Sui language

Sui
Suī
Spoken in	China Vietnam
Region	Guizhou (93%), Guangxi, Yunnan
Native speakers	346,000  (1990)
Language family	Tai–Kadai Kam–Sui Sui
Language codes
ISO 639-3	swi

The Sui language (simplified Chinese: 水语; traditional Chinese: 水語; pinyin: shuǐ yǔ) is a Tai–Kadai language spoken by the Sui people of Guizhou province, China. According to Ethnologue, the total number of speakers is around 200,000 as of 1999. Sui is also unique for its rich inventory of consonants, with the Sandong (三洞) dialect having as many as 70 consonants.^{[citation needed]} The language also has its own script, known as "Shuishu" (水書) in Chinese, and is used for ritual purposes.

Some unique features of the Sui language include voiceless nasals (hm, hn), palatal stops, postvelar stops, prenasalized stops (mb, nd), and pre-glottalized stops and nasals (i.e. ʔb, ʔm).

Dialects

The Sui language is divided into three dialects with minor differences (Wei & Edmondson 2008).

• Sandong 三洞, spoken by 90% of Sui speakers.
  • Sandu Shui Autonomous County: Sāndòng 三洞, Shǔilóng 水龙, Zhōnghé 中和, Miáocǎo 苗草, Bàjiē 坝街, Jiǎdǎo 甲倒, Shíqí 石奇, Jiāróng 佳荣, Héngfēng 恒丰, Zhōuqín 周覃, Jiǔqiān 九仟, Tángzhōu 塘州, Yángméng 阳蒙
  • Libo County: Yáoqìng 瑶庆
  • Dushan County: Wēnquán 温泉 (Tiānxīng 天星)
  • Rongjiang County
  • Congjiang County
• Pandong 潘洞
  • Sandu Shui Autonomous County: Yáng'ān 阳安, Yángluò 羊洛, Línqiáo 林桥
  • Dushan County: Dǒngmiǎo 董渺
• Yang'an 阳安
  • Duyun City: Pāndòng 潘洞
  • Dushan County: Wēngtái 翁台

However, Castro (2011) proposes that the Sandong dialect be divided further into two Central and Southern dialects. Southern Sui speakers are also culturally distinguished by their celebration of the “Maox” festival instead of the “Dwac” festival, which is celebrated by all other Sui groups.

Phonology

Sui has seven vowels, /i e ə a aː o u/. Diphthongs are /ai̯ aːi̯ oi̯ ui̯ au̯ aːu̯ eu̯ iu̯/. There are six or seven tones, reduced to two in checked syllables. The tones of the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, Guizhou, listed by conventional tone numbers, are:

Sui tones

#	Sandu Sui county
	description	IPA
1	low rising	˩˧
2	low falling	˧˩
3	mid	˧
4	high falling	˥˧
5	high rising	˧˥
6	6a: high (6b: mid rising)	6a: ˥ (6b: ˨˦)
7	checked high (checked high rising)	˥C (long: ˧˥C)
8	checked falling	˦˨C

The alternate checked tone 7 is found on the long vowel /aːC/. Tone 8 is somewhat variable on a long vowel, appearing in different locations either higher or lower than the short allophone, but always falling, as in tones 2 and 4.

In some villages, tone 6 is two phonemes, /˨˦/ in native words and /˥/ in Chinese loanwords. In the village of Ngam, Libo county, tone 1 is low [˩], the others as above.

Sui consonants

		Labial	Denti- alveolar	Apical alveolar	Laminal postalveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
							plain	labialized
Plosives	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ				kʰ	kʷʰ	qʰ
	tenuis	p	t̪				k	kʷ	q	ʔ
	prenasalized voiced	ᵐb	ⁿd̪				(ɡ)	(?)	(ɢ)
	preglottalized voiced	ʔb		ʔd			(ʔɡ)
Affricates	aspirated		t̪sʰ		tʃʰ
	tenuis		t̪s		tʃ
Fricatives	voiceless	f ~ ɸ		s	ʃ		(x)			h
	voiced			z
Nasals	voiceless	m̥	n̪̥			ɲ̊	ŋ̊	ŋ̊ʷ
	voiced	m	n̪			ɲ	ŋ	ŋʷ
	glottalized	ʔm		ʔn			ʔɲ	ʔŋ
Approximants	voiced	ʋ ~ w		l		j	ɣ		ʁ
	glottalized					ʔj	ʔɣ	ʔw

Consonants in parentheses were reported by the 1956 dialectology study Shuiyu diaocha baogao, but not in Li Fang Kuei's 1942 research in Libo County. (Labio-velars were not listed separately, so it's not clear if they also existed.)

The laminal postalveolar affricates are not palatalized like the Mandarin postalveolars /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/. /w/ is classed as a labial because it can be followed by a glide /j/. The prenasalized stops have very short nasalization. The voiceless nasals are actually voiced at the end, as most voiceless nasals are around the world. The preglottalized stops are truly preglottalized, not ejective or creaky voiced. The gammas have been described as fricatives, but here have been placed in the approximant row because of the preglottalized phone and the frequent ambiguity between dorsal fricatives and approximants.

In several locations in the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, the preglottalized consonants and the voiceless sonorants do not exist, having merged with the other consonants.

Syllable structure is CjVC^T, where /j/ may follow one of the labial or coronal consonants, other than /m̥ ʔm/ (and /ʔw/) and the affricates. (/tsj, tsʰj, tsw, tsʰw/ occur in recent Chinese loans.) All syllables start with a consonant, unless initial [ʔ] is analyzed as phonetic detail of an initial vowel. The final C is one of /p t k m n ŋ/. Final plosives are both unphonated (have glottal closure) and are unreleased; the coronal is apical alveolar: [ʔ͡p̚, ʔ͡t̚, ʔ͡k̚]. They reduce the tonic possibilities to two, "tones" 7 or 8.

Script

Sui script

The Sui script (Sui: Lel Sai3, Simplified Chinese: 水书, Traditional Chinese: 水書, Pinyin: Shuǐshū) is a pictographic writing system for the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix). However, only shamans are known to be familiar with it, and it is not utilized for everyday use by the Sui. This system is used for geomancy and divination purposes. There are at least 500 different Sui characters, known as le1 sui3 in the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix). According to tradition, these characters were created by qong5 ljok8 to2 (陆译公). Some of these characters are pictoral representations, such as of a bird or a fish, and a few are schematic representations of a characteristic quality, such a snail represented by a drawing of an inward curving spiral. Many these characters appear to be borrowings from Chinese characters and are written backwards, apparently for increased supernatural power. Today, the Sui people use written Chinese for their daily activities.

The Sui script is in acute danger of extinction, although the Chinese government is currently attempting to preserve it. In 2006, Shuishu was placed on the Chinese intangible cultural heritage list.

References

• (Chinese) 張均如，《水語簡誌》，北京：民族出版社，1980。
• Stanford, James N. 2009. "Eating the food of our place": Sociolinguistic loyalties in multidialectal Sui villages. Language in Society 38(3):287-309.
• Stanford, James N. 2008. A sociotonetic analysis of Sui dialect contact. Language Variation and Change 20(3):409-50.
• Stanford, James N. 2008. Child dialect acquisition: New perspectives on parent/peer influence. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(5):567-96.
• Stanford, James N. 2007. Sui Adjective Reduplication as Poetic Morpho-phonology. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 16(2):87-111.
• Wei Xuecun and Jerold A. Edmondson. 2003. Sui (Shui)-Chinese-Thai-English Dictionary. Salaya, Thailand: Mahidol University.

External links

Language

• ABVD: Sui word list
• Wei Xuecun, Jerold A. Edmondson, Somsonge Burusphat (eds). 2003. Sui (Shui)-Chinese-Thai-English Dictionary. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University, 395 pp. ISBN 9749574540.
• Jerold Edmondson, John Esling, Jimmy Harris, and James Wei, "A phonetic study of the Sui consonants and tones" Mon–Khmer Studies 34:47–66
• Fang-Kuei Li, "The Distribution of Initials and Tones in the Sui Language", Language, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1948), pp. 160–167, available through JSTOR.
• Sui language at Ethnologue
• Sui language at UPSID

Script

• "Cracking the Chinese code", People's Daily Online, September 16, 2008
• "China to hold int'l symposium on rare ancient characters of ethnic Shui group", People's Daily Online, December 28, 2005