Bunu language
Hmongic language of China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bunu is a Hmongic language of southern China. Bunu speakers are classified ethnically as Yao by the People's Republic of China.
Varieties
Meng (2001) lists the following language varieties for Bunu.[1]
- Bunu (Chinese: 布努) (Pu Nu) - 359,474 speakers; representative dialect: Nongjing, Qibainong Township, Dahua County (大化七百弄乡弄京)
- Dongnu (Chinese: 东努) (Tung Nu, autonyms: no22, tuŋ11 no22) - 293,489 speakers in Funing County, Yunnan (in Longshao 龙绍, etc.) and northern Guangxi: Du'an (in Meizhu 梅珠, etc.), Dahua, Bama, Pingguo, Tiandong, Mashan, Debao, Long'an, Baise, Tianyang, Donglan, Hechi, Shanglin, Xincheng, Yishan, Laibin. In Funing County, they are known as Buzha (布咋) (their autonym) or the Mountain Yao (山瑶).
- Nunu (Chinese: 努努) (Nu Nu, autonyms: no22 no22, po33 no22) - 53,870 speakers in northwestern Guangxi: Lingyun (in Taohua 陶化, etc.), Fengshan, Donglan, Bama (in Xishan 西山, etc.), Tianlin, Leye
- Bunuo (Chinese: 布诺) (Pu No, autonym: pu33 no22) - 12,115 speakers in Du'an (in Sanzhiyang 三只羊; Longma (龙麻) of Xia'ao (下坳乡),[2] etc.), Guangxi
The Shaoyang Prefecture Gazetteer (1997:533) reports that the Miao of Xinning County, Hunan, speak a Bunu-branch language.
The Yunnan Province Gazetteer (1989) reports that a Bunu dialect known as pu55 ʐa11 (布咋) is spoken by about 7,000 people in Guichao (归朝乡) and Dongbo (洞波瑶族乡) (including in Dadongzhai 大洞寨, Saxiangdong Village 三湘洞村[3]) townships of Funing County, Yunnan.
Others
The following may be alternative names for speakers of Bunu languages.[4]
- Beidalao (北大老): 15,000 (1990) in Rong'an County and Rongshui County, Guangxi; probably Bunu, though divergent[5]
- Changpao (长袍): 5,000 (1999) in southern Guizhou; undetermined linguistic affiliation, but could possibly be Bunu.[6] Identified as Dongmeng by Bradley (2007).[7]
- Youmai (优迈): 2,000 (1999) in southwestern Guizhou; possibly a Bunu variety;[8] classified as Pingtang Miao by Li Yunbing (2000)[9]
Phonology
This section presents the phonology of the Dongnu variety of Qibainong (七百弄) Township, Dahua Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi as representative.[10]
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-) palatal |
Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | sib. | lat. | plain | lab. | pal. | |||||
| Nasal | voiceless | m̥ | m̥ʲ | n̥ | ɲ̟̊ | ŋ̊ | ŋ̊ʷ | |||||
| voiced | m | mʲ | n | ɲ̟ | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | ʈ | k | kʷ | kʲ | ||||
| aspirated | pʰ | pʲʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | kʲʰ | |||||
| prenasal | ᵐp | ᵐpʲ | ⁿt | ᶯʈ | ᵑk | ᵑkʷ | ᵑkʲ | |||||
| prenasal asp. | ᵐpʰ | ᵐpʲʰ | ⁿtʰ | ᶯʈʰ | ᵑkʰ | ᵑkʷʰ | ||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | tɬ | tɕ | |||||||||
| aspirated | tɬʰ | tɕʰ | ||||||||||
| prenasal | ⁿtθ | ⁿts | ⁿtɬ | ᶮtɕ | ||||||||
| prenasal asp. | ⁿtθʰ | ⁿtsʰ | ⁿtɬʰ | ᶮtɕʰ | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | ɬ | ʂ | ɕ | h | ||||
| aspirated | θʰ | sʰ | ||||||||||
| voiced | v | ʐ | ʑ | ɣ | ɦ | |||||||
| Approximant | l | |||||||||||
Sounds /tɬ, tɬʰ, ⁿtɬ, ⁿtɬʰ/ may be pronounced as [pl, plʰ, ᵐpl, ᵐplʰ] in some areas.[11]
Vowels
Diphthongs and Other Rimes
Qibainong Dongnu has seven diphthongs: /ei/, /ai/, /au/, /ou/, /ɔi/, /iu/, and /eu/.[12] Of these, /ɔi/, /iu/, and /eu/ only appear in recent loans from Chinese and Zhuang.[13] Examples of words with diphthongs appear in the table below; yellow background is for those diphthongs that appear only in recent borrowings.
| Diphthong | Example word |
|---|---|
| /ei/ | tei35 'team' |
| /ai/ | mpai41 'pig' |
| /au/ | sau41 'satiated' |
| /ou/ | |
| /ɔi/ | sɔi221 'crime' |
| /iu/ | ʐiu221 'cotton tree' |
| /eu/ |
Several vowels in Qibainong Dongnu permit a nasal consonant following, either /n/ or /ŋ/; most vowels permit one or the other, but not both.[12] Qibainong also permits the rime /iaŋ/, despite not having a diphthong /ia/; /iaŋ/ is used only in recent loans.[14] The possible combinations of vowel with final nasal, organized by the position of the vowel, appear in the table below.
Tone
Qibainong Dongnu has eight tones, with four having an alternate realization, giving a total of 12 tone values.[15]
| Tone number | Tone class | Tone value | Example word |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A1 | 33 | tɔ33 'deep' |
| 1′ | A1′ | 55 | ven55 'winnowing basket' |
| 2 | A2 | 13 | tɔ13 'come' |
| 2′ | A2′ | 35 | ven35 'garden' |
| 3 | B1 | 43 | tɔ43 'hit' |
| 3′ | B1′ | 54 | pe54 'bowl' |
| 4 | B2 | 232 | tɔ232 'read' |
| 4′ | B2′ | 454 | pe454 'handle' |
| 5 | C1 | 41 | tɔ41 'kill' |
| 6 | C2 | 221 | tɔ221 'die' |
| 7 | D1 | 32 | tɔ32 'affix (a seal)' |
| 8 | D2 | 21 | tɔ21 'bite' |
Alphabet
Bunu is written in a Latin script similar to other minority languages of China, such as Hmong-Mien languages, like Hmong or Tai-Kadai languages, like Kam or Sui. It uses Digraphs or combinations of letters instead of diacritics to represent additional sounds. The Bunu alphabet is:[16]
| Letter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | b | by | c | ch | d | dl | e | ee | f | g | gw | gy | h | hl | hm | hmy | hn | hng | hngw | hny | hs | i | j | k | kw | ky | l | m | mb | mby | mc | mch | md | mdl | mg |
| IPA | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | p | pʲ | sʰ | ʈʰ | t | tɬ | ə | e/ɛ | f | k | kʷ | kʲ | h/ɦ | ɬ | m̥ | m̥ʲ | n̥ | ŋ̊ | ŋ̊ʷ | ɲ̥ | θʰ | i | tɕ | kʰ | kʷʰ | kʲ | l | m | mp | mpʲ | ntsʰ | ɳʈʰ | nt | ntɬ | ŋk |
| Letter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mgw | mgy | mhs | mj | mk | mkw | mp | mpy | mq | ms | mt | mtl | mz | mzh | n | ng | ngw | ny | o | p | py | q | r | s | sh | t | tl | u | uo | v | w | x | y | z | zh | |
| IPA | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ŋkʷ | ŋkʲ | ntθʰ | ntɕ | ŋkʰ | ŋkʷʰ | mpʰ | mpʰʲ | ntɕʰ | ntθ | ntʰ | ntɬʰ | nts | ɳʈ | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | ɲ | ɔ | pʰ | pʰʲ | tɕʰ | ʐ | θ | ʂ | tʰ | tɬʰ | u | o | ɣ | v/ɯ | ɕ | ʑ | s | ʈ | |
Tones
Tones are marked with a consonant letter written at the end of a syllable.
| Tone | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |||||||
| Value | ||||||||||||||
| 33 | 13 | 43 | 232 | 41 | 221 | 32 | 21 | |||||||
| Orthography | ||||||||||||||
| b | x | d | l | t | s | k | f | |||||||
Grammar
Word Classes
According to Meng (2001), Bunu has 12 parts of speech, namely, nouns, pronouns, numerals, classifiers, adjectives, verbs, intensifiers (状词), adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, and interjections.[17]
Pronouns
Personal pronouns in Bunu exhibit a three-way distinction in both person and number, yielding nine contrasting terms:[18]
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Person | tɕuŋ43 | a33 | pe33 |
| Second Person | kau13 | me33 | me13 |
| Third Person | ni232 | mo33 | mo13 |
Bunu also has pronouns for 'oneself' and 'everyone', as well as a set of interrogative expressions:[19]
| Pronoun | Meaning |
|---|---|
| po33si54 | 'what' |
| ɦau221tau221 | 'how' |
| po43tau221 | 'who, which' |
| ɦa232tau221 | 'where' |
| pan33tau221 | 'when' |
Demonstratives
According to Meng (2001), demonstratives fall within the word class of pronouns. Five demonstratives are attested in Qibainong: nɔŋ43/54 'this (visible)', kau13/35 'that (medial, visible)', uŋ33/55 'that (distal, visible)', no43 'that (unknown)', and i43 'that (known, not visible)'.[20]
Numerals
Cardinal numerals include the following:[21]
| Numeral | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| len13 | 'zero' | |
| tɕau221 | 'one' | used only in combination with classifiers |
| i55 | 'one' | general use |
| au33 | 'two' | |
| pe33 | 'three' | |
| tɬa33 | 'four' | |
| pjo33 | 'five' | |
| ʈu41 | 'six' | |
| sɔŋ221 | 'seven' | |
| ʑo21 | 'eight' | |
| tɕu13 | 'nine' | |
| tɕu21 | 'ten' | |
| pai41 | 'hundred' | |
| sen33 | 'thousand' | |
| van221 | 'ten thousand' |