Naxi (), 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.[Cited in ] Thurgood and La Polla (2003) state that "The position of Naxi ... is still unclear despite much speculation" and leave it unclassified within Sino-Tibetan.[ The Sino-Tibetan Languages, pp. 19–20] Guillaume Jacques and Alexis Michaud (2011)
Dialects
Naxi in the broad sense (including
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).
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Dayan 大研镇: Within Lijiang County, this dialect is spoken in Dayan Town 大研镇 and also in Baishajie 白沙街, Shuhejie 束河街, Axi 阿喜, Daoxin 道新, Daoguzhai, 道古宅 and Guangzhai 光宅 by just over 50,000 people.
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Lijiangba 丽江坝: spoken mostly within Lijiang County, and in the counties of Zhongdian, Weixi, Yongsheng, Deqin, Gongshan, etc. by 180,000 people.
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Baoshanzhou 宝山州: spoken in Baoshan 宝山 and Guoluo 果洛 in Lijiang County by just over 10,000 people.
Eastern Naxi (纳西语东部方言), also known as Na language, consists of several mutually unintelligible varieties. It is spoken mainly in Ninglang, Yanyuan, Muli, and Yanbian County counties. Eastern Naxi is also spoken by smaller populations in Yongsheng (in Zhangzidan 獐子旦), Weixi (in Qizong 其宗)
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Yongningba 永宁坝 (autonym: 纳): spoken in Ninglang (in Yongningba 永宁坝
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Beiquba 北渠坝 (autonym: 纳恒): spoken in Ninglang (in Beiquba 北渠坝) and Yongsheng (in Xiaoping 哨平 and Zhangzidan 獐子旦).
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Guabie 瓜别 (autonym: 纳汝): spoken in Yanbian County (in Guabie 瓜别) and Muli (in Bo'ao 博凹 and Lie'ao 列凹).
Usage
According to the 2000 Chinese census, 310,000 people speak Nakhi, and 100,000 of those are
monolingual. Approximately 170,000 speak
Chinese language,
Standard Tibetan,
Bai language, or
English language 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.
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. The 1932 Naxi Gospel of Mark was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the Fraser alphabet.
The three most common 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 and have many dialectal differences.
Phonology
The alphabet used here is the 1957
pinyin alphabet.
Consonants
| +IPA and Naxi Pinyin orthography |
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Vowels
In the Lijiang dialect, there are nine vowels as well as syllabic : , written i, ei, ai, a, iu, ee, e, o, u. There is also a final , 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.
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Chen Jia-Ying. 1994. "The Naxi language." In Stuart R. Milliken (ed.), SIL occasional papers on the minority languages of China 1, 25–35: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
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Lidz, Liberty A. 2010. A Descriptive Grammar of Yongning Na (Mosuo). Ph.D. dissertation. Austin: University of Texas, Austin.
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Bibliography
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Bradley, David. 1975. "Nahsi and Proto-Burmese–Lolo." Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 2: 1.93–150.
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Bradley, David. 1997. "Tibeto-Burman languages and classification." Papers in Southeast Asian linguistics No.14: Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas ed. by D. Bradley, 1–64. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
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Fang Guoyu 方国瑜 and He Zhiwu 和志武. 1995. Nàxī Xiàngxíng Wénzì Pǔ (A dictionary of Naxi pictographic characters) (纳西象形文字谱). Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe.
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Fu Maoji. 1944. A Study of the Moso Hieroglyphic Manuscript "The Genesis and History of Mankind", from Likiang (麗江麼些象形文’古事記’研究). Wuchang, Hubei: Wuchang University 武昌華中大學﹐中華民國三十七年.
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Fu Maoji. 1984. Nàxīyǔ Túhuà-wénzì "Bái biānfú qǔ jīng jì" yánjiū 纳西语图画文字 "白蝙蝠取经记" 研究 (A study of a Naxi pictographic manuscript, "White Bat's Search for Sacred Books"), Vol. 2. Tokyo: CAAAL.
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Guo Dalie 郭大烈 and He Zhiwu 和志武. 1999. Nàxīzú Shǐ 纳西族史 (A History of the Naxi people): Sichuan Minzu Chubanshe.
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He Jiren 和即仁 and Jiang Zhuyi 姜竹仪. 1985. Nàxīyǔ Jiǎnzh́ 纳西语简志 (A Presentation of the Naxi Language). Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe.
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He Zhiwu 和志武. 1987. Nàxīyǔ Jīchǔ Yǔfǎ 纳西语基础语法 (A Basic Grammar of Naxi). Kunming: Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe.
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Li Lincan 李霖灿, Zhang Kun 张琨, and He Cai 和才. 1953. Móxiē Xiàngxíng Wénzì zìdiǎn 麽些象形文字字典 (A dictionary of Naxi pictographs). Hong Kong: Shuowenshe. (New edition published by Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe in 2001 as "纳西象形标音文字字典".)
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Alexis Michaud. 2006. "Replicating in Naxi (Tibeto-Burman) an experiment designed for Yorùbá: An approach to 'prominence-sensitive prosody' vs. 'calculated prosody'", Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden. Available online.
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Michaud, Alexis. (2006). Three extreme cases of neutralisation: nasality, retroflexion and lip-rounding in Naxi. Cahiers de linguistique Asie Orientale 35, 23–55. Available online.
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Michaud, Alexis (2006). Tonal reassociation and rising tonal contours in Naxi. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 29, 61-94. Available online.
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Michaud, Alexis (2006) and He Xueguang. Reassociated tones and coalescent syllables in Naxi (Tibeto-Burman). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37(3): 237–255 (2007). Available online.
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Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
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Rock, Joseph. 1963–1972. A Na-Khi–English encyclopedic dictionary. Roma: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.
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James Matisoff 2003. Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: system and philosophy of Sino-Tibetan reconstruction . Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
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Thurgood, Graham. 2003. "A subgrouping of the Sino-Tibetan languages: The interaction between language contact, change, and inheritance." The Sino-Tibetan languages ed. by G. Thurgood and R. LaPolla, 3–21. London: Routledge.
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