Jiamao language


Jiamao is a Kra-Dai language or possible language isolate spoken in southern Hainan, China. Jiamao speakers' autonym is 1.

Classification

Jiamao was long thought to be one of the Hlai languages, which are a subgrouping of the Kra–Dai family, but its many divergent words eventually lead Graham Thurgood to suggest that it might have an Austroasiatic substratum. Norquest identified various lexical items in Jiamao that do not reconstruct to Proto-Hlai and later firmly established it as a non-Hlai language. Hsiu notes that Jiamao also contains various words borrowed from an unknown, currently extinct Tibeto-Burman branch.

Demographics

In the 1980s, Jiamao was spoken by 50,000 people in central and south-central Hainan, mostly in Jiamao Township in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County. It shares less than half of its lexicon with the Hlai languages.
In Lingshui Li Autonomous County, Jiamao is spoken in Benhao 本号, Nanping 南平, Wenluo 文罗, Zuguan 祖关, Longguang 隆广, and Tianzi 田仔. In Lingshui County, Jiamao is known as Tái 台, and is also known as Sāi 塞 or Jiāwǒ 加我. In Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County, it is spoken in Zhongping Town 中平镇 and Shengpo Farm 乘坡农场, in a total of 30 villages.
There are four Jiamao dialects, namely Jiamao 加茂, Liugong 六弓, Tianzi 田仔, and Qunying 群英.
Jiamao is spoken in the following villages and townships of southern Hainan.
The Liaoergong 廖二弓 dialect is documented in Huang.