Bai (language)
Encyclopedia
The Bai/Baip language is a language spoken in China
, primarily in Yunnan
province, by the Bai people, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three main dialect
s. It is a tonal
language with eight tones and a rather rich set of vowel
s. As is common among
Southeast Asian languages, the vowels of Bai have a phonemic opposition between tense vowels and lax vowels (creaky voice vs. normal voice). There exists a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation.
, G. van Driem, and S. Zhengzhang. The state of the debate on the genetic position of Bai is surveyed by Wang (2005), who points out that the proper investigation of the issue is hampered by the fact that Proto-Bai, the ancestor of the three modern dialects, has yet to be reconstructed. Indeed, the dialects themselves have not yet all been thoroughly described.
The question is complicated by the fact that Bai vocabulary
has been influenced over millennia by both neighboring Tibeto-Burman languages and several varieties of Chinese. The Sinologist Jerry Norman has stated: "While it would probably be going too far to consider Bái a Sinitic [Chinese] dialect, its close links to Sinitic cannot easily be dismissed."
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, primarily in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province, by the Bai people, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three main dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s. It is a tonal
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
language with eight tones and a rather rich set of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s. As is common among
Southeast Asian languages, the vowels of Bai have a phonemic opposition between tense vowels and lax vowels (creaky voice vs. normal voice). There exists a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation.
Classification
The position of this language (or language group) within the Sino-Tibetan family is undetermined. Traditionally, Bai has been considered to be a Tibeto-Burman language, but starting with R.A.D. Forrest in 1948, the rival argument has been made that it is instead an offshoot of Proto-Sinitic, coordinate with Old Chinese. Within the last generation, this argument has been taken up by Sergei StarostinSergei Starostin
Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin was a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language, the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian...
, G. van Driem, and S. Zhengzhang. The state of the debate on the genetic position of Bai is surveyed by Wang (2005), who points out that the proper investigation of the issue is hampered by the fact that Proto-Bai, the ancestor of the three modern dialects, has yet to be reconstructed. Indeed, the dialects themselves have not yet all been thoroughly described.
The question is complicated by the fact that Bai vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
has been influenced over millennia by both neighboring Tibeto-Burman languages and several varieties of Chinese. The Sinologist Jerry Norman has stated: "While it would probably be going too far to consider Bái a Sinitic [Chinese] dialect, its close links to Sinitic cannot easily be dismissed."
