Habei language


Habei is a Southern Loloish language of Yunnan, China. Hsiu suggests that Habei belongs to the Bisoid branch.

Background

Habei is spoken in only one village, namely Habei village 哈备村, Zhemi Township 者米乡, Jinping Miao, Yao, and Dai Autonomous County, Yunnan. The Habei people refer to their village as Kuang An, meaning 'old village'.
The Habei still preserve traditional animist rituals.
The Habei language has been documented by Yan and He & Liu.

Names

s and exonyms for the Habei are as follows.
Habei has 32 onsets and 62 rimes. The consonant inventory is similar to that of standard Hani of Lüchun County, but also has /f/ and /v/, which Lüchun Hani does not have. Final consonants are -p, -t, -k, -m, -n, and -ŋ.
There are 6 tones. In songs, only 4 tones are recognizable.

Phrase examples

The following Habei phrase examples are from Yan. Adjectives follow head nouns.

Sentence examples

The following Habei sentence examples are from Yan. Habei has SOV word order.