Ersu and Xumi: Comparative and Cross-Varietal Documentation of Highly Endangered Languages of South-West China

Chirkova, Katia

(depositor, researcher)

(mise à disposition: 2018-01-09; archivage: 2018-02-15T14:53:50+01:00; dernière modification de la notice: 2021-06-04)

Plan de classement
Editeur(s):
Description(s):
This deposit is based on data collected by the research team of the project "Ersu and Xumi: Comparative and Cross-Varietal Documentation of Highly Endangered Languages of South-West China" (MDP0257, 2013-2017), funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) of SOAS, University of London. Background information: Ersu and Xumi (a.k.a. Shixing) are two endangered language clusters, spoken by language communities in the western part of Sichuan Province in the People’s Republic of China. The Ersu cluster comprises three mutually unintelligible languages: Ersu, Duoxu, and Lizu. The Xumi cluster comprises two diverse varieties with restricted mutual intelligibility (Upper Xumi and Lower Xumi). Speakers of the Ersu and Xumi languages are officially classified as part of the Tibetan ethnic group. The languages they speak, however, are classified as members of the southern branch of the putative Qiangic subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family. The Ersu and Xumi languages were first brought to the attention of linguists by the eminent Chinese linguist Sun Hongkai (1983), based on his fieldwork in the area in the early 1980s. (i) Ersu In Sun’s analysis (1982, 1983), the Ersu language comprises three dialects: (a) Eastern (Ersu proper) Spoken in Ganluo and Yuexi Counties in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and in Hanyuan and Shimian Counties in the Ya’an Municipality (b) Central (Duoxu) Spoken in Mianning County in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (c) Western (Lizu or Lüzu) Spoken in Muli and Mianning Counties in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and in Jiulong County in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region Despite his observation that Ersu, Duoxu, and Lizu are not mutually intelligible and share only 50% cognates in their basic vocabulary, Sun (1982: 241) analyzes the three as dialects of one language, i.e. Ersu. The three are currently classified as such in Ethnologue, where they share one code (ISO-639 ers). Of the three languages, Duoxu is the most critically endangered. It is is spoken by no more than a few members of the oldest generation, who do not use the language on a regular basis and who, for that reason, have a relatively limited knowledge of it. (ii) Xumi The Xumi language is spoken by an ethnic group locally known as Xumi. The group counts circa 1,800 people who reside along the banks of the Shuiluo river in Muli County in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. The term “Shixing”, under which the language is known in the linguistic literature (ISO-639 code sxg), was coined by Sun Hongkai based on the autonym of the group. However, this term is not used by the speakers themselves, for which reason we will refer to the language as “Xumi”.
Table(s) des matières:
Organization of the deposit: The deposit is organized into four collections: Ersu, Duoxu, Lizu, Xumi. Each collection comprises audio and video recordings of personal narratives, traditional stories, traditional songs, conversations, elicitations from Mandarin Chinese (using both written and non-written stimuli), and translations from Mandarin Chinese. The majority of recordings are accompanied by annotations in IPA and Mandarin Chinese, and for Ersu, also in the Ersu Romanization System.
Type(s):
Collection
corpus
Sujet(s):
Langues objet d'étude:
(code ISO-639: sxg );
(code ISO-639: ers )
Mots-clés:
;
;
;
Langue(s):
Xumi
(code ISO-639: ers )
(code ISO-639: sxg )
Lizu
Duoxu
Droits:
Librement accessible
Identifiant(s):
ark:/87895/1.17-845513
oai:crdo.vjf.cnrs.fr:cocoon-538c39d2-2a3c-37f2-80d9-43c8175c45ca
doi:10.34847/cocoon.538c39d2-2a3c-37f2-80d9-43c8175c45ca
doi:10.24397/PANGLOSS-0000867
[fr] Ancienne cote: crdo-COLLECTION_CHK
Pour citer la ressource:DOIhttps://doi.org/10.34847/cocoon.538c39d2-2a3c-37f2-80d9-43c8175c45ca