Mulam language

Mulam
Mulam
Native to	China
Region	Luocheng County, Hechi, northern Guangxi
Ethnicity	210,000 (2000 census)
Native speakers	86,000 (2005); < 10,000 monolinguals
Language family	Kra–Dai Kam–Sui Mulam; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mlm
Glottolog	mula1253
ELP	Mulam

The Mulam language Chinese: 仫佬; pinyin: Mùlǎo is a Kam–Sui language spoken mainly in Luocheng County, Hechi, northern Guangxi by the Mulao people. The greatest concentrations are in Dongmen and Siba communes. Their autonym is mu6 lam1. The Mulam also call themselves kjam1, which is probably cognate with lam1 and the Dong people's autonym "Kam" (Wang & Zheng 1980).

The Mulam language, like Dong, does not have voiced stop, but does have a phonemic distinction between unvoiced and voiced nasals and laterals. It has a system of eleven distinct vowels. It is a tonal language with ten tones, and 65% of its vocabulary is shared with the Zhuang and Dong languages.^{[citation needed]}

Since the Ming dynasty, Chinese characters have been utilized to read and write the Mulam language. The majority of the Mulam also speak Chinese as well as the Zhuang and Dong languages.^{[citation needed]}

The language of Mulam leads to a comparison between two languages as Graham Thurgood states, “For ‘headlouse,’ the KS forms are highly irregular: Kam, Mulam…” (Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 33, No 2). This relates to the way in which one language can be interpreted through another language, which displays a level of diversity as they may derive different meanings from the translations. Within Mulam Phonology, there is a display of the syllables for Mulam that seems very difficult to decipher without having much knowledge of how they communicate with the dialect. The Mulam ethnic group traces back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), differing from the current society they have now as the people of Mulam eventually split in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).^{[citation needed]}

The majority of the Mulam population are bilingual in the Mulam and the Zhuang language.^{[citation needed]}

Dialects

The following Mulam dialects are described by Wang & Zheng (1980) include (all of which are spoken in Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County):

Dongmen 东门镇 (in Dayin 大银, Dafu 大福村, Le'e 勒俄村 etc.)
Long'an 龙岸镇 (in Liangsi 良泗, etc.)
Huangjin 黄金镇 (in Zhongjian 中间寨, etc.)
Qiaotou 桥头镇 (in Dongnong 洞弄屯, etc.)
Siba 四把镇 (in Dawu 大梧, Miao'er 苗儿屯, Shuangzhai 双寨村, etc.)
Xiali 下里乡 (in Xiecun 谢村, etc.)

The following comparison of Mulam dialects is from Ni Dabai (2010:221-222).^[2]

English gloss	Chinese gloss	Qiaotou 桥头	Huangjin 黄金	Siba 四把	Dongmen 东门	Long'an 龙岸
die	死	tai1	tai1	pɣai1	tai1	tai1
medicine	药	ta2	ta2	kɣa2	-	tsa2
intestines	肠子	taːi3	taːi3	kɣaːi3	khɣaːi3	tsaːi3
cloud	云	ma3	ma3	kwa3	kwa3	fa3
bran	细糠	pwa6	pwa6	kwa6	kwa6	fa6
dog	狗	m̥a1	m̥a1	ŋwa1	ŋ̥wa1	m̥a1
hair, fur	毛发	pəm1	pəm1	pɣam1	pɣam1	kjam1

References

^ ^a ^b Mulam at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Ni Dabai [倪大白]. 2010. 侗台语概论 [An introduction to Kam-Tai languages]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House [民族出版社]. ISBN 978-7-105-10582-3

External links

Mulam (Dongmen) word list from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
Mulam (Siba) word list from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
The Endangered Languages Project
An audio sample of the Mulam language can be listened through Global Recordings Network.
Mulam Phonology
Mulam Ethnic Group

[e18-1] Mulam at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] Ni Dabai [倪大白]. 2010. 侗台语概论 [An introduction to Kam-Tai languages]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House [民族出版社]. ISBN 978-7-105-10582-3

[1]

[2]

Dialects

References

Further reading

External links