjing 2003. Tense and Aspect morphology in the Zhuokeji rGyalrong verb, Cahiers de linguistique – Asie orientale 32(2), pp. 245–286

• Lin Youjing, Luoerwu 2003. 《茶堡嘉戎语大藏话的趋向前缀与动词词干的变化》， 《民族語文》 2003.4.

• Lin Youjing 2009. Units in Zhuokeji rGyalrong discourse; Prosody and Grammar, PhD University of California at Santa Barbara.

• Lin Xiangrong 林向荣 1993. 《嘉戎语研究》[A study on the rGyalrong language] Chengdu: Sichuan Minzu chubanshe.

• Nagano, Yasuhiko 1984 A Historical Study of the rGyarong Verb System. Seishido.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2007. The irrealis category in rGyalrong . Language & Linguistics 8(3):797-819.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 孫天心. 2006. 〈嘉戎語動詞的派生形態〉 ， 《民族語文》 2006.4: 3-14。

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 孫天心. 2006. 〈草登嘉戎語的關係句〉 [Relative clauses in Caodeng rGyalrong]. Language & Linguistics 7.4: 905-933.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 孫天心. 2004. 〈草登嘉戎語的狀貌詞〉 [The ideophones in Caodeng rGyalrong]， 《民族語文》 2004.5: 1-11。

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2004. Verb-stem variations in Showu rGyalrong . Studies on Sino-Tibetan Languages: Papers in Honor of Professor Hwang-Cherng Gong on His Seventieth Birthday. Language and Linguistics ,ed. by Ying-chin Lin et al., 269-296. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2003. Caodeng rGyalrong . Sino-Tibetan languages 490-502. London and New York: Routledge.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 孫天心. 2002. 〈草登嘉戎語與「認同等第」相關的語法現象〉 [Empathy Hierarchy in Caodeng rGyalrong Grammar]. Language & Linguistics 3.1: 79-99.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2000. Stem alternations in Puxi verb inflection . Language & Linguistics 1.2: 211-232.

• Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2000. Parallelisms in the verb morphology of Sidaba rGyalrong and Guanyinqiao in rGyalrongic . Language & Linguistics 1.1: 161-190.