LINGUIST List 17.288

Fri Jan 27 2006

Books: Lang Description, Tujia: Brassett, Brassett, Lu

Editor for this issue: Megan Zdrojkowski <meganlinguistlist.org>

Directory         1.    Ulrich Lueders, The Tujia Language: Brassett, Brassett, Lu
Message 1: The Tujia Language: Brassett, Brassett, Lu
Date: 25-Jan-2006
From: Ulrich Lueders <lincom.europat-online.de>
Subject: The Tujia Language: Brassett, Brassett, Lu


Title: The Tujia Language Series Title: Languages of the World/Materials 455 Published: 2006 Publisher: Lincom GmbH
                http://www.lincom.at

Author: Cecilia Brassett Author: Philip Brassett, Author: Meiyan Lu, Paperback: ISBN: 3895869953 Pages: 220 Price: Europe EURO 68.00
Abstract:

The Tujia people group is the sixth largest ethnic minority in China,numbering over 8 million. However, the Tujia language is now only spoken byabout 70,000 people, a figure that represents less than 1% of the totalTujia population. These speakers live in the northern half of the XiangxiTujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Hunan Province. Thelanguage was once spoken throughout the areas inhabited by the Tujia, whichcomprise a region of 100,000 square miles straddling the common borders ofHunan, Hubei, and Guizhou Provinces, and Chongqing Municipality. In view ofthe present rate of decrease in language use, Tujia is considered to be anendangered language.

Tujia is a member of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages, but itsspecific genetic affiliation remains unclear. Its phonology is extremelysimilar to the local Chinese dialect. Tujia syllables are of the CV type,with most vowels having nasalised variants. There are four tones and sandhiis common. The basic word order is SOV. There is an abundance of verbparticles, which indicate aspect, modality, directionality, negation, andrelevance. Adjectives do not exist as a distinct category and conjunctionsare rare.

This grammar of the northern dialect of Tujia is based on researchconducted in Xiangxi over an 18-month period from 2002 to 2003. It is thefirst in-depth analysis of the Tujia language that has been written in theEnglish language. The book offers a comprehensive and systematic overviewof the language and includes a lexicon of over 1,500 vocabulary items aswell as three traditional texts. This description of one of thelesser-known minority languages of China should also provide a usefulrecord of a language which is currently in decline.

Linguistic Field(s): Language Description
Subject Language(s): Tujia, Northern (tji)
Written In: English (eng )

See this book announcement on our website: http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=18029


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