A Brief Overview of the Tone Systems of the Zhuang and Dai Languages of Maguan County, Yunnan, China

Description

This paper provides a brief introduction to tone systems of two Zhuang languages and a Dai language of Maguan county, located in the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous prefecture of southeastern Yunnan Province, China. Around 55,000 of Yunnan's 1.1 million Zhuang nationality and 6,600 of Yunnan's 1.1 million Dai nationality people live in Maguan county which is located near the national border with Vietnam. Most of the Zhuang speak one of two languages, Nong Zhuang (also known as Yan-Guang southern Zhuang) and Dai Zhuang (also known as Wen-Mao southern Zhuang). Though these two languages are related linguistically, both belonging to the central Taic group of the Tai-Kadai (or Kam-Thai or Zhuang-Dong) family, they are quite different from phonologically and speakers of one cannot understand speakers of the other without extended exposure. The Dai nationality people speak either Nong Zhuang or a southwestern Taic language we will here refer to as "Tai Dam." The present paper describes and compares tone systems of these three languages based on first-hand research carried out in two Maguan county Zhuang villages under the auspices of the Wenshan prefecture Zhuang Studies Association, and based on published Tai Dam data.