The Tai languages are believed to have been originally spoken in what is now southern China, with speakers of the Southwestern Tai languages (which include Thai, Lao and Shan) having emigrated in the face of Chinese expansion.
Noting that both the Zhuang and Thai peoples have the same exonym for the Vietnamese, kɛɛuA1,[4] from the Chinese commandery of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam, Jerold A. Edmondson posited that the split between Zhuang and the Southwestern Tai languages happened no earlier than the founding of Jiaozhi in 112 BC. He also argues that the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, when the Tai who remained in China began to take family names.[5]
Surveys
[edit]Sites surveyed in Zhang (1999), subgrouped according to Pittayaporn (2009): N, M, I, C, B, F, H, L, P
Zhāng Jūnrú's (张均如) Zhuàngyǔ Fāngyán Yánjiù (壮语方言研究 [A Study of Zhuang dialects]) is the most detailed study of Zhuang dialectology published to date. It reports survey work carried out in the 1950s, and includes a 1465-word list covering 36 varieties of Zhuang. For the list of the 36 Zhuang variants below from Zhang (1999), the name of the region (usually county) is given first, followed by the specific village. The phylogenetic position of each variant follows that of Pittayaporn (2009)[6] (see Tai languages#Pittayaporn (2009)).
The Zhuang language (or language group) has been divided by Chinese linguists into northern and southern "dialects" (fāngyán 方言 in Chinese), each of which has been divided into a number of vernacular varieties (known as tǔyǔ 土语 in Chinese) by Chinese linguists (Zhang & Wei 1997; Zhang 1999:29-30).[7] The Wuming dialect of Yongbei Zhuang, classified within the "Northern Zhuang dialect", is considered to be the "standard" or prestige dialect of Zhuang, developed by the government for certain official usages. Although Southern Zhuang varieties have aspirated stops, Northern Zhuang varieties lack them.[8] There are over 60 distinct tonal systems with 5–11 tones depending on the variety.
Zhang (1999) identified 13 Zhuang varieties.
Later research by the Summer Institute of Linguistics has indicated that some of these are themselves multiple languages that are not mutually intelligible without previous exposure on the part of speakers, resulting in 16 separate ISO 639-3 codes.[9][10]
In east-central Guangxi, there are isolated pockets of Northern Zhuang speakers in Zhongshan (14,200 Zhuang people), Pingle (2,100 Zhuang people), Zhaoping (4,300 Zhuang people), Mengshan (about 5,000 Zhuang people), and Hezhou (about 3,000 Zhuang people) counties. These include the following varieties named after administrative villages that are documented by Wei (2017).[13]
Lugang Village 芦岗村, Etang Town 鹅塘镇, Pinggui District 平桂区, He County 贺县
The Tày and Nùng language complex in Vietnam is also considered one of the varieties of Central Tai and shares a high mutual intelligibility with Wenshan Dai and other Southern Zhuang dialects in Guangxi. The Nùng An language has a mixture of Northern and Central Tai features.
The Zhuang languages have been written in the ancient sawndip script for over a thousand years, possibly preceded by the sawgoek script. Sawndip is based on Chinese characters, similar to Vietnamese chữ Nôm. Some sawndip logograms were directly borrowed from Han characters, whereas others were created locally from components of Chinese characters. It has been used for writing songs, and more recently in public communications encouraging people to follow official family planning policy.
There has also been the occasional use of a number of other scripts, including pictographic proto-writing.
In 1957, a hybrid script based on the Latin script and expanded with Cyrillic- and IPA-derived letters was introduced to write Standard Zhuang. In 1982, it was updated to use only Latin letters.[18] These are referred to as the 'old' and 'new' Zhuang, respectively. Bouyei is written in Latin script.
^Bradley, David (2007). "East and Southeast Asia". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.). Encyclopedia of the World's Engangered Languages. Routledge. pp. 349–422. ISBN978-1-135-79640-2. p. 370.
^Pittayaporn, Pittayawat (2009). The Phonology of Proto-Tai (Ph.D. thesis). Cornell University. hdl:1813/13855.
^ abcZhang Yuansheng and Wei Xingyun. 1997. "Regional variants and vernaculars in Zhuang." In Jerold A. Edmondson and David B. Solnit (eds.), Comparative Kadai: The Tai branch, 77–96. Publications in Linguistics, 124. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. ISBN978-1-55671-005-6.
^Luo, Yongxian (2008). "Zhuang". In Diller, Anthony; Edmondson, Jerold A.; Luo, Yongxian (eds.). The Tai-Kadai Languages. London: Routledge. ISBN978-0-7007-1457-5.
Zhuàng-Hàn cíhuì 壮汉词汇 (in Chinese). Nanning: Guangxi minzu chubanshe. 1984.
Edmondson, Jerold A.; Solnit, David B., eds. (1997). Comparative Kadai: The Tai Branch. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Wang, Mingfu 王明富; Johnson, Eric 江子杨 (2008). Zhuàngzú wénhuà yíchǎn jí zhuàngyǔ yánjiū / Zhuang Cultural and Linguistic Heritage 壮族文化遗产及壮语研究 (in Chinese and English). Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe / The Nationalities Publishing House of Yunnan. ISBN978-7-5367-4255-0.
Zhang, Junru 张均如; et al. (1999). Zhuàngyǔ fāngyán yánjiū 壮语方言研究 [A Study of Zhuang Dialects] (in Chinese). Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe.
Zhou, Minglang (2003). Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages, 1949–2002. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 251–258. ISBN3-11-017896-6.
Field Notes on the Pronominal System of Zhuang "A major case of language shift is occurring in which the use of Zhuang and other minority languages is restricted mainly to rural areas because Zhuang-speaking villages, like Jingxi, which develop into towns become more and more of Mandarin-speaking towns. Zhuang-speaking villages become non-Zhuang-speaking towns! And children of Zhuang-speaking parents in cities are likely not to speak Zhuang as a mother-tongue."
