Jiamao language

Jiamao (Chinese: 加茂; pinyin: Jiāmào; also 台 Tái or 塞 Sāi) is a divergent Kra-Dai language or possible language isolate^[2] spoken in southern Hainan, China.^[3] Jiamao speakers' autonym is tʰai¹.^[4][5]

Jiamao
Sai 塞
Tai 台
Native to	China
Region	Hainan
Native speakers	(50,000 cited 1987)^[1]
Language family	Kra-Dai or language isolate Hlai-Jiamao (?) Jiamao
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jio
Glottolog	jiam1236

Classification

Jiamao is often classified one of the Hlai languages, which constitute a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family, but Norquest (2007, 2015) and others note that Jiamao has a non-Hlai substratum.

Graham Thurgood (1992) suggested that Jiamao might have an Austroasiatic substratum. Norquest (2007) identified various lexical items in Jiamao that do not reconstruct to Proto-Hlai and later firmly established it as a non-Hlai language.^[6] Hsiu (2018) notes that Jiamao also contains various words borrowed from an unknown, currently extinct Tibeto-Burman branch.^[7]

Demographics

In the 1980s, Jiamao was spoken by 50,000 people in central and south-central Hainan, mostly in Jiamao Township (加茂镇) in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County. It shares less than half of its lexicon with the Hlai languages.^[8]

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).^[9] In Lingshui County, Jiamao is known as Tái (台), and is also known as Sāi (塞) or Jiāwǒ (加我).^{[citation needed]}

There are four Jiamao dialects,^[10] 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.^{[citation needed]}

• Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County (保亭黎族苗族自治县)
  • Jiamao Township (加茂乡)
  • Liugong Township (六弓乡)
  • Shiling Town (什玲镇, in Jie 介村 and Shisheng 什胜村 villages)
• Lingshui Li Autonomous County (陵水黎族自治县)
  • Longguang Town (隆广镇)
  • Benhao Town (本号镇)
• Sanya (三亚市)
  • Haitangwan Town (海棠湾镇, northeastern part: in Longtoucai 龙头菜村, Xiepei 协配村, and Maohou 毛喉村 villages)

The Liaoergong (廖二弓) dialect is documented in Huang (2011).^[11]

Phonology

Tones

Jiamao has 8 distinct tone categories (Norquest 2015:311):

Tone category	High register tone	Low register tone
A (open)	/55/ (tone 1)	/11/ (tone 4)
X (glottalized)	/51/ (tone 5)	/31/ (tone 2)
DL (long closed)	/53/ (tone 9)	/31/ (tone 8)
DS (short closed)	/55/ (tone 7)	/22/ (tone 10)

Like Proto-Be,^[12] Jiamao does not distinguish between tone categories B and C, but rather only has an X category.

As noted by Thurgood (1992) and Norquest (2015), these do not correspond to Hlai tones, but rather initials in Proto-Hlai. High register tones are derived from unvoiced initials, and low register tones from voiced initials.

See also

• Jiamao vocabulary lists (Wiktionary)

References

1. Jiamao at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
2. Norquest (2015)
3. Miyake, Marc (September 20, 2011). "11.9.20.22:04: Is Jiamao Hlai?". www.amritas.com. from the original on August 4, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
4. See Proto-Tai language § Tones for an explanation of the tone codes.
5. Liu, Yuanchao 刘援朝 (2008). "Líyǔ Jiāmàohuà gàikuàng" 黎语加茂话概况. Mínzú yǔwén 民族語文 (in Chinese). 5.
6. Norquest (2015), p. 3
7. Hsiu, Andrew (December 2017). . MSEA Languages. Archived from the original on 2020-10-09.
8. Norquest (2007)
9. Lang, Alang 郎啊朗 (2006-09-27). ""Bǎotíng Jiāmào Lízú" shì zhēn dí Lízú ma?" “保亭加茂黎族”是真的黎族吗？. Tiānyá shèqū (in Chinese).
10. Xin, Shibiao 辛世彪 (2009-02-14). "Jiāmào Líyǔ de sìdà fāngyán" 加茂黎语的四大方言 [The Four Dialects of Jiamao]. Xīnlàng bókè (in Chinese). from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2017-12-30.
11. Yang, Yiqi 杨遗旗 (2014). "Líyǔ héxīn rénchēng dàicí yánjiū" 黎语核心人称代词研究 [A Study of Core Personal Pronouns in Li Language]. Hǎinán shīfàn dàxué xuébào (Shèhuì kēxué bǎn) 海南师范大学学报 (社会科学版) (in Chinese). 27 (7): 118–123. doi:10.16061/j.cnki.cn46-1076/c.2014.07.051.
12. Chen, Yen-ling (2018). Proto-Ong-Be (PDF) (Ph.D. dissertation). University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Works cited

• Thurgood, Graham (1992). "The Aberrancy of the Jiamao Dialect of Hlai: Speculation on its Origins and History". In Ratliff, Martha S.; Schiller, E. (eds.). Papers from the First Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 417–433.
• Norquest, Peter Kristian (2007). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai (PhD dissertation thesis). University of Arizona. hdl:10150/194203.
• Norquest, Peter K. (2015). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-30052-1.

Further reading

• Huang, Quan 黄权 (2011). Hàn-Lí zìdiǎn (Sài fāngyán) 汉黎字典 (赛方言) [Chinese-Hlai Dictionary (Sai Dialect)] (in Chinese). Yunnan minzu chubanshe. ISBN 978-75367-4971-9.
• Yang, Wenping 杨文平 (2016). Hàn-Lí zìdiǎn: Tái fāngyán (Língshuǐ) 汉黎字典: 台方言 (陵水) [Chinese-Hlai Dictionary: Tai Dialect (Lingshui)] (in Chinese). Nanhai chuban gongsi. ISBN 978-7-5442-8130-0.
• Zeng, Kewen 曾科文; Liang, Zhenzhen 梁珍珍 (2016). Lízú: Sài fāngyán 黎族: 赛方言 [The Li Ethnic Group: Sai Dialect] (in Chinese). Nanhai chuban gongsi. ISBN 978-7-5442-8364-9.