Hlai languages

Hlai
Li
Native to	China
Region	Hainan
Ethnicity	Li people
Native speakers	(700,000 cited 1987–1999)[1]
Language family	Tai–Kadai Southern Hlai
Early forms	Proto-Hlai (reconstructed) Hlai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: lic – Hlai cuq – Cun
Glottolog	nucl1241[2]

The Hlai languages (Chinese: 黎语; pinyin: Lí yǔ) are a primary branch of the Tai–Kadai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China. They include Cun, whose speakers are ethnically distinct.^[3] A quarter of Hlai speakers are monolingual. None of the Hlai languages had a writing system until the 1950s, when the Latin script was adopted for Ha.

Classification

Norquest (2007) classifies the Hlai languages as follows.^[4] Individual languages are highlighted in bold. There are some 750,000 Hlai speakers.

• Proto-Hlai
  • Bouhin (Heitu 黑土) – 73,000
  • Greater Hlai
    • Ha Em 哈 (Zhongsha 中沙) – 193,000, the basis of the literary language
    • Central Hlai
      • East Central Hlai – 344,000
        • Lauhut (Baoding 保定) – 166,000
        • Qi 杞 aka Gei – 178,000
          • Tongzha (Tongshi 通什) – 125,000
          • Zandui (Qiandui 堑对) – 29,000
          • Baoting 保亭 – 24,000
      • North Central Hlai – 136,500
        • Northwest Central Hlai – 62,500
          • Cun (Ngan Fon, Gelong 仡隆) – 60,000
          • Nadou (Dongfang 东方) – 2,500
        • Northeast Central Hlai – 74,000
          • Meifu 美孚 (Moifau) – 30,000
            • Changjiang 昌江
            • Moyfaw (Xifang 西方)
          • Run (Zwn) aka Bendi – 44,000
            • Baisha 白沙 – 36,000
            • Yuanmen 元门 – 8,000

The Fuma 府玛 dialect is spoken in 1 village north of Changcheng 昌城, Hainan. It had by 800 speakers in 1994.^[5]

Jiamao 加茂 (52,000), although ethnically Hlai, is not a Hlai language. It is currently unclassified.

Reconstruction

See also

• Li people

Notes

1. Hlai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Cun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Nuclear Hlaic". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Ethnologue mistakenly lists Cun among the Kra languages.
4. Norquest, Peter K. (2007). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai (Ph.D. dissertation). Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona.
5. http://asiaharvest.org/wp-content/themes/asia/docs/people-groups/China/chinaPeoples/F/Fuma.pdf

References

• Ostapirat, Weera (2005). "The Cun Language, by Ouyang Jueya. Shanghai Far East Publishers. 1998" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 28 (1).
• Ouyang Jueya 欧阳觉亚 & Zheng Yiqing 郑贻青. 1983. Liyu diaocha yanjiu 黎语调查研究. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社.

External links

• Bible recordings in various Hlai languages
• ABVD: Proto-Hlai word list
• Hlai-language Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)