Luren language
| Lu | |
|---|---|
| Luren | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Guizhou |
| Ethnicity | Luren |
| Extinct | 1960s?[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | lure1234 |
Luren (卢人), Liuezi, Lujia or Lu is the extinct Sino-Tibetan language of the Luren who live in Guizhou, China.[5] The Luren language may have been extinct since the 1960s[1][6] when many Luren assimilated into a local Manchu community, leading to all Luren being misclassified as Manchu by the Chinese government.[5] Luren is most closely related to other Ta-Li languages.[2][1] The Luren language only has a few hundred attested words, toponyms and personal names and is understudied.[5]
The clasification of the Ta-Li languages within the Sino-Tibetan language family is highly disputed. For example Zhengzhang (2010) suggests that Caijia and Bai form a Macro-Bai branch,[7] while Sagart argues that Caijia and Waxiang represent an early split from Old Chinese.[8]
The Luren mostly live in northwest Guìzhōu 贵州 province, including Qiánxī 黔西, Jīnshā 金沙, or Dàfāng 大方 counties and the prefecture-level city Bìjié 毕节.[5] In Dafang County, the Luren are located in Huangni 黄泥乡, Dashui 大水乡, Gamu 嘎木乡, and Shachang 纱厂镇 townships (Dafang County Gazetteer 1996:157).
Proposed Split
[edit]Andreas Holzl argues that the six attested wordlists for the Luren languages could include two unrelated languages. The first he calls Luren A or Lujia which is a Ta-Li language as Luren is traditionally classified. The second he terms Luren B or Jinshaic which seems to be unrelated to the Kra-Dai, Sino-Tibetan, Hmong-Mien and Austroasiatic language families thus may be a language isolate. Luren B has only a few terms that are variously similar to Ta-Li, Sino-Tibetan and Kra-Dai languages but most words seemingly have no clear plausible relatives.[5][9]
Andrea Holzi also mentions the Luren of Dafang county, who have an oral tradition of a third language called Yíyu Daozhuang. It supposedly used their native grammar, but most of the words belonged to the previously hegemonic Nasu language.[5]
See also
[edit]- Macro-Bai comparative vocabulary list (Wiktionary)
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Guizhou Province Gazetteer: Ethnic Gazetteer [贵州省志. 民族志] (2002). Guiyang: Guizhou Ethnic Publishing House [貴州民族出版社].
- 1 2 3 Hölzl, Andreas. 2021. Longjia (China) - Language Contexts. Language Documentation and Description 20, 13-34.
- ↑ Guizhou provincial ethnic classification commission [贵州省民族识别工作队]. 1984. Report on ethnic classification issues of the Nanlong people (Nanjing-Longjia) [南龙人（南京-龙家）族别问题调查报告]. m.s.
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-07-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Longjia-Luren". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 2023-09-13. Retrieved 2023-09-06.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 HöLzl, Andreas; HöLzl, Yadi (2025-06-12). "The lost voices of Guizhou: Rediscovering the languages of the Luren". Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale: 1–39. doi:10.1163/19606028-bja10054. ISSN 0153-3320.
- ↑ "白族家园-讲义寨". 222.210.17.136. 2011-01-28. Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2013-11-27.
- ↑ Zhèngzhāng Shàngfāng [郑张尚芳]. 2010. Càijiāhuà Báiyǔ guānxì jí cígēn bǐjiào [蔡家话白语关系及词根比较]. In Pān Wǔyún and Shěn Zhōngwěi [潘悟云、沈钟伟] (eds.). Yánjūzhī Lè, The Joy of Research [研究之乐-庆祝王士元先生七十五寿辰学术论文集], II, 389–400. Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Publishing House.
- ↑ Sagart, Laurent. 2011. Classifying Chinese dialects/Sinitic languages on shared innovations. Talk given at Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie orientale, Norgent sur Marne.
- ↑ Hölzl, Andreas (2026). "Studies in East Asian Comparative Linguistics". University of Potsdam (cumulative habilitation thesis). Potsdam.
Further reading
[edit]- Guizhou provincial ethnic classification commission, linguistic division [贵州省民族识别工作队语言组]. 1982. The language of the Caijia [Caijia de yuyan 蔡家的语言]. m.s.
- Guizhou provincial ethnic classification commission [贵州省民族识别工作队]. 1984. Report on ethnic classification issues of the Nanlong people (Nanjing-Longjia) [南龙人（南京-龙家）族别问题调查报告]. m.s.
- Hsiu, Andrew. 2013. "New endangered Tibeto-Burman languages of southwestern China: Mondzish, Longjia, Pherbu, and others". Presentation given at ICSTLL 46, Dartmouth College.
- Zhao Weifeng [赵卫峰]. 2011. History of the Bai people of Guizhou [贵州白族史略]. Yinchuan, China: Ningxia People's Press [宁夏人民出版社]. ISBN 978-7-227-04678-3
- Hölzl, Andreas. 2021. The Lu(ren) language of Guizhou, China. Paper presented at 9th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 9), Santa Margherita-Portofino. (Online Meeting.)
