Northern Qiang language


Northern Qiang is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Qiangic branch, more specifically falling under the Tibeto-Burman family. It is spoken by approximately 60,000 people East Tibet, and in north-central Sichuan Province, China.
Unlike its close relative Southern Qiang, Northern Qiang is not a tonal language.

Northern Qiang dialects

Northern Qiang is composed of several different dialects, many of which are easily mutually intelligible. Sun Hongkai in his book on Qiang in 1981 divides Northern Qiang into the following dialects: Luhua, Mawo, Zhimulin, Weigu, and Yadu. These dialects are located in Heishui County as well as the northern part of Mao County. The Luhua, Mawo, Zhimulin, and Weigu varieties of Northern Qiang are spoken by the Heishui Tibetans. The Mawo dialect is considered to be the prestige dialect by the Heishui Tibetans.
Names seen in the older literature for Northern Qiang dialects include Dzorgai, Kortsè, Krehchuh, and Thóchú/Thotcu/Thotśu. The last is a place name.
Sims characterizes Northern Qiang as the *nu- innovation group. Individual dialects are highlighted in italics.
;Northern Qiang
The phonemic inventory of Northern Qiang consists of 37 consonants, and eight basic vowel qualities. The syllable structure of Northern Qiang allows up to six sounds.

Consonants

Vowels

Northern Qiang distinguishes between unstressed and long vowels for all of its vowels except for /ə/. In addition, there exist 15 diphthongs and one triphthong in the language of Northern Qiang.
FrontMidBack
Highi, iː y, yːu, uː
Mide, eːəo, oː
Lowa, aːɑ, ɑː

There may not be a significant phonetic difference in sound between /i/ and /e/, and /u/ and /o/, respectively. In fact, they are often used in place of one another without changing the meaning.

[Diphthong]s and [Triphthong]s

Diphthongs: ia, iɑ, ie, ye, eu, əu, ei, əi, oi, uɑ, ua, uə, ue, ui, ya
Triphthong: uəi

R-coloring">R-colored vowel">R-coloring

As the Northern Qiang language becomes more endangered, the use of r-coloring is not being passed down to younger generations of the NortherniQang people. As a result, there is great variation in its use. R-coloring is not considered its own phoneme because it is a vowel feature and only used to produce vowel harmony, most commonly signifying a first person plural marking.
Example: miʴwu 'all the people'

Syllable Structure

The Northern Qiang Syllable Canon:
TemplateQiang WordTranslation
Vɑ'one'
VVɑu'one pile'
VCɑs'one day'
VCCəχʂ'tight'
CVpə'buy'
CVVkʰuə'dog'
CVVVkuɑi-tʰɑ'strange'
CVCpɑq'intererst'
CVCCbəxʂ'honey'
CVVCduɑp'thigh'
CCVxtʂe'louse'
CCVVʂkue'roast'
CCVVVʂkuəi'mt. goat'
CCVCʂpəl'kidney'
CCVCCʂpəχs'Chibusu'
CCVVCʂquɑp'quiet'
CCVVCCɕpiexɬ'scar'

Phonological Processes

Initial Weakening

When a compound or a directional prefix is added before an aspirated initial, the latter becomes the final of the preceding syllable in the new word. This typically causes it to lose its aspiration.
Example: tə- DIR + ba 'big' > təwa 'become big'

Vowel Harmony">Vowel harmony">Vowel Harmony

Vowel harmony exists in the Mawo dialect. Typically, vowel harmony is used to match a preceding syllable's vowel with the succeeding vowel or its height. In some cases, however, the vowel of a succeeding syllable will harmonize in the opposite way, matching with the preceding vowel. This process occurs across syllables in compounds or in prefix + root combinations. Vowel harmony can also occur for r-coloring on the first syllable if the second syllable of a compound or prefix + root combination already has r-coloring.
Example: wə 'bird' + ʂpu 'flock' > wuʂpu ' pigeon'
Example: Chinese zhàogù + Qiang pə 'to do' > tʂɑuku-pu 'take care of'
Example: me 'not' + weʴ 'reduce' > meʴ-weʴ 'unceasingly'
Example: The realization of the word "one" is influenced by the classifiers:
The vowel /ə/ can be embedded within a collection of consonants that are restricted by the syllable canon. The epenthetic vowel is used to combine sounds that would typically be impermissible.
Example: bəl-əs-je 'advantageous'

Free Variation">Free variation">Free Variation

For some words, changing or adding consonants produces no phonological difference in meaning. The most common consonant interchange is between /ʂ/ and /χ/.
Example: ʂqu ~ χqu 'mouth'
Example: kɑp ~ kɑpətʂ 'orphan'

Orthography

Letterlhmnngnyopphqrrsshsstuvvhvvwxxxyzzhzz
IPAmnoszu,

Nasalized vowels are indicated with trailing nn, rhotacized vowels are indicated with trailing r, long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel letter.

Morphology

Northern Qiang uses affixes in the form of prefixes and suffixes to describe or modify the meaning of nouns and verbs. Other morphological processes that are affixed include gender marking, marking of genitive case, compounding, and nominalization. Northern Qiang also uses non-affixational processes such as reduplication.

Noun Phrase

In Northern Qiang, any combination of the following order is allowed as long as it follows this flow. Some of the items found below, such as adjectives, may be used twice within the same noun phrase.

Structure of the Northern Qiang noun phrase

GEN phrase + Rel. clause + Noun + ADJ + DEM/DEF + /PL

Gender Marking

Gender marking only occurs in animals. Typically, /mi/ is the suffix for females, while /zdu/ is the suffix for males.
Example: wə-mi 'mare'
Example: puɳu-zdu 'male cat'

Pronouns

Pronouns of Northern Qiang can be represented from the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, and can refer to one, two, or more than two people.
SingularDualPlural
1qɑtɕi-zzitɕi-le
2ʔũʔi-zziʔi-le
3theː / quputhi-zzithem-le

Genitive Case">Genitive case">Genitive Case

The genitive marker /-tɕ/ is placed on the modifying noun. This modifying noun will precede the noun it modifies.
Example:

Verbal Morphology

Changing the meaning of verbs can be done by prefixes and suffixes, or by using reduplication.
Marking in QiangPurpose/Meaning
1intensifying adverb
2"various"direction/orientation, or 3rd person indirect directive
3/mə-/, or /tɕə-/simple negation, or prohibitive
4/tɕi/continuative aspect

Marking in QiangPurpose/Meaning
5/-ʐ/causative
6/-ɑː/prospective aspect
7/kə/, or /lə/' go', or ' come'
8/-jə/repetition
9/-ji/change of state
10/-l-/1st person indirect directive
11/-k/inferential evidential, mirative
12/-u/visual evidential
13/-ʂɑ/, /-sɑn/, /-ʂəʴ/, /-sɑi/, non-actor person1
14/-ɑ/, /-n/, /-əʴ/, /-i/, /-tɕi/actor person
15/-i/hearsay evidential

Reduplication

Repetition of the same root verb signifies a reciprocal action upon one actors, or an ongoing action.
Example: mɑ 'plaster ' > məmɑ 'be plastering'

Other Morphological Processes

Compounding">Compound (linguistics)">Compounding

In Northern Qiang, the modifying noun of the compound must precede the modified noun.
Example:

Nominalization

Nouns are created from adjectives or verbs using clitics /-s/, /-m/, or /-tɕ/, the indefinite markers /le/ or /te/, or the definite marker /ke/.
Example:

Syntax

The language of Northern Qiang has quite a predictable syntax without many variations. The typical basic word order is SOV. Northern Qiang borrows some Mandarin Chinese words and phrases while keeping its own sentence structure.

Clause Structure

Order

VC
A sentence in Northern Qiang may be as short as a verb complex, which may just be a predicate noun.
Deriving from the order stated above, Northern Qiang is a language with a Subject-Object-Verb sentence structure.
Example:

Code Mixing

Many loan words or loan phrases from Mandarin are used but the word order of these phrases is rearranged to fit the grammatical structure of Northern Qiang.
Example:
In this sentence, the words "tɕiutɕin" and "ʂə" are borrowed from Mandarin.

Status

As with many of the Qiangic languages, Northern Qiang is becoming increasingly threatened, with its language status evaluated at 6b. Because the education system largely uses Standard Chinese as a medium of instruction for the Qiang people, and as a result of the universal access to schooling and TV, most Qiang children are fluent or even monolingual in Chinese while an increasing percentage cannot speak Qiang. Much of the population marry people from other parts of China who only speak Mandarin.