Naxi language

Naxi
Naqxi geezheeq
Native toSouth China
RegionYunnan and Sichuan
EthnicityNakhi, Mosuo
Native speakers
(350,000 cited 2000 census – 2010)
Naxi script (Geba script or Dongba augmented with Geba), Latin script, Fraser script

Simplified Chinese (Rare)

Traditional Chinese (Rare)
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
nxq – Naxi
nru – Narua (Yongning Na)
Glottolognaxi1245  Naxi
naxi1246  additional bibliography
yong1270  Narua
Distribution of Naxi speakers
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Naxi (Naxi pronunciation: [nɑ˨˩ ɕi˧˧]), also known as Nakhi, Nasi, Lomi, Moso, or Mo-su, is a Sino-Tibetan language or group of languages spoken by approximately 310,000 Nakhi people, most of whom live in or around Yulong Naxi Autonomous County in the province of Yunnan in South China.

Classification

It is commonly proposed in Chinese scholarship that the Naic languages are Lolo-Burmese languages: for instance, Ziwo Lama (2012) classifies Naxi as part of a "Naxish" branch of Loloish.

However, as early as 1975, Sino-Tibetan linguist David Bradley pointed out that Naxi does not partake in the shared innovations that define Loloish. Thurgood and La Polla (2003) state that "The position of Naxi ... is still unclear despite much speculation" and leave it unclassified within Sino-Tibetan. Guillaume Jacques and Alexis Michaud (2011) classify Naxi within the Naish lower-level subgroup of Sino-Tibetan; in turn, Naish is part of Naic, itself part of a proposed "Na-Qiangic" branch.

Dialects

Naxi in the broad sense (including Na/Mosuo) was initially split by the linguists He Jiren and Jiang Zhuyi into two major clusters, Western Naxi and Eastern Naxi.

Western Naxi (纳西语西部方言) is fairly homogeneous. It is spoken mainly in Lijiang, Zhongdian (Shangri-La), Weixi and Yongsheng counties. Smaller populations of Western Naxi speakers are found in Heqing, Jianchuan, Lanping, Deqin, Gongshan, Ninglang (in Bapijiang village 坝皮匠村, Yongning Township 永宁乡) Muli (in Eya 俄亚), Yanbian (Daoju 道咀) and Tibet (in Mangkang 芒康). There over 240,000 speakers total. Western Naxi consists of the Dayan, Lijiangba and Baoshanzhou dialects (He and Jiang 1985: 752).

Eastern Naxi (纳西语东部方言), also known as 'Na', 'Mosuo' or 'Narua', consists of several mutually unintelligible varieties. It is spoken mainly in Ninglang, Yanyuan, Muli, and Yanbian counties. Eastern Naxi is also spoken by smaller populations in Yongsheng (in Zhangzidan 獐子旦), Weixi (in Qizong 其宗) and Lijiang (in Hailong 海龙 and Fengke 奉科) counties. There is a total of over 40,000 speakers (He and Jiang 1985: 754).

Usage

According to the 2000 Chinese census, 310,000 people speak Nakhi, and 100,000 of those are monolingual. Approximately 170,000 speak Chinese, Tibetan, Bai, or English as a second language. Most speakers live in Yunnan, but some are in Sichuan and Tibet, and it is possible that some live in Northern Myanmar.

Naxi manuscript, displaying both pictographic dongba and smaller syllabic geba.

The language is commonly spoken among Nakhi people in everyday life and the language is in little danger of dying out soon, although the written literacy is still a rare skill. The language can be written in the Geba syllabary, Latin script or Fraser alphabet, but they are rarely used in everyday life and few people are able to read Naxi. There is also a Naxi tradition of pictographic symbols called dongba; this may sometimes be glossed with geba for clarification, since a dongba text may be intelligible only to its author. The 1932 Naxi Gospel of Mark was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the Fraser alphabet.

The three most common dialects are Lijiang, Lapao, and Lutien. Lijiang, which is spoken in the western parts of the language's range, is the most uniform of the three and it is heavily influenced by Standard Chinese and Yunnanese dialects, proved by its huge volume of loan words from Chinese. The eastern dialects are much more native[clarification needed] and have many dialectal differences.

Phonology

The alphabet used here is the 1957 pinyin alphabet.[citation needed]

Consonants

IPA and Naxi Pinyin orthography
Labial Dental/
Alveolar		 Retroflex Alveolo-
Palatal		 Palatal Velar Glottal
plain sibilant
Nasal m ⟨m⟩ n ⟨n⟩ ɲ ⟨ni⟩ ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive/
Affricate		 voiceless p ⟨b⟩ t ⟨d⟩ ts ⟨z⟩ tʂ ⟨zh⟩ tɕ ⟨j⟩ c ⟨?⟩ k ⟨g⟩ ʔ
aspirated pʰ ⟨p⟩ tʰ ⟨t⟩ tsʰ ⟨c⟩ tʂʰ ⟨ch⟩ tɕʰ ⟨q⟩ cʰ ⟨?⟩ kʰ ⟨k⟩
voiced b ⟨bb⟩ d ⟨dd⟩ dz ⟨zz⟩ dʐ ⟨rh⟩ dʑ ⟨jj⟩ ɟ ⟨?⟩ ɡ ⟨gg⟩
prenasalized ᵐb ⟨nb⟩ ⁿd ⟨nd⟩ ⁿdz ⟨nz⟩ ⁿdʐ ⟨nr⟩ ⁿdʑ ⟨nj⟩ ᶮɟ ⟨?⟩ ᵑɡ ⟨mg⟩
Fricative voiceless f ⟨f⟩ s ⟨s⟩ ʂ ⟨sh⟩ ɕ ⟨x⟩ x ⟨h⟩
voiced v ⟨v⟩ z ⟨ss⟩ ʐ ⟨r⟩ ʑ ⟨y⟩ ɣ ⟨w⟩
Vibrant r ⟨?⟩
Approximant ɥ ⟨iu⟩ l ⟨l⟩ j ⟨i⟩ w ⟨u⟩

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i y ɯ u
Mid e ə o
Open a ɑ
Syllabic v̩

In the Lijiang dialect, there are nine vowels as well as syllabic /v̩/: /i, e, a, ɑ, y, ɯ, ə, o, u/, written i, ei, ai, a, iu, ee, e, o, u. There is also a final /əɹ/, written er.

Tones

There are four tones: high level, mid-level, low level (or falling), and, in a few words, high rising. The tones are written -l, -, -q, -f.