Hlai languages

The Hlai languages (Chinese: 黎语; pinyin: Líyǔ) are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquial name for the Leizhou branch of Min Chinese (Chinese: 黎话; pinyin: Líhuà). They include Cun, whose speakers are ethnically distinct.^[2] A quarter of Hlai speakers are monolingual. None of the Hlai languages had a writing system until the 1950s, when the Latin script was adopted for Ha.

Hlai
Li
Native to	China
Region	Hainan
Ethnicity	Hlai
Native speakers	(667,000 cited 1999)[1]
Language family	Kra–Dai Hlai–Jiamao? Hlai
Early form	Proto-Hlai (reconstructed)
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: lic – Hlai cuq – Cun
Glottolog	nucl1241
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Classification

Norquest (2007) classifies the Hlai languages as follows.^[3] There are some 750,000 Hlai speakers.

• Proto-Hlai
  • Bouhin (Hēitǔ 黑土) – 73,000
  • Greater Hlai
    • Ha Em 哈炎 (Zhōngshā 中沙) – 193,000
    • Central Hlai
      • East Central Hlai – 344,000
        • Lauhut (Bǎodìng 保定) – 166,000, the basis of the literary language
        • Qi 杞 (also known as Gei) – 178,000
          • Tongzha (Tōngshí 通什) – 125,000
          • Zandui (Qiànduì 堑对) – 29,000
          • Bǎotíng 保亭 – 24,000
      • North Central Hlai – 136,500
        • Northwest Central Hlai – 62,500
          • Cun 村语 (Ngan Fon, Gēlóng 仡隆) – 60,000
          • Nàdòu 那斗 (Dōngfāng 东方) – 2,500
        • Northeast Central Hlai – 74,000
          • Měifú 美孚 (Moifau) – 30,000
            • Chāngjiāng 昌江
            • Moyfaw (Xīfāng 西方)
          • Rùn 润 (Zwn; also known as Běndì 本地) – 44,000
            • Báishā 白沙 – 36,000
            • Yuánmén 元门 – 8,000

Nadou is spoken by approximately 4,000 people in the two villages of Nàdòu 那斗村 (in Xīnlóng Town 新龙镇) and Yuè 月村 (in Bāsuǒ Town 八所镇), in Dongfang, Hainan. Speakers refer to themselves as lai¹¹ and are officially classified by the Chinese government as ethnic Han Chinese.^[4]

Jiāmào 加茂 (52,000 speakers) is a divergent Kra-Dai language with a Hlai superstratum and a non-Hlai substratum.^[3]

Reconstruction

Main article: Proto-Hlai language

The Proto-Hlai language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hlai languages. Proto-Hlai reconstructions include those of Matisoff (1988), Thurgood (1991), Ostapirat (2004), and Norquest (2007).

Phonology

The following displays the phonological features of the modern Hlai dialects:^[5][6][7]

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Alveolo- palatal	Velar		Glottal
						plain	lab.	plain	lab.	pal.
Plosive	voiceless	p		t	ȶ	k	kʷ	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		kʰ	kʰʷ
	voiced					ɡ	ɡʷ
	implosive	ɓ		ɗ
Affricate	voiceless			t͡s
	aspirated			t͡sʰ
Fricative	voiceless		f	s		x		h	hʷ	hʲ
	voiced		v	z		ɣ
	lateral			ɬ
Nasal		m	(ɱ)	n	ȵ	ŋ	ŋʷ
Trill				r
Approximant				l				ˀj	ˀw

• [ɬ], [f] mainly occur word-initially among various dialects. [ɬ] may also be realized as [tɬ].
• [x], [ɣ] mainly occur among the Xifang dialects.
• [ɣ] can also occur as an allophone of /ɡ/.
• /t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /z/ are pronounced as alveolo-palatal sounds [t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], [ɕ], among other various dialects.
• /r/ can have allophones as [ɾ, dɾ].
• For a brief period of time Yuanmen distinguished /m/ and /ɱ/ after */ŋw/ became /ɱ/ which soon merged with /m/.^[8]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

• Among other Hlai dialects, /a, i, e, o/ can have allophones of [ɐ, ɪ, ɛ, ɔ].
• Vowel sounds /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are common among the Baisha and Jiamao dialects.
• /ə/ occurs among some dialects.

Writing system

Hlai was not written until 1957 when a Latin alphabet was created.

Hlai alphabet (1957):

Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA
A a	[a]	H h	[h]	Q q	[ts'] before [i]
B b	[p]	I i	[i]	R r	[r]
Ƃ ƃ	[ʔb]	J j	[ts]	S s	[ɬ]
C c	[ts']	K k	[k']	T t	[t']
D d	[t]	L l	[l]	U u	[u]
Ƌ ƌ	[ʔd]	M m	[m]	Ɯ ɯ	[ɯ]
Ə ə	[ɐ]	N n	[n]	V v	[v]
E e	[e]	Ŋ ŋ	[ŋ]	Z z	[z], [ʔj]
F f	[f]	O o	[o]	X x	Tone 2
G g	[k]	P p	[p']	З з	Tone 3 and 8

In 1984a new Hlai alphabet version, which included only standard Latin letters. In 2006 this alphabet was reformed. The Hlai alphabet in the 2006 version includes the following characters for initials (there are also 99 finals and 5 tones):

Initials

Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA
b	[p]	n	[n]	g	[k]
p	[ph]	l	[l]	k	[kh]
bl	[pl]	hl	[ɬ]	gh	[g]
bh	[b]	r	[r]	ng	[ŋ]
m	[m]	z	[ts]	h	[h]
w	[ʔw]	j	[ts]	gw	[kw]
f	[f]	c	[ɕ], [s]	kw	[khw]
v	[v]	q	[tsh]	ghw	[ghw]
d	[t]	dz	[z]	ngw	[ŋw]
t	[th]	ny	[ȵ]	hw	[hw]
dh	[d]	y	[ʔj]	hy	[hj]

History

Liang & Zhang (1996:18–21)^[9] conclude that the original homeland of the Hlai languages was the Leizhou Peninsula, and estimate that the Hlai had migrated across the Hainan Strait to Hainan Island about 4,000 years before present.^[9]

See also

• Proto-Hlai reconstructions (Wiktionary)
• Has Hlai grammar
• Hlai people
• Proto-Hlai language