Bolyu language

Bolyu
Pronunciation[pə˧ lju˩˧]
Native toChina
RegionLonglin County, Guangxi
EthnicityBolyu 1,800 (2007)
Native speakers
1,400 (2012)
Language codes
ISO 639-3ply
Glottologboly1239
ELPBolyu

The Bolyu language (autonym: [pə˧ lju˩˧]; Chinese: 巴琉语, 布流语; also known as Paliu, Palyu, or Lai 俫语, 徕语) is an Austroasiatic language of the Pakanic branch.

Classification

Bolyu is related to the Bugan language, forming the Pakanic branch along with it. In 1984, Bolyu was first studied by Liang Min of the Nationalities Research Institute in Beijing. Liang was the first to suggest a Mon–Khmer affiliation of Bolyu, which was later confirmed by Western linguists such as Paul K. Benedict, Paul Sidwell, and Jerold A. Edmondson. However, the place of the Pakanic branch within the Mon–Khmer family is uncertain. Sidwell (1995) suggests that the Pakanic branch may be an Eastern Mon–Khmer branch, thus making it most closely related to the Vietic branch. However, Gérard Diffloth classifies Pakanic as Northern Mon–Khmer, making it most closely related to the Palaungic branch. Paul Sidwell later classified Bolyu and Bugan together as forming a separate Pakanic branch within Austroasiatic, while Mang is excluded as yet another separate branch of Austroasiatic.

Distribution

Bolyu speakers are found in the following locations in southern China.

Li (1999) documents the Bolyu variety of Muzitun 亩子屯, Xinhe Village 新合村, Changfa Township 长发乡, Longlin County, Guangxi.

In the following villages, only elderly speakers of Bolyu remain.

1,400 Bolyu reside in Guangxi, and over 1,000 in Yunnan. There are also some Bolyu in Guangnan County, Yunnan.[citation needed]

Phonology

Bolyu is a monosyllabic tonal language like the surrounding Tai–Kadai, Hmong-Mien and even Vietic languages. Unlike Bugan, Bolyu does not have a tense–lax voice quality distinction.

Consonants

The following phonemes in Bolyu is inferred by Hsiu (2016) from field trips conducted by Li Xulian (1999)'s documentation of the Muzitun (亩子屯) dialect of Bolyu spoken in Xinhe Village (新合村), Changfa Township (长发乡), Longlin County, Guangxi and Hsiu (2012) in Changfa, Longlin. The Bolyu informants state that the language has some internal differences but mostly in tones, and these dialects are still mutually intelligible with each other.

Onsets

Bolyu onsets
Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)
Palatal		 Velar Uvular Glottal
central sibilant
plainpal.vel. plainpal. plainpal. plainpal.lab. plainpal.lab. plainpal.lab.
Nasal m mʲ n ɲ ŋ
Plosive/

Affricate

 voiceless p pʲ t tʲ t͡s t͡sʲ tɕ tɕʲ tɕʷ k kʲ kʷ q ʔ ʔʲ ʔʷ
aspirated pʰ pʰʲ tʰ tʰʲ t͡sʰ tɕʰ tɕʰʲ tɕʰʷ kʰ kʰʲ qʰ
prenasalized ᵐb ᵐbʲ ⁿd ⁿdʲ
Fricative voiceless f ɬ ɬʲ s sʲ ɕ ɕʲ ɕʷ h hʲ hʷ
voiced v vʲ vˠ ʑ ɣ ɣʲ
Approximant l lʲ j w

The Bolyu variety reported by Yan (2012) does not have /tɕʲ tɕʷ tɕʰʲ tɕʰʷ/ onset clusters, but instead it has /tsʰv sw kʰw hˠ/.

Codas

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive p t k ʔ
Nasal m n ŋ
Semivowel u̯ i̯

Vowels

The Bolyu vowel system contains eight vowels, in which some of them are contrastive in length. However, Bugan's phonemic nasalization and tense-lax distinction are absent in Bolyu.

Front Central Back
Close i iː ɯ u uː
Close-mid e eː ə o
Open-mid ɔ
Open a aː
Short Long
Vowel Example Vowel Example
a ɕaŋ⁵⁵ 'green' aː qaːt̚³¹ 'to run'
i ʑi¹¹ 'tree root' iː ɬiːt̚⁵³ 'to die'
e nde⁵³ 'water' eː laːp̚³¹ qeːŋ⁵³ 'chin'
u mbuŋ⁵⁵ 'skin' uː mbuːŋ⁵⁵ 'liver'
ɔ ʑɔŋ⁵⁵ 'foot'
ə tɕəŋ⁵⁵ 'ginger'
ɯ tɯ³³ 'to shoot'
o to⁵⁵ 'near'

Suprasegmentals (tones)

The 6-tone system in Bolyu is divided into nine categories. Two tones /31, 53/ occur in checked syllables (syllables ending with stop codas /-p̚, -t̚, -k̚/). Another six tones are found distributed in syllables ending with either sonorant codas or vowels.

ToneContourTone letterContext
low level11˩open syllables
low rising13˩˧open syllables
mid falling31˧˩checked (-p̚, -t̚, -k̚) & open syllables
mid level33˧open syllables
high falling53˥˧checked & open syllables
high level55˥open syllables

Morphosyntax

In Bolyu, there are certainly a number of prefixal elements that usually occur in some particular semantic class of words, although some of them do not seem to show the same semantic classification, at least not synchronically or transparently.

The monosyllabic elements carrying lexical meanings also appear in lexicalized verb-noun compounds, i.e. noun incorporation, but some of them cannot manifest in free isolation. Eg. vɯŋ¹³qɔ⁵³ 'to catch fish'; tse³¹lei⁵⁵ 'to beat cow' (cf. kau¹¹lei⁵⁵ 'cow horn', lɔk⁵³lei⁵⁵ 'cowherd'). Similar lexicalized incorporation patterns are also found in Bugan, Munda, Nicobarese, Khasic, Vietic, Monic, Aslian as well, suggesting these systems being remnants of Proto-Austroasiatic morphosyntax.

Notes

  1. 1 2 Bolyu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Sidwell (1995)
  3. ↑ Van Driem, George (2007). "Austroasiatic Phylogeny and the Austroasiatic Homeland in Light of Recent Population Genetic Studies" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 37: 1–14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  4. ↑ Sidwell, Paul. 2015. "Austroasiatic classification." In Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell, eds (2015). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
  5. ↑ Edmondson (1995)
  6. ↑ 俫语使用人口稳定增长原因探究
  7. ↑ Li (1999)
  8. 1 2 3 Guangxi Minority Languages Orthography Committee (2008). Guǎngxī mínzú yǔyán fāng yīn cíhuì 广西民族语言方音词汇 [Vocabularies of Guangxi Ethnic Languages] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
  9. ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 7.
  10. ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 8.
  11. ↑ Sidwell 2021, p. 508.
  12. ↑ Hsiu 2016, p. 17.
  13. ↑ Sidwell 1995.
  14. ↑ Anderson 2021, p. 36.
  15. ↑ Anderson 2014, p. 408.
  16. ↑ Anderson 2021, p. 37.
  17. ↑ Anderson 2021, pp. 37–38.

References