She language
| She | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ho Ne 山客話 San Ha Ue |
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| Pronunciation | [hɔ˨ne˥˧] [saŋ˦ xaʔ˥ uə˨˩] |
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| Spoken in | China | |||
| Region | Zengcheng, Boluo County, Huidong County and Haifeng County in Guangdong | |||
| Native speakers | 1,200 (2002) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | shx | |||
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The She language (Chinese: 畲語 shēyǔ), spoken by the She people,[1] is an endangered Hmong–Mien language. Most of the over 709,000 She people today speak Hakka Chinese. Those who retain their own language – approximately 1,200 individuals in Guangdong province – call themselves Ho Ne "mountain people" (Chinese: 活聶 huóniè).
Contents |
[edit] Dialects
Dialects of She as listed in You (2002) include:
- Fu'an 福安, Ningde, Zhejiang
- Fuding 福鼎, Ningde, Zhejiang
- Luoyuan 罗源, Fuzhou, Fujian
- Sanming 三明, Fujian
- Shunchang 顺昌, Nanping 南平, Fujian
- Hua'an, Zhangzhou 华安, southern Fujian
- Guixi 贵溪, Yingtan 鹰潭, Jiangxi
- Cangnan 苍南, Wenzhou 温州, Zhejiang
- Jingning 景宁, Lishui, Zhejiang
- Lishui 丽水, Zhejiang
- Longyou 龙游, Quzhou 衢州, Zhejiang
- Chaozhou 潮州, Guangdong
- Fengshun 丰顺, Meizhou 梅州, Guangdong
[edit] External relationships
She has been difficult to classify due to the heavy influence of Chinese on the language. Matisoff (2001), for example, left it unclassified within the Hmongic (Miao) languages, and it some have considered that much to be doubtful, leaving it unclassified (and potentially a third branch) of the Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) languages. However, Ratliff (2010), in her reconstruction of Proto-Hmong–Mien, determined She to be most closely related to Jiongnai, another divergent Hmongic language.[2]
[edit] Relationship with Hakka
The She have strongly influenced, and been strongly influenced by, the Hakka Chinese, both in language and culture.
[edit] Relationship with Min Dong
The She people of Eastern Fujian speak a Min Dong–influenced variety of She. The first person singular 我 is pronounced as [ŋuai]（Compare Fuzhou dialect nguāi）
The word 囝 (a diminutive particle) is pronounced as [kiaŋ], just as giāng in Fuzhou dialect.
They both share the same verbs.
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatalized | Plain | Palatzd | Plain | Palatzd | Labialized | Plain | Palatzd | |||
| Nasals | Voiced | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | ŋ | ŋʲ | ||||
| Voiceless | ŋ̊ | ||||||||||
| Plosives | Voiceless unaspirated | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | k | kʲ | kʷ | |||
| Voiceless aspirated | pʰ | pʰʲ | tʰ | tʰʲ | kʰ | kʰʲ | kʰʷ | ||||
| Affricates | Voiceless unaspirated | ts | tsʲ | ||||||||
| Voiceless aspirated | tsʰ | tsʰʲ | |||||||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | f | s | sʲ | h | hʲ | |||||
| Voiced | v | z | zʲ | ||||||||
[edit] Vowels
[edit] Vocabulary
[edit] Loanwords from Classical Chinese
Like Southern Chinese dialects, the She language has loanwords from Classical Chinese. 走 to run 行 to walk 烏 black 赤 red 寮 house 禾 rice (plant) 鑊 wok 奉 to give 其 he/she/it 着 to wear 睇 to look 戮 to kill 齧 to bite 使 to use
[edit] References
- ^ Travel-china.net
- ^ Ratliff, Martha. 2010. Hmong–Mien language history. Canberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics.
- Mao, Zongwu & Meng, Chaoji. 1986. She yu jian zhi (A Sketch of the She language). Beijing, China: Nationalities Press. (毛宗武, 蒙朝吉. 1986. 畬語簡志. 北京: 民族出版社)
- Ratliff, Martha. 1998. Ho Ne (She) is Hmongic: One final argument. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 21.2:97-109.
- You, Wenliang. 2002. She zu yu yan [The languages of the She people]. Fuzhou, China: Fujian People's Publishing House. (游文良. 2002. 畲族语言. 福州: 福建人民出版社)
