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Naxi is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by some 300,000 people mostly concentrated in the Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County (Lìjiāng Nàxīzú Zìzhìxiàn 丽江纳西族自治县) of the province of Yunnan, China. That the language is closely related to the Burmese-Yi languages is largely undisputed; however views vary on whether to include it within this group, or to make it a sibling to the group (constituting the Burmese-Yi-Naxi languages. No matter which view is taken, it is clearly a Tibeto-Burman language. (Bradley 1975, 1997: 37; Matisoff 2003: 5, 8; Thurgood 2003: 20; Ethnologue).
[edit] Naxi consonants
There are forty-eight consonants and there are nine vowels in the standard dialect of Naxi, that is the dialect spoken around Lijiang. The vowels are: i, e, a, ɑ, ü, ɨ, ə, o, u. There are four tones: (1) high level, (2) mid-level, (3) low level, (4) low rising. The syntactic structure is similar to other Tibeto-Burmese languages spoken in Yunnan.
[edit] References
- BRADLEY, David. 1975. “Nahsi and Proto-Burmese-Lolo.” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 2: 1.93-150.
- 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.
- FANG Guoyu 方国瑜 and HE Zhiwu 和志武. 1995. Nàxī Xiàngxíng Wénź Pǔ (A dictionary of Naxi pictographic characters) (纳西象形文字谱). Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe.
- FU Maoji 傅懋勣. 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.
- FU Maoji 傅懋勣. 1984. Nàxīyǔ Túhuà-wénź “Bái biānfú qǔ jīng j́” 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- LI Lincan 李霖灿, ZHANG Kun 张琨 and HE Cai 和才. 1953. Móxiē Xiàngxíng Wénź źdiǎn 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”.)
- MICHAILOVSKY, Boyd and Alexis MICHAUD. 2006. “Syllabic inventory of a Western Naxi dialect, and correspondence with Joseph F. Rock’s transcriptions.” Cahiers de linguistique - Asie Orientale 35.1.
- MICHAUD, Alexis. 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.
- 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.
- MICHAUD, A. (2006). Tonal reassociation and rising tonal contours in Naxi. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 29, 61-94. Available online.
- RAMSEY, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey ISBN 0-691-06694-9
- ROCK, Joseph. 1963-1972. A Na-Khi — English encyclopedic dictionary. Roma: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.
- MATISOFF, James A. 2003. Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: system and philosophy of Sino-Tibetan reconstruction. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
- 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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